New York - Dec. 6, 2005 - Sun Network Computing 2005 Q4 (NC05Q4) - Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced the availability of the Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers featuring patented CoolThreads technology, the industry's first eight core, 32-thread processor that packs the performance of a rack of servers onto a single chip. Based on the 9.6 GHz UltraSPARC(R) T1 processor, code named Niagara, the new server family has achieved eight world-record benchmarks and is setting a new industry standard for performance, energy and space efficiency with as little as half the power and space of competing systems.

The massively-threaded new servers allow customers to take advantage of the new CoolThreads technology without having to rewrite applications. The new systems are also the first servers designed from the ground up for Internet workloads and for running current and next-generation web, application and distributed database systems. Sun guarantees binary compatibility on the Solaris Operating System (OS) across all supported systems including the new Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers with CoolThreads technology. This ensures that software written for the Solaris 10 OS will run unmodified on all supported UltraSPARC systems. As the result of more than 10 years of experience with massively multi-threaded systems, Solaris 10 is the ideal OS for systems based on multi-core chips.

"Sun has once again leapfrogged the competition, establishing a five year lead over any other processor architecture in the world," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "We're delivering the world's most energy efficient computers and proving we can connect the planet without torching it or killing off economic opportunity."

In addition, Sun is actively working with the open source community to bring Linux and FreeBSD to the UltraSPARC T1 'Niagara' platform. By open sourcing the UltraSPARC T1 code, Sun is removing the barriers to adoption and opening the innovation of the UltraSPARC T1 platform to other applications, systems designers and operating systems. (See related announcement "Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project - Ignites New Open Source Community for Breakthrough UltraSPARC T1 Processor" for additional details.)

The new Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 systems start at $2,995 U.S. list, priced at or below "industry-standard" servers from IBM, HP or Dell. The Sun Fire T1000 is a 1U, 19-inch deep server designed for web and network infrastructures. The Sun Fire T2000 is a 2U, 24.3-inch deep server with extensive internal redundancy capabilities to offer maximum uptime for application services and web-tier consolidation projects. The Sun Fire T2000 ships six or eight processor cores while the Sun Fire T2000 ships with four, six or eight processor cores. Both ship with up to 32 threads - an industry first - each core is able to handle four "threads." The nucleus of these new systems is the UltraSPARC T1 processor. Its eight cores and massively-threaded design has been developed over the past three years and is significantly more advanced than competing Intel Xeon or IBM POWER processors.

The Right Solution for Today's Maxed-Out Datacenters

According to an IDC Insight, by 2009, more than 14 million servers will be installed in the U.S., an increase of more than 50 percent above current levels (Source, IDC, "Server Power Consumption Reemerges as a Critical Cost Factor in Datacenters," Doc #33937, August 2005). In addition, rising energy costs and datacenter sprawl have left thousands of customers with overloaded racks of underutilized, energy-hogging Intel Xeon servers.

"The continued build-out of the Internet has resulted in massive, inefficient server farms that run too hot and take up too much space," said David Yen, executive vice president, Scalable Systems Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Given the extreme performance increase and low power consumption of our new Sun Fire servers, any company that has a web, application or database server farm based on Intel Xeon servers needs to test the Sun Fire T1000 or T2000 servers immediately and see the unmatched price/performance and energy savings for themselves."

Customers Find Big Performance Boost Without Power Crunch Compromise

Over 100 customers have beta tested Sun's new systems over the past six months with staggering results in performance and efficiency. New CoolThreads technology could enable Air France, EDS, Fiducia and other customers to reduce the number of servers in their datacenters by as much as 75 percent.

"We are pleased with the cost, throughput performance and power economics of the Sun Fire T2000 servers," said Larry Lozon, vice president, Data Center Services, EDS. "Reducing power consumption in our datacenters is crucial. During our initial testing, we experienced a 50 percent decrease in server power consumption. We are seeing server power consumption as a critical cost factor in serving our client's datacenter needs. These 32 thread processor-based servers will be a major component within our Infrastructure Transformation service offering, providing an ideal landing zone for platform re-hosting and technology refresh of high-throughput workloads. This will lay the foundation for a tech refresh strategy focused on improving our client's application performance while reducing space and power consumption in EDS' data centers."

