Vendor Spotlight:

SUN SHOWCASES LEADING LOW-COST OFFERINGS AT LINUXWORLD

At LinuxWorld, Sun Microsystems, Inc., a leading contributor to the open source community, demonstrated its entire portfolio of Linux products, which provide industry-leading technology and capabilities for low-cost computing. Sun also released details of a week-long eBay auction of its Opteron-based servers and workstations as part of an aggressive pricing promotion campaign for its new x86 hardware products. In addition, Sun announced availability of its Sun Studio 9 integrated development environment (IDE) for the Linux operating system.

"The evolution of Linux has opened up tremendous new market opportunities for Sun, and extended our existing ones. This stands in stark contrast to others who are abandoning core platforms that their customers depend on," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer at Sun Microsystems. "We're working side by side with partners and customers to deliver the industry's most advanced technology solutions, paired with innovative new pricing structures to protect our customers' investments and align with their long-term business goals."

Sun offers one of the most comprehensive Linux product portfolios available. Sun systems offerings include high-performance server products such as the Sun Fire V20z, V40z servers and Sun W1100z and W2100z workstations, and software such as the Sun Java Enterprise System, the Java Desktop System, Java technology and developer tools, as well as Sun's services and enterprise expertise.

Examples of Sun low-cost computing offerings include:

• Sun Java Workstation W1100z and W2100z and the SunFire V20z and V40z servers offer Linux users industry-leading, high-performance 32- and 64-bit Opteron workstations and servers.
• Sun is unleashing an exciting eBay auction opportunity for its full-family of Opteron-based servers and workstations through which customers can set their own price for Sun systems. The bidding starts at $0.99 U.S. list and customers receive the full benefits of Sun's nearly unrivaled performance, flexibility and affordability in the x86 market. To access this week's special auction, please visit: http://www.ebay.com/sun.
• The Sun Fire V20z server (a two CPU system) is now offered with the AMD Opteron processor Model 244 with a starting price of $2,795. The Sun Fire V40z server (a four-CPU system) starts at $8,495.
• Sun Fire V20z Server Enterprise Essentials Promotion package includes a three-year subscription for the Solaris OS for the x86 platform (Solaris x86) and Sun Silver Spectrum services support for $492 per year with a choice of entry-level or premium hardware configurations.
• Sun Studio 9 software provides a comprehensive, yet simple, productive environment for developing applications using C and C++ for the Sun Java Desktop System 2003, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. Built on the award-winning NetBeans open source platform, Sun Studio 9 is currently available for download, priced at $2995 for a new license or $995 for an upgrade from a previous version.
• Sun's Java Desktop System 2, the leading Linux desktop solution, is now available at 50 percent off its original price at an annual $50 per desktop or $25 per employee until December 2, 2004.
• StarOffice 7 software is a commercial product, built on OpenOffice.org's open source code to provide the one of the best value, multi- platform, Microsoft compatible office suites. StarOffice software starts at $79.95 retail, which includes 60-day support. Pricing for the Enterprise Edition, which adds an enterprise configuration and management tool along with a software development kit ranges from $60 per user for 25 users to $25 per user for 10,000 users. StarOffice software is available for free to the academic community.
• Java Enterprise System is now available for Linux. Priced at $100 per employee per year, the Java Enterprise System allows customers to take advantage of Sun's simple, predictable and affordable approach for a complete middleware infrastructure solution.
• The Sun Ray Server Software 3.0 (SRSS) and Sun Ray technology will be extended to support Linux.
• Sun's breakthrough visual development environment, Sun Java Studio Creator, is the first Sun product to be released under a revolutionary new subscription model as part of the Sun(SM) Developer Network program. Users will receive Java Studio Creator at no extra charge when they purchase a Sun Developer Network Standard subscription, priced at $99 per developer per year.
• new members to the Sun Developer Network can now sign up for an exclusive, three-year Sun Java Studio Enterprise subscription at the discounted price of $1499 per year and receive a complete hardware, software and services package.

Sun will offer price sensitive customers a variety of new options based on the Solaris OS to reduce their x86 investments even further. These include:

• for a limited time, customers who purchase the Java Enterprise System for $100 per employee per year will receive a Sun Fire V20z AMD Opteron processor- based server, the Solaris OS and one year of SunSpectrum Silver(SM) support at no additional charge.
• The Solaris OS on x86 systems is aggressively priced starting at $99. Through a special promotion available through the end of this year, Solaris is offered for high volume one- to four-processor x86 server deployments in quantities of 100, 500 and 2000, including support, a free upgrade to Solaris 10 and full indemnification.

For more details, or to take advantage of these promotions, visit http://developers.sun.com/offers/SDNpromotions.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com/.