SUN LOWERS PRICES, ADDS NEW MODELS TO ITS INDUSTRY LEADING ULTRACOMPUTING PRODUCT LINES; Sun Resets Industry's Price/Performance Perception with Price Cuts up to 38 Percent.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 12, 1996--In keeping with its commitment to offer the industry's best solutions at the most competitive prices, Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced price reductions of 10 percent to 38 percent and beefed up base-level configuration for its most popular lines of UltraComputing(TM) workstations and workgroup servers.

Sun also announced a new entry configuration for its accelerated 24-bit, 3D graphics UltraTM 1 workstation line. Customers can now purchase a high-performance Ultra 1 model 140 Creator 3D with a 17-inch color monitor, 64 megabytes of memory, and a 2-gigabyte disk for $13,995. Customers buying in volume will pay less than $10,000, in line with high-end PC prices, but with substantial advantages in graphics and floating-point performance, which are critical for most technical applications, such as mechanical design, simulation and visualization.

Sun also announced that Solaris(TM) Internet Access PlusPack(TM) will be available on Ultra workstations at no charge.

"The Ultra workstation's success over the past year has been phenomenal," said Gene Banman, vice president and general manager of Sun Microsystems Computer Company's Desktop Systems Group. "This success along with Sun's volume and marketshare leadership let us pass the resulting economies of scale savings on to our customers. We expect these price reductions to help us to continue to grow our marketshare.

"We are sending a clear message to our competitors by offering blazing 3D graphics, processing and networking highly optimized for power users at PC prices," Banman said. "No one, SGI and HP included, comes close to delivering the power of our Creator 3D graphics below $15,000, much less the $10,000 price point."

UltraComputing systems redefined the industry's view of high-performance workstations only one year ago. Unlike PC-derived workstations, Ultra workstations deliver exceptional processor speed, high-bandwidth networking, accelerated graphics, multiprocessing and a system architecture designed and optimized by one company to provide unequaled application performance. This was achieved with Sun's technology innovations: UltraSPARC(TM) processors, 100 BaseT Ethernet standard, Creator 3D Graphics (including VIS(TM) [Visual Instruction Set] technology and 3D RAM), SMP/SMT multiprocessing support, and the Ultra Port Architecture (UPA) system interconnects.

New Price/Performance Levels on the Desktop

Sun leads the industry with its aggressive pricing model. Effective today, new pricing for an Ultra 1 model 140 with a 17-inch color monitor, 64 megabytes of memory, a 2-gigabyte disk and TurboGX(TM) graphics starts at $7,995. With volume discounts, this system is priced comparably to any high-end PC or "Wintel" technology workstation, including the recently announced systems from Compaq. Now, a Sun(TM) workstation can match any "personal workstation" price for price, but with the 20 percent better floating-point and 50 percent to 100 percent better graphics performance needed by workstation users, as well as thousands of technical applications and the direct sales, service and support required by demanding technical users.

"Today's announcement will send the PC workstation makers back to the drawing board," Banman said. "Technical users demand more than a large monitor and add-in graphics to get their work done."

UltraComputing technology means the highest application performance and best price/performance in the industry. Ideal for markets such as EDA, MCAD, Entertainment CAD, Oil/Gas, Finance and Software Development, the Ultra family has been the platform of choice for the technical and scientific community since its introduction last November. Dataquest reported an increase in Sun's already No. 1 marketshare in Q2 1996 to 41.7 percent, more than the next four competitors -- HP, DEC, IBM and SGI -- combined. Over the last 12 months, Sun has increased marketshare from 36.1 percent to 41.7 percent.

With this announcement, Sun is also offering the Solaris Internet Access PlusPack bundle for Ultra workstation users at no charge. The Internet Access PlusPack is a suite of tools for Internet users of the Solaris(TM) operating environment. Ultra workstation customers will have an integrated solution for developing Java(TM) applets and browsing/publishing on-line information on the Internet or corporate intranets.

The Solaris Internet Access PlusPack includes a web browser and HTML editor; Sun's Java Virtual Machine for running Java applets from within the Solaris environment rather than a browser; a Java-based Desktop browser for viewing Java applets and HTML files and browsing the Web; Video and Audio Tools for playing audio and video files; and Network wrappers that give CDE and OpenWindows(TM) users easy access to Solaris FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and Telnet capabilities.

New Price Point for Ultra Enterprise Workgroup Servers

In conjunction with the price cuts in the workstation family, Sun is also reducing prices on the Ultra Enterprise line of workgroup servers by up to 38 percent, while doubling the memory in most configurations. In addition, the Ultra(TM) Enterprise(TM) 2 and Ultra Enterprise 150 servers will now ship standard with the easy to use Solstice(TM) SyMON(TM) system management tool. Featuring a system design focused on high-performance I/O and integrated networking, Sun's Ultra Enterprise line of workgroup servers offer customers power, reliability and value -- at a new, low price point of $7,495.

The success of its Ultra Enterprise workgroup server line, which includes the Ultra Enterprise 1, Ultra Enterprise 2 and Ultra Enterprise 150 servers, is enabling Sun to reduce prices on these systems as well as on upgrades from the SPARCserver(TM) 4, SPARCserver 5 and SPARCserver 20 systems -- and in effect deliver better price/performance to customers. These price reductions, along with the increased memory and system management features, provide customers with a better value for their dollar -- making the already popular line even more attractive to customers looking for a robust server platform for network-based applications. The Ultra Enterprise 1 entry level configuration, which comes with one 143-MHz processor, 10Mb Ethernet connection, 10MB per second fast SCSI, 64MB memory, 2GB storage, is priced at $7,495 (U.S. list).

"Sun is enjoying tremendous success with its Ultra Enterprise server line -- in fact, for the past two quarters (Q4FY96 and Q1FY97), server demand has more than doubled over the corresponding quarters of a year ago," said Mark Canepa, vice president and general manager of workgroup server products. "The volumes for Sun's workgroup servers provide great economies of scale -- we're thrilled to be able to pass these savings along to the customer."

Availability

All of the new Ultra systems and new prices are available immediately. The Solaris Internet Access PlusPack will be bundled at no charge with all SPARC(TM) and Ultra SPARC desktops starting in late November. For existing customers, the Internet Access PlusPack can be purchased unbundled for $99.

With annual revenues of more than $7 billion, Sun Microsystems, Inc. provides products and services that enable customers to build and maintain open network computing environments. Widely recognized as a proponent of open standards, the company is involved in the design, manufacture and sale of products, technologies and services for commercial and technical computing. Sun Microsystems was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California. -0-

Note to Editors: Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, VIS, Ultra, UltraComputing, TurboGX, Solaris, Solaris Internet Access PlusPack, Ultra Enterprise and Solstice SYMON 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.

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