Give Schools A Choice

Give Schools A Choice

Sun Demonstrates its Vision for the Education Market at the Annual Worldwide Education and Research Conference (WWERC)

February 24, 2003 - As schools today are faced with increasingly restrictive budgets, the impact of technology on advancing the student learning environment should not be jeopardized. In an effort to provide a network computing model for schools at a price they can afford, Sun is committed to delivering innovative and open technology solutions, while freeing schools across the globe of restrictive costs and proprietary technologies.

Sun is a leading provider of open network computing solutions to K-12 education and to colleges and universities around the world. In fact, not only has Sun donated more than $6 billion worth of its StarOffice productivity suite to nearly 100 schools districts, universities and ministries of education in 14 countries, Sun technology is also powering research and high-performance computing systems, campus administration, digital libraries and student instruction systems of some of the world's leading academic institutions, including, Columbia University, University of Tokyo and New York University. This week at the WWERC in San Francisco, Sun builds on this history of innovation and goodwill in the education market with new discounts, new solutions and customers, new Sun Centers of Excellence, and new offerings in support and training.

According to Kim Jones, vice president, Global Education and Research for Sun, "It's long been our goal to provide the education market with the tools students need to thrive in the academic environment, while giving them the training and experience they need to be productive contributors in the global workforce as well. If schools' budgets continue to be cut as a result of unfortunate economic times and if some technology vendors continue to put a strangle hold on schools with their expensive licensing deals, it's the students who will suffer in the long run. Therefore, Sun remains committed to ensuring that technology is not a forgotten line item on the budget and to giving customers a choice via open standards-based technology solutions, no-cost licenses, major discounts, and training and support."

"In addition, we are highly focused on ensuring that meaningful research continues in our academic institutions and therefore we're working closely with our partners to enable higher education to conduct its work and research faster, better and more efficiently via innovative technology solutions that offer a lower total cost of ownership. Our announcements today at the WWERC demonstrate our efforts to give the education community a break, while giving them a choice."

Sun Offers $1+ Billion in Software, Support and Training to the Education Community

One of the most compelling offerings from Sun is the Sun EduSoft Portfolio, a comprehensive software, support and training offering that provides access to Sun's broad range of software technologies with no-cost licenses for education and research institutions. Valued at more than 1.2 billion, academic and research communities will benefit from reduced complexity and cost in deploying campus-wide Web services through this single, simplified master software license to the education market.

Additionally, institutions benefit from Sun's aggressive discounts for support services, as well as free Web-based training curriculum on major Sun software technologies for qualified institutions. The Sun EduSoft Portfolio is designed to help schools reduce their total cost of ownership by enabling them to evaluate the software in their own environment, helping them to cut down significantly on the cost barriers to their adoption of new technologies.

Sun Stays True to Its Roots in Academia

While Sun continues to donate a great amount of software and deliver the price breaks that will keep the latest advancements in technology in the hands of students around the world, Sun's education team is also busy fostering innovation in the campus research environment - a place from which Sun was hatched just over 20 years ago - via its work with partners and through several important education initiatives.

Sun believes that the more the technology industry supports the education community, the more society will get back in the long run - whether it's through more productive citizens or through a new scientific discovery. Each of the announcements delivered at the WWERC demonstrate Sun's vision for enabling academic institutions to benefit from the power of the network, regardless of their financial constraints.