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SUN SEIZES INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP AT NETWORK COMPUTING LAUNCH

Sun Microsystems, Inc. delivered more than 24 new technology innovations at its quarterly Network Computer '04 (NC04Q3) launch. Sun expanded its Sun StorEdge systems family of products, previewed new features for its Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), unveiled low-cost Solaris systems powered by SPARC and AMD Opteron processors that set new land speed records and price/performance benchmarks, and introduced a revolutionary pay-for-use computing offer. These breakthrough innovations help customers lay the foundation for deploying new services over the network while slashing the cost and complexity of Network Computing infrastructures.

"Playing in the technology industry is very Darwinian-companies either innovate and move forward or die. During the past two decades, Sun has had some of the most innovative and creative thinkers on the planet who have been able to translate breakthrough thinking into exceptional products," said Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO at Sun Microsystems. "That's why we continue to spend a significant amount on research and development and why we are able to unveil so many new and upgraded products each quarter. Our heritage of innovation is what will keep us at the forefront of network computing and allow us to move ahead."

Major NC04Q3 announcements include:

• Innovative new storage systems that further position Sun as the single source for any data management need including:
  • The Sun StorEdge 6920 system, a revolutionary midrange storage system that sets a new standard in scalability and price/performance.
  • The Sun StorEdge 9990 system, a new high-end enterprise storage platform with breakthrough virtualization, replication and data movement capabilities.
  • The Sun StorEdge 5210 NAS device with heterogeneous OS platform support.
  • The new Sun StorEdge 6920 system is available with Utility Computing pricing, growing Sun's offering for pay-for-use storage solutions. The new, all inclusive, pay-for-use Sun(SM) Utility Computing for Midrange Sun StorEdge Systems offering starts at $0.80/Sun power unit (SPU) per month (U.S. list) and includes hardware, software, installation and support services. -- Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager software is integrated in the Solaris 10 OS so that additional storage resources can be automatically recognized, easing the deployment and scaling abilities of a storage environment.
• Over the next 90 days, new products, migration tools and support will be made available through Sun(SM) Software Express for Solaris. Adding to the technologies previously released including N1 Grid Containers, Predictive Self Healing, Dynamic Tracing (D Trace), ZFS and Project Janus (Linux/Solaris interoperability), Sun continues to build to the launch of Solaris 10 later this year:
  • Sun Studio 10 software, launching in the coming quarter, is designed to meet developers' demanding performance needs for Solaris on AMD Opteron and Intel Nocona processor-based systems running 64-bit applications. Sun also has created the Solaris 10 Developer Collection, a complete technology information, community and support program hosted by the Sun(SM) Developer Network to accelerate developer adoption of the Solaris 10 OS.
  • Integration of the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5 (J2SE 5) (code named Project Tiger), the most significant upgrade to the Java platform and programming language since its initial release nearly one decade ago. J2SE 5 will be generally available in the next 30 days and integrated into the Solaris 10 OS.
  • A new update to Sun Cluster software, Sun's high availability platform for improved predictability and resilience of business critical applications.
• New Solaris servers powered by UltraSPARC and Opteron processors that deliver industry-leading throughput and price/performance:
  • The Sun Fire V490 and Sun Fire V890 servers, based on UltraSPARC IV Chip Multithreading (CMT) technology, double the throughput of Sun's existing four- and eight-way systems at the same price point, and outperform equivalent systems from HP and IBM.
  • The recently introduced Sun Fire V40z 4-way server with the Solaris OS, which also runs Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux or Windows operating systems with Microsoft Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) certifications.
  • An early glimpse of tomorrow's networking technology from Sun's Nauticus Networks acquisition that will be integrated in upcoming systems to add additional security, networking performance and resource optimization capabilities.
• A revolutionary new pay-for-use computing offer from Sun, giving customers access to grids of computing power starting at $1/CPU per hour. Sun is taking its N1 Grid program to a new level by delivering a first-of- its-kind capability for customers to access grids of secure computing power as easily as buying utility services such as phone, power or water.

Tune to the NC04Q3 web experience at http://www.sun.com/nc to join a live web chat with Scott McNealy, Sun's chairman and CEO, listen to Sun executives describe new innovations and detailed product information and view all press releases.

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/.