Sun Enhances Sun Startup Essentials Program

October 19, 2007; 10:14 AM

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) today announced three new opportunities for startups in the U.S., available through its successful Sun Startup Essentials™ program (www.sun.com/startups), to help early-stage companies get up and running quickly while conserving cash. With the industry-leading Solaris™ Operating System (OS), a range of innovative technologies and flexible, cost-effective systems, Sun is one of the premier choices for startups to grow their businesses. Sun is drawing in these companies through the availability of more offers and choice within the program, which include a new Sun incubator partner initiative and the addition of a new partner to the Sun partner hosting initiative, as well as hosting the NYC Startup Camp.

In today's aggressive market, startup companies are constantly challenged and looking for ways to help get their products and services to market quickly and to design them in such a way to scale as they grow. Sun Startup Essentials™, and initiatives such as the incubator initiative and hosting initiative, can help startups focus on building and growing their businesses rather than IT issues with limited resources. These startups are also seeking to leverage the expertise of their peers and network to build business relationships, and Sun helps draw in this community through Startup Camps.

By joining the Sun incubator initiative, Sun partner Plug and Play Tech Center offers startups a complete package of support, which includes discounts on Web hosting, office space and managed services, and priority introductions to venture capital firms for companies seeking funding. Plug and Play Tech Center currently houses more than 115 technology startup companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a Sun partner, Plug and Play provides datacenter services that run on Sun systems as well as a Plug and Play lab that provides its startup companies with access to Sun hardware, software and solutions.

Sun also announced the expansion of its hosting initiative partners to include Web hosting partner Layered Technologies. Layered Technologies offers low-cost infrastructure and services to help startups rapidly deploy on-demand hosting and utility computing solutions. Layered Technologies delivers highly scalable compute and hosting environments to startups at a price point below major operating environments. In addition, Layered Technologies provides virtual hosting solutions based on Solaris™ Container virtualization technology, part of the Solaris OS, running on highly reliable, award-winning Sun systems.

On October 22-23, Sun will host the Startup Camp (www.sun.com/startupcamp) event in New York City to help bring entrepreneurs and vendors together to network, share advice and learn from the experiences of other startups, venture capitalists, technology companies and media. Building on success of recent Startup Camps, the event will continue to be a face-to-face, collaborative event with the agenda determined on-site during the event. Startup University will kick off Startup Camp and provide an opportunity for attendees to learn about various topics in an educational format from knowledgeable companies and speakers, including Greenberg and Traurig LLP, Joyent, Microsoft, Plug and Play Tech Center and Sapotek. Startup Camp will include keynote presentations from Marc Hamilton, vice president, Solaris marketing, Sun Microsystems; Jed Katz, managing director, DFJ Gotham Ventures; Alan Sutin, shareholder, Greenberg Traurig; Jason Hoffman, CTO, Joyent; and Saeed Amidi, CEO, Plug and Play Tech Center.

Startup Camp will also feature Speed Geeking, a “Best Startup Contest,” which provides startups a chance to hone their business pitch through a series of five minute sessions, speed-dating style. The top three winners will receive valuable prizes, including a Sun Fire™ X4200 for first prize valued at $3,000; one year free hosting from Joyent valued at $1,250; and an Apple iPod touch for third prize valued at $305.

For more information and to register, please visit: www.sun.com/startupcamp

Sun Startup Essentials Program

The Sun Startup Essentials program helps eligible startup companies by offering them a range of discounted Sun products and services, including the award-winning Sun Fire x64 servers and Sun Fire servers with CoolThreads technology. Recently, the program has expanded into India and the People's Republic of China and with today's announcement, continues to provide innovative offers and choice in services available to its members.

To date, more than 1,000 early stage companies have applied for the Sun Startup Essentials Program and approved startups are eligible to receive program member benefits, such as discounted Web hosting services through Sun partners such as Joyent, Layered Technologies and NaviSite. In addition to offering deeply discounted servers, storage and services to eligible startup companies, Sun also offers free technical advice via email and access to free software, such as Apache, MySQL and Perl (AMP), Ruby on Rails optimized to run on the Solaris 10 OS.

To join the program and have direct online access to these offerings, please visit http://www.sun.com/startup

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