SCIENCE

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Underscoring the success of its robust alternative to the costly, complex, closed mainframe environment, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) today announced it has hit a major milestone with the 1000th mainframe rehosting customer installation at Europ Assistance Group. Utilizing Sun(TM) Mainframe Transaction Processing software (Sun MTP) and Sun(TM) Mainframe Batch Manager software (Sun MBM), Sun provides enterprises with deep cost savings, tight security and robust functionality, as well as investment protection when migrating legacy applications from a mainframe to highly reliable, available and secure Sun Fire(TM) and Sun Enterprise(TM) servers running the Solaris(TM) Operating System. Sun has been leading the "UNIX(R) mainframe" movement and maintains a leadership position in the high-end UNIX market. Already, Sun has helped customers such as Ced Camera (Chamber of Commerce, Milan, Italy), Ingegneria Sistemi Elaborazione Dati, S.p.A. (ISED), and Transamerica Life Canada cut IT costs by up to 50 percent and improve efficiencies by up to 25 percent. Sun continues to build on the success of its mainframe rehosting initiative with its 1000th mainframe rehosting software installation at Europ Assistance Group. Through the Sun MTP and the Sun MBM software, Sun's mainframe rehosting solutions have helped enable customers worldwide to run existing mainframe CICS, COBOL and batch applications -- commonly found in commercial banking and insurance, manufacturing, retail and government -- virtually unmodified but in a contemporary computing environment. Europ Assistance Group, created 40 years ago, helped invent the assistance service business. It provides services to members in three main areas -- automobile cover, medical cover as well as a home visit service. The Group now operates in 208 countries, and has 3,200 associates in 32 companies all over the world. Europ Assistance dealt with 6.5 million cases of assistance in the course of 2002. Its Italian subsidiary, Europ Assistance Italy, initiated an aggressive cost-reduction program, which led to the decommissioning of the mainframe system. "That step alone -- rehosting our mainframe applications on the Sun platform -- helped us achieve significant cost saving," said Mr. Agostino Fedeli, IT Manager of Europ Assistance Italy. "The cost reductions we've realized and the increased IT flexibility we've obtained also strengthen our competitive advantage in the market, and help us in providing new services for our customers." The Sun MTP and Sun MBM software provide enterprises with a host of advantages, offering mainframe-like features without the mainframe cost or complexity. With high levels of security, availability enabled by Sun(TM) Cluster 3.0 capabilities, enhanced interoperability between business-critical Java(TM) technology-based applications and legacy programs, Sun's Mainframe Rehosting Software delivers a proven, open alternative to the costly, closed and complex mainframe environment. "With 1,000 customer successes under our belt, it's easy to see that we not only understand, but can deliver what enterprises need today -- a low-risk, high-return alternative to the legacy mainframe environment -- through our mainframe rehosting initiative," said Steve Campbell, vice president, marketing, Enterprise Systems Products at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "To date, our mainframe rehosting projects have helped customers cut expenses in IT staffing and software licenses, and have allowed them to enjoy greater support for their business-critical applications. We plan on providing these same advantages to many more customers moving forward."