MOVIES

SAN FRANCISCO, -- Today, Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:SUNW) executive vice president and Chief Technology Officer, Greg Papadopoulos, closed Sun's Worldwide Analyst Conference with a glimpse of innovations designed to shape network computing. Papadopoulos and David Yen, executive vice president, processor and network products, previewed Sun's Throughput Computing strategy and roadmap for driving dramatic improvements in systems and throughput. Over the next five years, Sun plans to deliver SPARC(R) microprocessors that will increase its UltraSPARC(R) microprocessors throughput by a factor of 30. Earlier in the morning, Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president, software at Sun, previewed Project Orion -- a radical new way to buy, deploy and manage software. "Technologists and CXOs are seeking cost-effective ways to improve the security, service level and efficient operations of their companies, while benefiting from the latest innovations in technology. Sun continues to address those issues as the computing paradigm grows more complex," said Papadopoulos. "This analyst conference gives us the chance to communicate our vision of how best to achieve those goals -- to describe the innovations and comprehensive systems strategy we're bringing to market -- for a community that clearly understands business and technology." Sun Previews Throughput Computing Sun previewed today an innovation in processor design -- Throughput Computing -- designed to significantly increase throughput while radically cutting the cost and complexity of network computing. These processors can maximize throughput -- the aggregate amount of work done -- for network computing workloads. Throughput processors incorporate the technology of chip multithreading (CMT). CMT integrates the power of symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) on a single processor, allowing a single processor to execute tens of threads simultaneously. This fundamentally changes the price/performance ratio of network computing. Increased throughput is designed to free IT budgets by allowing customers to run applications faster and reducing the system footprint required to run workloads -- all without changing the customers' existing software model. Sun is uniquely positioned to deliver Throughput Computing with its 15 years of experience in the development and delivery of SPARC, multi-generations of binary compatibility, leadership in SMP and 64-bit computing, and as the creator of the world's most powerful operating platform, Solaris(TM). Sun also outlined plans to deliver UltraSPARC processors based on the new chip design. Within two years, Sun plans to create processors that will increase today's blade throughput 15-fold. Beyond 2005, Sun intends to ship system processors that will increase throughput by a factor of 30. Project Orion Redefines Software Economics In order to meet the demands of delivering services to an increasing number of multiple users, Sun previewed a radical new approach to software design, development, and delivery -- code-named Project Orion -- that will help drive costs down and reduce the complexity of today's software infrastructure. Project Orion will provide customers with a new approach to the way they acquire, deploy and operate Sun's award-winning enterprise infrastructure software. With Project Orion, Sun begins the convergence of the enterprise infrastructure software products from Sun into a regular quarterly release of a single software system distributed on both the Solaris operating environment and Linux OS. Project Orion leverages Sun's proven competency in developing and releasing large-scale systems software, as demonstrated by its multi-platform Solaris operating system. The effort is designed to align all of the company's software products and pricing models, enabling customers to deploy a pre-integrated software system, or components of the system, with dramatically less expense and complexity. This alignment process could free organizations from having to staff similar release or distribution teams within their enterprises, driving cost out of IT operations, yielding expense savings, availability, uptime and predictability.