ORLANDO, Fla.-EDUCAUSE Booth #903 Oct. 19, 2005-- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced the Solaris University Challenge, offering students from around the world cash and prizes for developing their projects on the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), the most advanced operating system on the planet, and OpenSolaris, Sun's open source project for Solaris developers. Participants in the challenge are encouraged to leverage Sun's $500 million R&D investment in operating systems to create innovative projects in, with or on the Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris Operating Systems. The winner will receive cash and Sun technology for themselves and up to US$100,000 in technology for the associated university.

The Solaris 10 University Challenge is open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and IT staff at accredited universities in participating countries and is scheduled to begin in November 2005 and continue through June 2006. To participate, interested parties should go to http://www.sun.com/Solaris10universitychallenge to get contest details and more information.

One individual or one team of up to four individuals from the same university will be awarded the Grand Prize - US$5,000 prize purse per individual, plus a Sun Ultra 20 Workstation. The winner's university will receive a credit with a retail value of US$100,000 good toward the purchase of Sun Microsystems products including Sun Fire x64 servers and UltraSPARC(R) processor-based systems, to help the campus expand its technology capabilities.

"With OpenSolaris we've enabled students from around the world to share in the collective work of the most innovative engineers on the planet," said Tom Goguen, Vice President, Operating Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems. "The University Challenge encourages students to capitalize on free access to the advanced technology in Solaris 10, letting them take their projects to the next level. We are enthusiastic about this program and excited to see the submissions."

All submissions must be based on the Solaris 10 OS or OpenSolaris OS technologies. Eligible projects submitted in accordance with the official rules will be judged by a panel of Solaris 10 OS and OpenSolaris OS experts based on the following judging criteria: usability, quality, innovation, including uniqueness and originality, effective use of technology, and benefits to the Solaris 10 OS end-user or OpenSolaris OS community.

The source code for the Solaris 10 OS is available for free at opensolaris.org under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL). Any of the open source Solaris 10 OS technologies, including Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), Solaris Containers and Predictive Self-Healing, can be the basis for development and submission to the Solaris University Challenge.

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, OpenSolaris, Sun Fire, Sun Ultra, UltraSPARC and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.