Sun Microsystems Executive Briefing Center Showcases Real-World IT Solutions to Business Issues

Sun Microsystems Executive Briefing Center Showcases Real-World IT Solutions to Business Issues

iForce Centers Enable Customers to Try Before they Buy

On Monday, Sun Microsystems unveiled its new Executive Briefing Center in Menlo Park, Calif. This new Center, which now hosts one of Sun's iForce Solution Centers, was developed based on customer feedback -- by listening to the 'Voice of the Customer'.

The Executive Briefing Center and Sun iForce Solution Center are a powerful combination. They provide a truly interactive experience, allowing customers to “touch and feel” the solutions Sun can deliver together with its partners, and fuels innovation by providing a glimse into other possibilities.

This Center takes into consideration that customers don't usually come to Sun for technology alone. Customers come for proven solutions to business issues such as reducing costs, increasing revenue, improving productivity and communication, and driving higher return on assets. The Center allows customers to view solutions in real-world business environments addressing such industries as energy, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, government, education, communications, financial services and more.

The Center doesn't just offer something pretty to see. The Center features real software and working demonstrations, and provides physical space -- right in the heart of the briefing Center -- for Sun partners to host customer meetings and technology demonstrations.

The architectural design of the new Executive Briefing Center is refreshingly open, conceived to reflect Sun's new tagline: “We make the Net work.” It includes exposed network wiring as a tribute to Sun's networking history, as well as a large, glass-encased fully-functional data center to highlight Sun's backend products that power network business solutions. That datacenter runs many of the active customer proof-of-concepts in progress today.

Customers who visit the Executive Briefing Center receive Java Card technology-based badges, developed by Schlumberger, that can be inserted into kiosks and Sun Ray appliances, allowing them to “hot-desk” among the many systems located throughout the facility and to see IVT, flash and Real video presentations on Sun, its vision, history, industry, products.

Great Investment for Sun

The iForce Center within the Executive Briefing Center is an important part of Sun's iForce Initiative. The iForce Initiative brings together Sun's application, system and services partners to jointly architect, test and deploy proven solutions that help customers reduce the risks typically associated with implementation while speeding time to new service. Through these Centers, Sun provides a real-world environment for customers to build proof-of-concept and architectural blueprints of solutions to their business IT needs.

iForce Centers are a great investment for Sun. Sun currently has more than 75 iForce Centers worldwide, including three corporate-run iForce Solution Centers in Paris, Menlo Park and Tokyo; 50 partner-run Authorized iForce Solution Centers, and nine Competency Centers focused on application partners such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Seibel. More than 85 application partners worldwide have their solutions installed in Sun iForce Centers. Last year, through its own iForce Solution Centers alone, the company hosted more than 1450 customers, built more than 230 customer proof-of-concepts, and developed 75 new iForce solutions.

iForce solutions provide customizable building blocks that customers can leverage to improve their business. Solutions currently represented in the iForce Center include a digital hospital; the Common Access Card, which provides secure physical access complete with biometric capability; the eGasStation, complete with working gas pump, car wash, point of sale, car dashboard and data warehousing and geo mapping solutions; and a working prototype of a retail environment complete with real-time inventory, financial planning, forecasting, planning and distribution functions that takes a retail customer from the store, through the headquarters and distribution center.

Additional information about iForce Solutions can be found by visiting http://solutions.sun.com/iforce/ps/home.jsp.

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