SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Just three months after Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) introduced the Sun Fire(TM) V1280 system, hundreds of medium and large enterprise customers have been validating that superior system performance and enterprise functionality at WiNTel-like prices are key to building today's IT infrastructures. Passing volume-based cost-savings through to its customers, the company is lowering the price of this successful system, delivering enhanced price performance. Sun Fire V1280 server customers include OfficeMax; Sabre; Information Technology Services, a business unit within NCR; and the University of Wisconsin - Madison. To date, the Sun Fire V1280 has set three world records for benchmark performance. "The Sun Fire V1280 system strengthened our midrange server family and pushed Sun's leading enterprise system features and functionality into new, lower price points," said Steve Campbell, vice president, marketing, Enterprise Systems Products at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "This systems' success has enabled us to build economies of scale enabling us to pass cost-savings to customers, without compromising on our commitment to deliver maximum reliability, availability and performance." Sun remains focused on building and delivering quality network computing infrastructures and solutions to its customers. The Sun Fire V1280 servers continues that tradition, providing a secure, scalable and cost effective 64-bit platform for application server and mail server software, as well as customer relationship management (CRM) and database applications. The Sun Fire V1280 server is also ideal for WiNTel server consolidation, mainframe rehosting and high performance technical computing (HPTC). Delivering Maximum Value and Minimal Cost As a result of the broad market acceptance and high volume shipments of the Sun Fire V1280 server and Netra(TM) 1280 systems, Sun is passing its cost savings to customers with price cuts of as much as 25 percent on select configurations. In addition to aggressive acquisition pricing, the Sun Fire V1280 system and Netra 1280 server provide low Total Cost of Ownership throughout the life of the system through binary compatibility with the industry-leading Solaris(TM) Operating System, simple system management tools, rock-solid availability, and a virtually seamless upgrade path. Three-Time Record-Breaking Performance Solidifying its leadership position as a high performance, low cost midrange system, the Sun Fire(TM) V1280 server set two new world record benchmark results on SPECmail2001(1), with Sun ONE Messaging Server, and on Notesbench R6iNotes. The Sun Fire V1280 server now holds three world record benchmarks (the SPECjAppServer2001 was established at the Sun Fire V1280 product launch), and has demonstrated near-linear scalability on the SPEC CPU2000 benchmark. The SPECmail2001 record was established using methodologies of Sun's Communications Internet Data Center Reference Architecture, including Sun(TM) StorEdge arrays, which can be used to speed time-to-revenue in messaging implementations on the Sun Fire V1280 platform. Built-in Quality for Maximum Reliability, Availability, Scalability The Sun Fire V1280 is the industry's first rack-optimized, scalable 12-way system to deliver enterprise-class availability and scalability at entry-level prices. The Sun Fire V1280 server also offers the largest memory of virtually any 12-way system in its class and enterprise-class advanced availability features including proven Dynamic Reconfiguration technology and hot-swappable CPU/ memory boards. Sun's portfolio of services helps datacenters quickly and cost-effectively configure and deploy Sun Fire(TM) V1280 servers. These services can include customized architectural plans to help customers meet long term technology strategy, as well as training to help IT staff configure, monitor and manage those systems. Pricing and Availability for the Sun Fire V1280 System The Sun Fire V1280 system is available immediately through Sun and its iForce(SM) partners worldwide with a starting list price of $59,995 (USD) for four 900 MHz UltraSPARC(R) III Cu processors, 8 GB of memory, two integrated Gigabit Ethernet ports, 2N power supplies, DVD-ROM, and two 36 GB hard drives. Solaris OS license is included. The system also can be pre-configured and integrated at Sun prior to shipping through the Sun Customer Ready Systems (CRS) program.