Sun Microsystems Scores Lead in High Performance Computing Market Share

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- According to analyst firm IDC (International Data Corporation), Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW - news) is the leading provider of servers (in revenue terms) for the high performance technical computing (HPC) market for the nine month period ending September 30, 2001. With 22 percent of the $3.6B market, Sun beat rivals Compaq, Hewlett-Packard and IBM and grew its share of the total HPC market by nearly two percent over the same nine month period in the previous year.

Given that Sun entered the HPC market just six years ago, today's news represents not only Sun's growing leadership in this evolving space, but also some of the strongest growth and momentum seen in the marketplace. Since 1995, Sun's HPC product offering has grown from a limited number of servers running Sun's HPC ClusterTools(TM) 1.0 Software, and only three percent of revenue market share, to a robust set of fully-integratable, end-to-end solutions ranging from scientists utilizing a single Sun desktop to a supercomputing center that processes 456 billion arithmetic operations per second.

"Over the past six years, Sun has lent its innovation and leadership to the development of superior HPC solutions for the technical computing centers of today and tomorrow," said Dr. Stephen Perrenod, Group Manager, HPC Marketing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Moving forward, we will continue to achieve success with our open, integratable technical computing software and hardware stack, which delivers a flexible Grid and network-oriented computing environment. In addition, we will continue to bring the benefits of our SunONE environment to the technical, scientific and engineering user communities."

Today, Sun's HPC solutions are based on the Solaris(TM) Operating Environment and include some of the most highly scalable and available systems on the market -- the Sun Fire(TM) and Enterprise(TM) lines of workgroup, midrange, and high-end servers backed up by Sun StorEdge(TM) and integrated with a software infrastructure such as Sun's HPC ClusterTools, Forte(TM) for High Performance Computing, Grid Engine(TM) software, or iPlanet(TM) eCommerce solutions.

With these customizable solutions, Sun addresses the challenges facing every technical computing application today: how to manage for growth and complexity, optimize efficiency, enable application collaboration and empower employees, partners and customers.

"In the course of six years, Sun has become an important player in the HPC market. The company has achieved success based in part on its focus on sales to established industrial users enabling it to become a leading supplier in both the enterprise and departmental segments," said Nicholas Kaufmann, Market Research Analyst, IDC. "Moreover, the company has important initiatives underway to support such latest technologies as grid and collaborative computing."

A sample of the customers who are benefiting from Sun's innovative HPC approach include the San Diego Supercomputer Center, where researchers are addressing biological, environmental and computing issues; Aachen University, where scientists are creating virtual reality for medicine, robotics, engineering and architecture; and the High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory (HPCVL), where a consortium of four Canadian universities is sharing the power of high performance computing.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer(TM)" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com .

NOTE: Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, HPC ClusterTools, Solaris, Sun Fire, Sun Enterprise, Sun StorEdge, Forte, Grid Engine, iPlanet, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

CONTACT: Laura Schmidt of Sun Microsystems, Inc., +1-415-972-0574, or laura.schmidt@sun.com; or Emma Hurley of Alexander Ogilvy, +1-310-407-7829, or ehurley@alexanderogilvy.com, for Sun Microsystems, Inc.