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Sun Microsystems, Inc. Extends Leadership Position in Identity Management

Posted on: Wednesday, 10 November 2004, 09:00 CST

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. , today highlighted continued success across its identity management initiatives through new customer relationships and expanded alliances. In addition, Sun has positioned identity management as a key component of its overall software strategy and has aligned its organization, product strategy, and dedicated global sales force to address this growing business concern for its customers and prospects worldwide.

"Identity management is a key service that allows companies to cost-effectively and securely manage identities for accessing IT and corporate resources. It is a growing software market segment, one that has steadily risen in importance and stature on everyone's lists -- not only IT infrastructure, but information security, application development and business services. It has become vital to the success of enterprises addressing key compliance, regulatory and security concerns, and has equal planning status to ERP and CRM programs in some cases," said Earl Perkins, vice president, security and risk strategies, META Group.

The Sun identity management suite provides organizations with visibility into and control over the way critical corporate assets are accessed and shared, while delivering high service levels affordably. It is uniquely suited to meet the challenges of the virtual enterprise by allowing organizations to open access to employees, partners and customers and at the same time, protect its mission-critical systems. Lacking these controls, organizations leave themselves open to security breaches, regulatory compliance issues, inefficiencies in operations and productivity losses.

Customers

Sun is providing identity management solutions to customers around the world and building market share through the unique strengths of its identity management suite. Since the launch of its identity management suite in June 2004, Sun has seen significant sales activity across the product line, resulting in over 75 new customer purchases. These new customers consist of leading companies across a variety of industries including: education, financial services, government, manufacturing, telecommunications, and utilities. A snapshot of these customers includes:

-- Banca del Gottardo -- a leading Swiss bank offering state-of-the-art private banking services

-- Bureau of the Public Debt -- part of the United States Department of Treasury

-- Fifth Third Bank -- one of the top 15 largest bank holding companies in the United States and among the 10 largest in market capitalization

-- Henkel -- headquartered in Duesseldorf, a manufacturer and vendor of brand-name products in three strategic areas of competence -- home care, personal care, and adhesives, sealants and surface treatments

-- Hitachi Data Systems -- a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., Japan's largest electronics company

-- Itochu Techno-Science Corporation(CTC) -- a provider of total solution services, including: system consultation, integration, administration, maintenance/support, training, and outsourcing

-- OfficeMax -- a leader in both business-to-business office product solutions and retail office products

-- NASA -- National Aeronautics and Space Administration

-- National Science Foundation

-- New South Wales Roads and Transit Authority

-- PacifiCorp -- one of the lowest-cost electricity producers in the United States, providing more than 1.5 million customers with reliable, efficient energy

-- Sistemi Interbancari Holding -- the first Italian Credit Card issuer; CartaSi is the most utilized credit card in Italy, promoted by 800 banks with more than 7.5 Million Users.

-- Telecom Italia Sparkle -- a full service telecommunications provider, offering a complete range of solutions spanning voice services, IP, bandwidth and managed data services for fixed-line and mobile operators, ISPs and, in synergy with Telecom Italia, for multinational corporations.

-- United States Department of Energy

-- University of California, Merced

In addition, Sun continues to build market share by expanding its relationship with existing customers. Many companies who have previously deployed Sun identity management products are now purchasing the integrated Sun identity management suite.

Alliances

Identity management is a business as well as a technology problem and as such, leading system integrators are guiding customers toward solutions. Sun has alliances with leading systems integration (SIs), consulting and advisory firms such as: Accenture, PricewaterhouseCoopers and others, to leverage the strength and expertise of these companies in designing, deploying and customizing identity management solutions for customers worldwide.

"Security, regulatory and privacy regulations are top-of-mind issues for our clients. In order to meet these requirements, it is crucial for companies to implement an infrastructure to effectively authenticate and manage appropriate access to all systems. By working collaboratively with Sun, we can deploy identity management solutions that can help our clients solve real business problems and deliver tangible benefits," said Stephen A. Barlock, Partner, Accenture North America Security Practice.

"Identity management is critical to helping companies control costs, gain competitive advantage and meet the challenges of regulatory compliance. We are continuing to see a significant increase in identity management activity with our clients," said Brad Bauch, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In addition, Sun is working with independent software vendors (ISVs) such as Entrust, who is integrating and bundling the Sun Java(TM) System Identity Manager with the Entrust Secure Identity Management Solution. Over the past several months, Sun has made these partnerships a top priority across the identity management business unit and has significantly increased its focus on partnering with key SIs and ISVs. To date, over 300 SI resources have been trained on Sun's identity management products.

"We are extremely pleased with the significant growth of our identity management customer and partner base and the increased awareness of identity management as a critical factor to the success of a company's business," said Sara Gates, vice president of identity management marketing at Sun Microsystems. "Sun provides our customers with identity-driven solutions that are addressing high priority business challenges, ranging from corporate security and compliance requirements to service-oriented architectures, and transforming the way identities impact corporations. Sun is continuing to extend our position in the identity market through product innovations, strategic alliances and our organizational focus."

Sun Identity Management Suite

Sun offers a full suite of integrated, best-of-breed products, which are designed to reduce the cost and complexity of a customer's identity management infrastructure. The Sun identity management offerings combine Sun's deep technology expertise with industry-leading software acquired from Waveset Technologies. Unified administration capabilities and reporting features work across the product suite to cost-effectively manage the critical aspects of identity as it affects core business operations, both internally and across corporate boundaries. In addition, Sun provides maximum compatibility with third-party products and platforms giving customers the ultimate degree of freedom in designing their identity infrastructure.

Additional information on Sun identity management solutions for the virtual enterprise can be found in our whitepaper, available at: http://wwws.sun.com/software/products/identity/wp_virtual_enterprise.pdf .

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com/. Subscribe to Sun newswire at http://sun.com/news.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Jacki DeCoster

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(415) 294-4482

jacki.decoster@sun.com

Dawson Rorick

Citigate Cunningham

(415) 618-8739

drorick@citigatecunningham.com

NOTE: Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

CONTACT: Jacki DeCoster of Sun Microsystems, Inc., +1-415-294-4482, orjacki.decoster@sun.com; or Dawson Rorick of Citigate Cunningham,+1-415-618-8739, or drorick@citigatecunningham.com, for Sun; orhttp://www.sun.com/news, or allpress@sun.com

Web site: http://sun.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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