Sun Beats IBM, HP and Dell in Eight Industry Standard Benchmarks

The CoolThreads servers set eight world records for performance and price/performance, as demonstrated by a wide variety of industry standard application benchmarks. Sun also powered past Dell and HP on several industry standard benchmarks (see footnotes for more details):

• Sun Fire T2000 server using Sun's Web Server 6.1 SP5 achieved a world record SPECweb2005 and demonstrated a 1.7x performance advantage over the 4-way IBM eServer p5 550 with 4.3x higher performance per watt while occupying half the space. In addition, the Sun Fire T2000 delivers more than 3x the performance of the 2-way 3.8GHz Xeon-based IBM eServer xSeries x346 while delivering 4.1X higher performance per watt.(1)
• Sun Fire T2000 server using BEA Weblogic Server was 1.3X faster than the performance of a 4-way 1.6GHz Itanium2-based HP rx4600 server on the dual node SPECjAppServer2004. The Sun Fire T2000 achieved the overall performance world record on all two node results.(2)
• Sun Fire T2000 server using Sun Java System Application Server 8.2 Platform Edition (AS 8.2 PE) achieved world record price/performance on the application tier beating a 4-way 1.6GHz Itanium2-based HP rx4600 server on the dual node SPECjAppServer2004. Sun Java System AS 8.2PE is free for development and deployment.
• Sun Fire T2000 server, equipped with the UltraSPARC T1 processor achieved overall price/performance leadership on the Lotus R6iNotes Domino 7 benchmark. On IBM's own benchmark the Sun Fire T2000 beats the price/performance of the POWER5+ based IBM p5 p550Q by 27 percent. In addition, Sun has more than twice the price/performance advantage and a nine percent performance advantage over the POWER5 based IBM p5 570 server. (3)
• In a demonstration addressing the all-important and ubiquitous portal server workload, the Sun Fire T2000 server beats the performance of the 2GHz Xeon-based Dell 6650 server by running on the new Sun Java System Portal Server 7, with 6x more logins per second while providing 33 percent capacity headroom on Sun Fire T2000 Server versus zero percent on Dell. This new release of the Sun Java System Portal Server allows users to easily create interactive communities of users and services, building "community" portals populated with collaborative content including RSS feeds, Blogs and Wikis. Additional information on the Sun Java System Portal Server 7 will be communicated in the coming days.
• Sun Fire T1000 beats the performance of the Dell SC1425 by over 2x, while consuming half the power. In comparison to the IBM p520 2-way Power 5+ server, the Sun Fire T1000 server delivered 1.5x higher performance in 4x less space and at 3.7x superior performance per watt.
• Sun Fire T2000 server beats the performance of the 1.9GHz POWER5+ based IBM p5 550 4-way on the SPECjbb2005 and was more than 1.6x faster than the 2.8GHz dual-core IBM x346. (4) Surprisingly, HP and Fujitsu have not published results on this important new benchmark that demonstrates Java server performance.
• On the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark, the Sun Fire T2000 server (1-way, 1 processor, 8 cores, 32 threads) running mySAP ERP Release 2004 posted a score of 950 SAP SD Benchmark users. The Sun Fire T2000 outperformed additional two-tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark result posted by the 4-way Xeon-based HP ProLiant DL580 running SAP R/3 Enterprise Release 4.70, which achieved 937 SAP SD Benchmark users and demonstrated performance that was 8% faster than the 4-way Itanium2-based HP rx4640 running SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.70, which posted a score of 880 SAP SD Benchmark users.(7)

Try It Before You Buy It

Given the high level of interest in these new breakthrough systems, Sun is now offering the industry's largest "Try and Buy" program that enables customers and ISV partners to test out a new Sun Fire T1000 or T2000 server running the highly threaded UltraSPARC T1 processor free of charge for 60 days, with the option to purchase the system. For more information, please go to: www.sun.com/emrkt/trycoolthreads.

Industry's Largest Full Protection Plan

Today, Sun also announced its new Full Protection Plan, an integrated system and services program that offers customers lower total cost of ownership, reduced budgetary risk and increased system availability. When customers choose the Sun Fire T1000 or T2000 systems with a Full Protection Plan, they get more than just a server, they receive the world's most advanced operating system, Solaris 10, and a Full Protection Plan that goes far beyond basic break/fix warranty programs. Sun's Full Protection Plan is simple to purchase, includes the essential, recommended services and offers transparent three-year pricing that enables customers to predict and better manage their IT budgets over three years.

Energy Efficient CoolThreads Servers Replace Power Hungry Intel Xeon Servers

For customers looking to transition away from power-hungry Intel Xeon platforms, Sun is offering a Web-Tier Consolidation Program that allows for easy consolidation onto Sun's new CoolThreads Sun Fire servers. Sun uses the proven program to work with customers to design a consolidated architecture and drive hard savings in power, cooling and facilities costs. To get started, simply go to: sun.com/webtierconsolidation/.

The new Web-Tier Consolidation Program allows customers to:

• Reduce power and space requirements as much as 95 percent by consolidating web infrastructure to Sun Fire CoolThreads servers;
• Consolidate up to 10 Xeon servers with just one Sun Fire CoolThreads server;
• Deliver more secure and more agile web services;
• Run multiple web applications on one Sun system with Solaris 10 Containers, reducing the complexity of managing hundreds of thousands of applications, multiple servers and multiple operating systems;
• Take advantage of the most extensive set of built-in security features and the fastest networking stack on any operating system available today for delivering mission-critical web applications.

