Sun Pioneers Shift to Free and Open Source Software

1 January 1970

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced two landmark moves in the battle to create the software platform of choice for the next-generation of the Internet. First, having seen tremendous momentum with the Solaris Operating System (OS) as free and open source software, Sun is making the Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 Management software, and Sun developer tools available at no cost for both development and deployment and further, is reaffirming its commitment to open source this software. Second, Sun is announcing that it is integrating all of this software along with the Solaris OS into the Solaris Enterprise System, the only comprehensive and open infrastructure software platform available today.

With this announcement, Sun is creating the no-cost and open alternative to the Windows environment. The Solaris Enterprise System has all of the benefits of an integrated offering while still enabling customers the flexibility to address their requirements by deploying the specific components they need into alternative operating systems. In addition to being combined under a single distribution with the Solaris Enterprise System, the Sun Java Enterprise System and the Sun developer tools can be used at no cost on other existing multi-platform environments including Windows, HP-UX and Linux.

Sun is also demonstrating its commitment to the developer community and to the success of Sun’s customers by working with its extensive partner ecosystem to continue to deliver a full-set of advanced and superior support services. The single, no cost distribution allows developers and customers a risk-free way to get unencumbered access to truly business-critical infrastructure software and then engage with Sun at a point in the life-cycle when they need access to development and deployment services. This significantly lowers their risk of adoption and enables a dramatic increase in the number of companies and individuals who can obtain a complete, integrated portfolio of enterprise-class software.

"With more than 3.4M Solaris 10 licenses and nearly one million Java Enterprise System subscribers, customers and developers around the world have asked us to take the next logical step - combining the world’s fastest growing open source operating system with the world’s most complete and ready to deploy infrastructure software platform," said Jonathan Schwartz, President and COO of Sun. "100% of our customers are deploying web infrastructures and asking for relief from onerous licenses and system integration activity. With our announced intent to open source the entirety of our software offerings, every single developer across the world now has access to the most sophisticated platform available for web 1.0, 2.0 and beyond."

Included at no cost in the new Solaris Enterprise System are:

* The award winning and open sourced Solaris 10 OS, with the recently announced PostgreSQL database;

* The entire Sun Java Enterprise System infrastructure software platform, including the Sun Java Identity Management Suite, Sun Java Integration Suite, Sun Java Communications Suite, Sun Java Application Platform Suite, Sun Java Availability Suite and Sun Java Web Infrastructure Suite;

* The N1 Management Software including the Sun N1 System Manager, the Sun N1 Service Provisioning System, the Sun N1 Grid Engine;

* All tools for C, C++ and Java development, including Sun Studio 11, Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8 and Sun Java Studio Creator;

* SunRay ultra-thin client software;

* Sun Secure Global Desktop Software.

Sun is offering a risk-free opportunity to explore, develop and deploy on Sun’s pre-tested and pre-integrated software platform. This is a complete platform which incorporates Sun’s existing and recently acquired technology, including its market-leading identity management products, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based integration and composite application products from Sun’s recent acquisition of SeeBeyond, and the remote secure display capabilities from Sun’s acquisition of Tarantella.

Sun is also rolling out a vast number of new, complementary services that span from early developer training and education to sophisticated remote and managed services to automate processes that are currently manually accomplished. Sun’s new Customer Network Services can provide administrators and developers with automated support for operations management, including patches, upgrades, updates and warranty, without the high-costs associated with professional services.

Sun has committed to open sourcing its entire software portfolio using industry-standard open source licensing models to allow customers to have easy and broad access to all of its source code. Many of the components of Sun’s integrated platform are already available as open source, including the Solaris OS, the Sun Java Application Server, the NetBeans software tools, and several key underlying services like single sign-on capabilities and the ability to connect multiple, independent applications in a standard way. This is a trend where Sun continues to be a pioneer.

For the free download, please visit: www.sun.com/solaris

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, Solaris, NetBeans, N1 and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.