SANTA CLARA, CA -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced a new set of upgrades and enhancements to the Solaris (TM) 8 Operating Environment (Solaris OE). Solaris 8 10/01 Operating Environment now includes an easy path to developing on the scalable and proven iPlanet(TM) Application Server; delivers improved Java (TM) application performance; and increases manageability of storage. The Solaris OE is a core component of the Sun (TM) Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) -- an open architecture and integratable product portfolio to deliver services on demand. Beginning today, the iPlanet (TM) Application Server, Enterprise Edition 6.0 is being offered for unlimited development and evaluation at no additional cost on the Solaris Operating Environment, SPARC (TM) Platform Edition. By combining the iPlanet Application Server with the Solaris 8 OE, Sun is providing developers with easier access to the highly integrated and interoperable Sun ONE platform, thereby reducing overall development costs and time to market for deploying services on demand. Complementing the enhancements for services on demand, the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) (TM) 1.3.1 software development kit (SDK) is now embedded in the Solaris 8 OE. The J2SE 1.3.1 SDK is specifically tuned to the latest UltraSPARC III CPU to deliver up to a 300 percent performance improvement, including twice as much private memory, more efficient application and memory clean up and automatic synchronization. "As Sun delivers on the promise of Web services with Sun ONE, we are ensuring that the Solaris 8 OE provides the most comprehensive platform for developing and deploying Web applications," said Andy Ingram, Sun's vice president of marketing for Solaris Software. "The application server is rapidly becoming the primary application development interface into the operating environment as J2EE(TM) becomes the preferred development platform for the enterprise. Increasing the level of integration between the iPlanet Application Server and Solaris OE creates more value for our customers." In an effort to further fine-tune manageability, the Solaris 8 OE now enables reduced costs and more flexibility in storage configuration with Disk Soft-Partitions. Disk Soft-Partitions allow administrators to more effectively manage large storage devices, define virtually any number of logical drives of any size, and manage large amounts of data storage without the need to purchase additional storage management software. Additional Information About Enhancements: -- J2SE 1.3.1 release now comes complete with international language support for Java applications. J2SE 1.3.1 release increases performance through more efficient overall code generation and execution. Existing Java applications can benefit from these performance enhancements immediately without any changes. -- Disk Soft-Partitions, a feature of DiskSuite 4.2.1 which ships with Solaris 8 OE, enable large storage devices to be split into up to 8,192 logical pieces of any size, whereas virtually all other UNIX (R) OS's are restricted to no more than eight without additional software. In addition, DiskSuite 4.2.1 has undergone a series of improvements to allow easier configuration and run-time management of large, complex systems. With the introduction of the DiskSuite Graphical User Interface (GUI) and an enhanced ability to manage scripts, it is easier to manage large amounts of data, thus increasing productivity and reducing the opportunity for error. In addition to iPlanet Application Server, other value-add products for web services infrastructure are available with this update of Solaris OE (SPARC Platform Edition), in the iPlanet Advantage CD bundle. The iPlanet Directory Server features an full production license that supports up to 200,000 user entries and delivers user-management infrastructure for enterprises managing high volumes of data. Other products are available for evaluation as well, such as the iPlanet Portal Server, the iPlanet Messaging Server and the iPlanet Web Server. Further information is available at http://developer.iplanet.com/appserver/solaris . The Solaris 8 OE now takes advantage of the newest hardware improvements and offerings from Sun, most importantly, the 900 Mhz UltraSPARC III(TM) support for Sun Fire(TM) 15K Server and other systems. With each quarterly update to the Solaris 8 OE, Sun continues to add to the hundreds of open source commands, libraries and utilities that provide the ability to run Linux programs unchanged without recompilations on Intel and with simple recompilation on SPARC. Sun is committed to open software and collaboration among Internet developers worldwide. System administrators can install the Solaris 8 OE update to improve performance and system capabilities with minimal disruption of productivity. A full list of product features and enhancements can be found at www.sun.com/solaris .