(From left to right) Paul Li, Director of Marketing of Sun Microsystems Greater China, Gary Beck, Vice President of Enterprise Systems, Sun Microsystems and George Ng, Director of System Practice of Sun Greater China joined hands to unveil a new line-up

Sun Microsystems Inc (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Intel Corporation have announced a broad strategic alliance centred on Intel's endorsement of the Solaris Operating System (OS) and Sun's commitment to deliver a comprehensive family of enterprise and telecommunications servers and workstations based on Intel Xeon processors. The scope of the agreement spans Solaris, Java and NetBeans software and Intel Xeon microprocessors, as well as other Intel and Sun enterprise-class technologies. The alliance also includes joint engineering, design and marketing efforts.

As part of the alliance, Intel will be embracing Solaris as a mainstream OS and the enterprise class, mission critical UNIX OS for Intel Xeon processor-based servers. Intel is also endorsing Sun's Solaris, Java and NetBeans products and will actively support the OpenSolaris and open Java communities from which they continue to evolve.

Sun is committed to leading on performance and energy efficiency in its server product line. After a comprehensive evaluation of industry platform solutions, Sun has decided to complement its current offerings with platforms based on Intel Architecture optimised for Solaris beginning in the first half of 2007. Sun believes Intel's model of alternating new microarchitectures with new process technologies on an annual basis will offer outstanding building blocks for Sun's customers.

Sun plans to deliver a comprehensive family of Intel-based systems with uni-, dual- and multi-processor based servers and workstations supporting Solaris, Windows and Linux. Intel and Sun will also collaborate around greater than four processor scale-up systems optimised for the Solaris OS.

"We're excited about Intel's long term Xeon road map and the performance we're seeing with Solaris and Sun Java on the Xeon platforms," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and CEO, Sun Microsystems Inc. "Intel's endorsement for and agreement to OEM Solaris opens markets for both of us across the world. This is truly a landmark relationship for the industry."

"We're thrilled to be working with Sun to make Solaris on Intel Xeon processors a great solution for our enterprise customers worldwide," Paul Otellini, president and CEO of Intel said. "Bringing together the best technologies from both Sun and Intel will result in innovative products for years to come."

As part of this alliance, Intel has signed a Solaris OEM agreement enabling Intel to support and distribute the Solaris OS to its customers as market opportunities arise and consistently with Intel's product strategies. Intel and Sun will strongly encourage independent software vendors (ISVs) and system providers to expand their offerings for Solaris on Intel-based systems, and Intel will support Sun in its efforts to optimise applications for Solaris on Intel Xeon processor-based systems.

Intel and Sun also believe that the combination of Sun's open source Solaris and Java development environments and the Intel architecture provide a solid platform for ISVs to develop and deliver applications and web services to deliver outstanding differentiated value to enterprise customers. The Solaris platform is supported by more than 2000 ISVs on 800+ platforms that deliver the essential scaling, functionality and security capable of handling explosive network growth.

Both companies expect this alliance to expand the reach of Intel Xeon processor and Solaris OS based solutions. The adoption of Solaris will be driven by the Intel Xeon processor's significant market presence and, in turn, Solaris will give Intel a broader presence in the datacentre, virtualisation and high performance computing space. The two companies will also work together on the rapid adoption of key enterprise-class Intel and Sun technologies for Sun's systems based on Intel Xeon processors including Intel Virtualisation Technology, Intel IO Acceleration Technology (IOAT) and Intel Demand Based Switching.

Information about the Solaris OS can be found at hk.sun.com/practice/software/solaris. It can also be downloaded and used for free at hk.sun.com/practice/software/solaris/get.jsp. Information about the NetBeans integrated development environment, which can also be downloaded and used for free, can be found at www.netbeans.org. Information about Intel Xeon processors can be found at www.intel.com/products/server/processors/

About Intel
Intel, the world leader in silicon innovation develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom

About Sun Microsystems
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.

Issued on behalf of Sun Microsystems
by Euan Barty Associates
For further information please contact:
Audrey Lam (Sun): 2202 6192
(email: audrey.lam@sun.com)
Fergus O'Rorke (EBA): 2122 9761
(email: fergus@eba.com.hk)

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