ORLANDO, FL.-EDUCAUSE Booth #903--October 19, 2005-- In a significant corporate move to bring the benefits of open source to education, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) today announced it will spin off the Global Education and Learning Community(GELC) as a nonprofit organization serving the needs of the education community. The move helps to improve education through the sharing of open content and best practices through online access. The GELC provides an online portal for teachers to share resources and knowledge that would otherwise go undiscovered, breaking new ground in free and open source computing and helping educators meet the needs of students by sharing best practices around the globe. As a nonprofit, the organization will have access to more resources, including participation from other major corporations and governmental entities as well as benefit from independent direction from a seasoned advisory board and an executive director.

"Technology is changing our daily lives, yet significant work remains in providing teachers, students and parents access to the educational resources they need," said Scott McNealy, CEO and Chairman at Sun Microsystems. "Sun started the GELC to drive knowledge sharing, and now we're giving it to the education community to continue the development of resources they need to improve the quality of education worldwide."

The GELC is a growing community for developers, teachers and Ministries of Education (MoE), who are collaborating on 324 projects. Leading project examples include recent contributions made by the Curriculum Corporation of Melbourne, Australia, and the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education. Coupled with curriculum contributed by the Curriculum Corporation, the GELC is initiating a pilot with the Shuttleworth Foundation to utilize these materials in South African math and science middle school classrooms. The GELC is focused on curriculum in the math and science area for middle school and high school students.

Sun CEO and Chairman Scott McNealy announced this news during Educause, the leading IT conference focused on higher education. Decreasing education budgets are met with higher demand for quality education today, and as leaders in open standards and technology sharing, Sun makes a powerful statement for bringing open source to t he classroom.

"We share Sun's vision for open, affordable and easily accessible content that evens the playing field," said Susan Mann, CEO, Curriculum Corporation. "We are actively contributing to the education community through the GELC and in coordination with the Shuttleworth Foundation to help improve learning environments for students around the world."

International Education Luminaries Join Community Effort

Not only will the GELC operate as a non-profit, but it added significant national and international representation to its Industry and Education Advisory Committee. Recently, Alan Bersin, California secretary of education, Ulf W. Lundin, director of the European SchoolNet, and Susan Mann, chief executive office of the Curriculum Corporation have each joined the Advisory Committee. The committee plays a key role in guiding direction and content for the community.

"The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE) is dedicated to an open knowledge society where quality education is free to everyone," said Gary W. Lopez, executive director of Monterey Institute for Technology and Education. "We are proud to be contributing our content to the GELC as it is doing something unique and powerful for education by driving a global community and the adoption of open source content.

Globally, the community has been working with partners, including the Peoples Republic of China's Ministry of Education, responsible for 871, 960 institutions and 21 million teaching professionals, and Korea's Education and Research Information Service (KERIS), home to 11,350 institutions 501,000 teaching professionals. By joining the GELC they help raise the bar on education with projects that will tap local resources and bring excellence to the world stage.

"GELC is a thriving community, where individuals are coming together with teachers to share content as well as receive training, resources and tools that can help student achievement, potentially more effectively and cost efficiently, so that boundaries created by economic or social means don't affect that sharing of knowledge," said Kim Jones, vice president of Global Education and Research at Sun Microsystems. "In the Participation Age, technology has made it possible for more and more people to connect with one another, and we encourage people to join the GELC to help the community thrive."

Sun encourages education organizations to participate in the GELC, at https://edu-gelc.dev.java.net/nonav/index.html

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

GELC has been incorporated as a California nonprofit public benefit corporation and has a pending application to the Internal Revenue Service for exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.