System Availability and Pricing

The new Sun Fire T2000 server is available immediately. The Sun Fire T1000 can be ordered now for delivery in March 2006. Sun Fire T1000 prices begin at $2,995 U.S. list when a System Ready Plan is purchased with the server. Sun Fire T2000 prices begin at $7,795 U.S. list when a System Ready Plan is purchased with the server.

For more information related to all of Sun's NC05Q4 announcements, as well as those above, go to Sun's online press kit at http://www.sun.com/presskits/networkcomputing05q4/.

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, Sun Fire, CoolThreads, T1 and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and 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.

SPEC, SPECweb, SPECjbb, SPECjAppServer reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.

(1) SPECWEB2005: Sun Fire T2000 (8 cores, 1 chip) 14,001 SPECweb2005. IBM p5 550 (4 cores, 2 chips) 7881 SPECweb2005. IBM eServer Xseries x346 (2 cores, 2 chips) 4348 SPECweb2005. SPEC, SPECweb reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Sun Fire T2000 results submitted to SPEC. Other results from www.spec.org as of December 6, 2005. IBM x346 Specifications from brochure, 09/05/05: http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/xseries/x346.html IBM x346 power rating estimated by calculating 70% of the power supply data reported in the product brochure IBM p550 specifications, 10/06/05, from http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/entry/550.html IBM 550 power ratings calculated by applying 70% of the power supply data published in "Facts and Features Report", 10/06/05, posted at http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/factsfeatures.html Sun Fire T2000 server power consumption taken from measurements made during the benchmark run.
(2) SPECjAppServer2004 with BEA: SPECjAppServer2004 Sun Fire T2000 (8 cores, 1 chip) 615.64 JOPS@Standard. SPECjAppServer2004 Sun Fire rx4600 (4 cores, 4 chip) 471.28 JOPS@Standard. SPEC, SPECjAppServer reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Sun Fire T2000 results submitted to SPEC. Other results from www.spec.org as of 12/06/2005. HP rx4640 server specifications 10/19/05 from http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/entry_level/rx4640/index.html HP rx4640 power rating of 1,303 watts taken from HP Enterprise Configurator 10/19/05 from http://h30099.www3.hp.com/configurator/catalog-hpintegrity.asp. System configured with Redundant Power, 4 x 1.6GHz Itanium processors, 8 x 2GB DIMMs, 0 x PCI cards and 2 x 73GB HDDs Sun Fire T2000 server power consumption taken from measurements made during the benchmark run.
(3) SPECjAppServer2004 with Sun Java System Application Server. SPECjAppServer2004 Sun Fire T2000 (8 cores, 1 chip) 436.71 JOPS@Standard. SPECjAppServer2004 HP rx4640 (4 cores, 4 chip) 471.28 JOPS@Standard. SPEC, SPECjAppServer reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Sun Fire T2000 results submitted to SPEC. Other results from www.spec.org as of 12/06/2005. Total Sun configuration cost = $132,858.95, application tier cost = $37,484.95, cost per JOP = $85.83. Total HP configuration cost = $279,075.48, application tier cost = $140,537.88, cost per JOP = $298.20. HP Bill of Material from http://www.spec.org/jAppServer2004/results/res2005q3/jAppServer2004-20050913-00016.html. BEA pricing from http://www.awaretechnologies.com/BEA/index.html. System pricing dated 11/29/05 HP rx4640 server specifications 10/19/05 from http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/entry_level/rx4640/index.html HP rx4640 power rating of 1,303 watts taken from HP Enterprise Configurator 10/19/05 from http://h30099.www3.hp.com/configurator/catalog-hpintegrity.asp. System configured with Redundant Power, 4 x 1.6GHz Itanium processors, 8 x 2GB DIMMs, 0 x PCI cards and 2 x 73GB HDDs Sun Fire T2000 server power consumption taken from measurements made during the benchmark run.
(4) Lotus NotesBench R6iNotes Sun Fire T2000 (1x1200 MHz UltraSPARC T1, 32GB), 4 partitions, Solaris[TM] 10, Lotus[R] Domino 7.0, 19,000 users, $4.36 per user, 16,061 NotesMark tpm, 400 ms avg rt. NotesBench R6iNotes IBM p570 (8 x 1.5GHz Power 5 processors, 24GB), 4 partitions, AIX 5L V5.3 Lotus[R] DominoR6.5.3, 17,400 users, $10.19 per user, 14,740 NotesMark tpm, 270ms avg rt.More info www.notesbench.org
