SANTA CLARA, Calif. and SHANGHAI �� June 1, 2004 �� During its second quarterly Network Computer '04 launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) previewed its new file system technology in the Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System (OS). The fourth breakthrough Solaris technology introduced this year through the Software Express program, Solaris Dynamic File System represents a dramatic advance in the file system/volume manager model of computer data management by automating many common tasks that system administrators do today. Solaris is the world's most popular enterprise UNIX(R) operating system and runs virtually all of the major enterprise applications available today.

Dynamic File System is the industry's only self-healing, self-managing OS file system technology that provides 16 billion billion times more capacity than current file systems for virtually unlimited scalability. Dynamic File System is constantly reading and checking data to help ensure it is correct, and in the case it detects an error in a mirrored pool, the technology can automatically repair the corrupt data.

"Customers are embracing the raft of innovations we are bringing to the Solaris OS on industry-standard AMD Opteron, Intel Xeon and SPARC-based systems," said John Loiacono, executive vice president of software at Sun. "An estimated 80,000 users are currently previewing Solaris 10 through Software Express, allowing them to implement technologies unavailable anywhere else in production environments today. And, nearly 30 commercial development partners have begun preparing and testing their applications to support Solaris 10. "

The highly reliable, always-on Dynamic File System is one of more than 600 new features in the Solaris 10 OS. The release of Dynamic File System follows the introduction of N1(TM) Grid Containers, Predictive Self Healing and Dynamic Tracing through Software Express earlier this year �� groundbreaking new technologies bringing new levels of availability, system utilization and performance to the datacenter. (Go to http //www.sun.com/softwareexpress for details on each major Solaris 10 announcement.)

Unlike existing file systems that require a separate volume manager, the Solaris Dynamic File System is built on top of shared virtual storage pools, making creation and deletion of file systems far less complex. This helps reduce overall costs for customers by simplifying administration and allowing resources to be shared among file systems, which also helps to increase storage utilization. Dynamic File System automates many common tasks that system administrators do today. Creating and growing filesystems, for example, has been reduced from 28 separate tasks down to five. The time it takes to add mirrored file systems for three users and then add more disk space has been reduced from 40 minutes to 10 seconds. Solaris 10, with Dynamic File System, is the only known OS to provide end-to-end check summing for all data, helping to reduce the risk of data corruption and loss.

"As a long time user of the Solaris OS, the psychology department at Dartmouth College relies on Solaris to provide a secure and highly reliable environment for our desktop infrastructure and research applications running on x86 and UltraSPARC(TM) III-based platforms," said James Dobson, system architect, Dartmouth College. "We recently deployed the Solaris 10 OS beta because it provides expanded identity security, an important feature for an academic institution requiring strong authentication and the ability to limit access to our research and personal data. In addition, Dynamic Tracing allows the department to more easily diagnose system performance bottlenecks, often resulting in big performance gains, and to reduce the costs and time associated with determining root causes of intermittent problems."

Additional Highlights of the Solaris 10 OS Include:

• Up to 62 percent increase in performance on Solaris 10 over Solaris 9 for Java(TM) clients, 43 percent for Java application servers and 12 percent increase for Web servers on volume x86 systems, according to internal benchmark testing.
• Two times (2x) system performance improvement with chip multi-threading on UltraSPARC IV systems, according to customer tests.
• Increased system utilization using N1 Grid Containers, which allows systems administrators to divide a single system into more than 8000 virtual systems.
• Up to 30 times increase in application speed when using Dynamic Tracing to detect and remove application bottlenecks, according to customer tests.
• Problems corrected in milliseconds rather than hours with automatic diagnosis and recovery provided in Solaris 10's Predictive Self Healing, which helps keep systems and applications running even through many types of hardware and software failures.
• One Solaris on a choice of platforms: SPARC, AMD Opteron, Intel Xeon.
• Solaris 10 on x86: As industry momentum for Solaris 9 x86 increases rapidly -- with now more than 850,000 registered licenses, 200 x86 hardware systems supported and 600 supporting ISVs (representing a 200 percent increase in ISV products for Solaris 9 x86 since last year) -- Sun is priming the market for customers and partners to leverage Solaris 10 on low-cost, high-volume x86 systems, such as the Sun Fire(TM) V20z Opteron-based server.
• Solaris Enterprise Subscription: Up to 80 percent less than Microsoft Windows 2003 Server and up to 70 percent less than Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Solaris Enterprise Subscription offers aggressive pricing for packages of 100, 500 and 2000 1 to 4 CPU x86 servers. Includes license to use, updates, patches and a free upgrade to Solaris 10 for either 32-bit or 64-bit systems. See web site: http://sun.com/solaris/enterprisesubscription

"Over the years, Oracle has worked very closely with Sun to ensure that Oracle(R) products are fully optimized and certified to run on the Solaris platform. The upcoming Solaris 10 OS is no exception," said Prem Kumar, vice president of server technologies, Oracle Corporation. "The self-healing and self-managing functionality of Solaris 10 OS, in conjunction with Oracle products, is expected to help companies to reduce the complexity and costs associated with data management."

In the U.S., many other Solaris ISVs are already preparing to support their applications on Solaris 10, including Actuate Corporation, BEA Systems, Inc., BMC Software, Inc., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., Entrust, Inc., Informatica Corporation, Kabira Technologies, Inc., Macromedia, Inc., NetIQ Corp., RSA Security Inc., SunGard, and Synopsys, Inc. In Asia, additional ISVs that are planning to support Solaris 10 include AsiaInfo, EPRI,, GC Tech, GEI, GXLucent, IES Lab, Jataayu Software, Nari, NeuSoft, Opus Software Solutions, UFSoft, UshaComm and WizVision.

To help partners be successful, Sun has introduced the iForce(SM) Partner Program, Solaris Early Adoption offering to provide ISVs, IHVs and development partners the opportunity to adopt the newest features and technologies on the Solaris OS. Over the last three years, more than 6,000 partners have joined the program and the number of partners already actively testing their applications on the Solaris 10 OS is growing daily. More information about the Solaris Early Adoption Offering is available at: http://iforce.sun.com

Tune-in to the NC04Q2 web event at www.sun.com/nc26. Go to www.sun.com/sncasia2004 for up-to-the-minute information live from the SunNetwork Conference in Shanghai.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, Solaris, N1, iForce, SunNetwork and Java are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and in other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.