SYSTEMS

SANTA CLARA, CA -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced its new Floor-Tile-Ready systems program to address its customers' needs for rapid systems deployment and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). The new program is part of the SunTone(SM) Platforms set of offerings and is Sun's first customer-specified, factory-based system integration program. It is available worldwide through Sun and its authorized reseller and channel iForce(SM) Partners. Sun's single, binary-compatible Solaris(TM) and UltraSPARC(TM) platform provides the seamless foundation for the new program's factory-based integration, enabling Sun to deliver quicker deployment times and fully tested systems to help lower the total cost of ownership for customers. Sun launched the new program -- which follows the success of previous SunTone offerings, including the SunTone Cluster Platforms and SunTone Database Platforms -- in response to its customers' requirements to simplify the growing complexity of their business needs. Designed to streamline a customer's entire purchasing experience, from ordering to deployment, the Floor-Tile-Ready systems program allows Sun to deliver ready-to-deploy SunTone platforms to its customers, including racks, cabling, and customer-provided software. "Sun is obviously listening to its customers," said Ed Broderick, a principal analyst with the Robert Frances Group. "Our clients have made it clear that they want to reduce IT complexity and spend less time installing equipment so that they can spend more time managing their businesses. Sun has hit these issues dead on with its new Floor-Tile-Ready systems program. The new program combined with Sun Professional Services provide what these businesses are looking for -- solid business solutions, not just technology solutions." Early-access customers have documented considerable improvements, such as decreased deployment time, increased uptime, and -- with less on-site handling necessary -- an 80 percent reduction in early system issues. For example, system deployment time in some cases was narrowed from 10 days to just one, representing a 90 percent reduction in deployment time. Sun's Floor-Tile-Ready systems program combined with Sun's fully scalable, end-to-end architectural solution enables a range of standardization benefits for customers through a highly integratable single-platform offering. Sun's new Floor-Tile-Ready systems program is a flexible factory integration program for customer-specified system orders -- including software, hardware and storage -- that delivers on customer requirements for a simpler, safer and swifter deployment process. The program makes it simple, with pre-configured and pre-tested systems personalized to the customers environment; makes it safer, increasing availability, quality and reliability through factory integration services and testing; and makes it swifter, lowering the customer's TCO due to faster deployment and fewer resource requirements. "From service providers to financial institutions, Sun's new Floor-Tile-Ready systems program directly responds to our customers' requests for more flexible, less complex solutions that help further reduce the time and costs associated with system orders and deployment," said John Shoemaker, executive vice president of Computer Systems at Sun Microsystems. "Already, we've seen dramatic results with early access customers who are benefiting from Sun's pre-integrated and tested systems offerings. This is all about lowering costs, improving quality, meeting customer needs, and delivering world-class professional services." For further information visit www.sun.com/ftr