(5) Based on comparing the HP rx4640 to Sun Fire T1000. The HP rx4640 power rating of 1,303 watts taken from HP Enterprise Configurator 10/19/05 from http://h30099.www3.hp.com/configurator/catalog-hpintegrity.asp. System configured with Redundant Power, 4 x 1.6GHz Itanium processors, 8 x 2GB DIMMs, 0 x PCI cards and 2 x 73GB HDDs Sun Fire T1000 Server power ratings taken from measurements collected during actual benchmark runs. Power costs based on World Wide average cost of 13 cents per kWhr. Data gathered from the World Energy Organization which takes into consideration energy costs in the US (avg. 5-10 cents/kWh), Europe (avg. 15 �� 20 cents/kWhr), Japan (15-20 cents/kWhr). HVAC calculated as 30% additional cost over power cost
(6) SPECjbb2005 Sun Fire T1000 Server (1 chip, 8 cores, 1-way) 51,540 bops, 12,885 bops/JVM IBM p520 (1 chip, 2 cores, 2-way) 32,820 bops, 32,820 bops/JVM Dell SC1425 (2 chip, 2 cores, 2-way) 24,208 bops, 24,208 bops/JVM SPEC, SPECjbb reg tm of Standard PerformanceEvaluation Corporation. Sun Fire T1000 results submitted to SPEC. Other resultss as of 12/6/2005 on www.spec.org IBM p520 specifications, 10/06/05, from http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/entry/520.html IBM p520 power ratings calculated by applying 70% of the power supply data published in "Facts and Features Report", 10/06/05, posted at http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/factsfeatures.html Dell SC1425 power rating taken from Input Power reported on Dell Product Power Configuration Calculator, 11/24/05. System configured with 2 x Xeon processors, 8GB DDR2 memory and 1 x Hard Disk: http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/pedge/topics/en/config_calculator?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz Sun Fire T1000 server power consumption taken from measurements made during the benchmark run. SPECjbb2005 Sun Fire T2000 Server (1 chip, 8 cores, 1-way) 63,378 bops, 15,845 bops/JVM IBM x346 (2 chip, 4 cores, 4-way) 39,585 bops, 39,585 bops/JVM IBM p550 (2 chip, 4 cores, 4-way) 61,789 bops, 61,789 bops/JVM SPEC, SPECjbb reg tm of Standard PerformanceEvaluation Corporation. Sun Fire T2000 results submitted to SPEC. Other results as of 12/06/2005 on www.spec.org IBM x346 Specifications from brochure, 09/05/05: http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/xseries/x346.html IBM x346 power rating estimated by calculating 70% of the power supply data reported in the product brochure IBM p520 specifications, 10/06/05, from http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/entry/520.html IBM p550 specifications, 10/06/05, from http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/entry/550.html IBM p550 power ratings calculated by applying 70% of the power supply data published in ��Facts and Features Report��, 10/06/05, posted at http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/factsfeatures.html Sun Fire T2000 server power consumption taken from measurements made during the benchmark run.
(7) Two-tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark, the Sun Fire T2000 (1 processor, 8 cores, 32 threads), 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC T1 with 32 GB main memory, 1,200 Mhz, 64 KB(D) + 128 KB(I) L1 cache and 3 MB L2 cache, running mySAP ERP 2004, SAP ECC Release 5.0, the MaxDB 7.5 database, Solaris 10.achieved 950 SAP SD Benchmark users, 1.91 ave dialog response time, 95,670 fully processed order line items per hour, 287,000 dialog steps per hour, 4,780 SAPS, 0.080 seconds/0.157 seconds average database requirement time (dialog/update) and 99 percent CPU utilization of the central server. Cert#Cert#2004030, More information is available at: www.sap.com/benchmark.Two-tier SAP SD standard /3 Enteprise 4.7 Standard Sales and Distribution (SD) benchmark; HP ProLiant DL580 (4-way, 4 processors, 4 cores, 4 threads) 4x 3.3 Ghz Xeon, 32 GB mem, 937 SD benchmark users, 1.96 sec avg response time, Cert#2005012, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition; HP rx4640 (4-way, 4 processors, 4 cores, 4 threads) 4x 1.5 GHz Itanium2, 32xGB mem, 880 SD benchmark users, 1.89 second average response time, Cert#2004030, Oracle 9i Database, HP-UX11i OS. More information is available at: www.sap.com/benchmark.

Safe Harbor
This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding Sun's beliefs and expectations regarding the shipping schedule for its Sun Fire T1000 servers. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that may cause actual results to differ materially. The following important factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements: failure to rapidly and successfully develop and introduce new products and manage our inventory; and our reliance on single-source suppliers. Please also refer to Sun's periodic reports that are filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2005 and our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended September 25, 2005. Sun disclaims any obligation and does not undertake to update or revise the forward-looking statements in this press release.