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Sun Microsystems Hosts Annual Worldwide Education And Research Conference, Gathering Over 600 Leading Education Visionaries From Over 45 Countries To Discuss Technology Innovations In Education

Posted on: Tuesday, 15 February 2005, 15:00 CST

SAN FRANCISCO - Worldwide Education and Research Conference, Feb. 15

/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Continuing its long history of partnering with the education community to promote the use of technology and innovation in education, Sun Microsystems, Inc. today opened its annual Worldwide Education and Research Conference (WWERC) taking place in San Francisco from February 14-17. During the conference, Sun executives, top educators, technologists and visionaries will discuss their roles in shaping the future of education.

Kim Jones, vice president of Global Education and Research for Sun Microsystems, will open the event by discussing Sun's vision of the evolving global learning environment, and how technology innovation is making the Digital Campus a reality. The Digital Campus breaks down institutions' ivy- covered walls to create a unified, seamless, secure, collaborative environment for learning, achievement and administration that is available to all individuals. The Digital Campus is an entirely new way of looking at education, one that benefits students, teachers and administrators.

"Today, learning is no longer bound to a fixed location such as a classroom," said Kim Jones. "Thanks to innovative technologies, the educational landscape is transforming into a digital campus -- an information- rich and seamlessly-connected environment that can bring the world to a student's fingertips."

Attendees will hear from the following Sun executives:

-- Scott McNealy, Chairman & CEO

-- Greg Papadopoulos, EVP & Chief Technology Officer

-- John Loiacono, EVP, Software

-- Andy Bechtolsheim, Chief Architect and Sr. VP, Network Systems Group

-- David Yen, EVP, Scalable Systems Group

-- Glenn Edens, Sr. VP and Director, Sun Labs

-- Kim Jones, VP of Global Education and Research for Sun Microsystems

Support for this year's WWERC comes from industry leaders including San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Her Majesty, Queen Noor of Jordan, who will address how technology is being used in education and its impact on facilitating collaboration between worldwide education and research communities.

"The city of San Francisco welcomes Her Majesty, Queen Noor of Jordan and education leaders and visionaries from around the world to support the role of technology in education," said Mayor Newsom. "I applaud Sun's continued commitment to education through innovative and affordable technology solutions that enable today's students to become tomorrow's leaders."

During the event, Mayor Newsom will announce an alliance between the city of San Francisco and Sun that will offer free access to Sun's StarOffice(TM) productivity suite software to all students and teachers throughout the city. More than 200,000 students in all public and private K-12, community colleges and universities, and more than 5,000 teachers in these same institutions, will be able to benefit from the word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database capabilities of StarOffice. The value of this alliance is estimated to be more than $5,000,000. For a limited time, students and teachers in the city of San Francisco can download the free software by registering at http://www.sun.com/edu/edusoft.

"Sun's donation of StarOffice software today provides a significant boost to the educational community of San Francisco, and is exactly the kind of public/private alliance valued and embraced by this administration," added Mayor Newsom. "It stands to deliver tremendous benefits to the entire community, and we thank Sun Microsystems for this alliance and collaboration."

Featured Speakers:

-- Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco

-- Her Majesty, Queen Noor of Jordan

-- Milton Chen, Executive Director, George Lucas Education Foundation

-- Robert Dynes, President, University of California System

-- Peter Cochrane, Co-Founder, Conceptlabs

-- Larry Smarr, Director of Information Technology, University of

California, San Diego

-- Lyle Oberg, Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation, Province of

Alberta, Canada

-- Marilyn McMillan, Associate Provost and CTO, New York University

Sun remains focused on ensuring that meaningful research, teaching and learning continue in global academic institutions. As part of this commitment, Sun is making a series of announcements about its efforts to give the education community low-cost, open network computing solutions and tools to improve education practices.

Sun Grid Research Grants

Just weeks after Sun announced its vision for a new era in network computing and unveiled major elements of its new Sun Grid utility offering, Sun is announcing its intent to award spare cycles to deserving research efforts. Sun has already begun planning with two of the world's leading research universities: University of California, Berkeley, and University of Southern California. Institutions interested in applying for Sun Grid Research Grants will be able to register to receive more information starting February 17, 2005, at http://www.sun.com/edu/programs/star.html.

Sun is currently working with U.C. Berkeley and USC to define the Sun Grid Research Grant program and engage the resources of the Grid to aid current research projects.

"One of our professors at U.C. Berkeley, Professor Ethan Ligon, plans to use a Sun Grid Research Grant to lessen the risk associated with drought and disease in Southern India," said Shelton Waggener, chief information officer at U.C. Berkeley. "Professor Ligon's studies require complex statistical analysis which has been previously limited by the small number of workstations available for his calculations. By utilizing Sun's Grid Research Grant program, a task that previously took more than nine months to compute can now be solved in only a few hours."

Sun Java(TM) System Suites For Education

Sun is introducing the Sun Java(TM) System Suites, priced at $25 (USD) per faculty member per year, which provides education institutions with the affordability, simplicity, and predictability of the Java Enterprise System model. The suites provide educational institutions with a combination of powerful Web, application and network services. The new Sun Java System Suites are:

-- Sun Java Availability Suite

-- Sun Java Identity Management Suite

-- Sun Java Web Infrastructure Suite

-- Sun Java Application Platform Suite

-- Sun Java Communications Suite

Ricoh & Sun J2ME(TM) Student Developer Contest

Sun and Ricoh are co-sponsoring a student developer contest aimed at students in Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom. Hosted on java.net through the Global Education and Learning Community (GELC), the objective is to create a Java technology developer community for Ricoh Afcio laser printers and multifunctional printers with applications based on the J2ME(TM) technology platform.

Other Key Sun Announcements:

-- Solaris(TM) 10 OS for 10: Ten Educational Software Vendors Announce

Support for Solaris 10(TM)

-- Sun Microsystems Announces Lower Pricing Model, New Features for Sun

Ray(TM) Environment For Education and Research Market

-- Sun Microsystems Names Yarmouk University and Jordan University of

Science and Technology as the next Sun Center of Excellence in

Reliability, Availability and Serviceability

-- Sun Microsystems Convenes Second Annual Lifelong Learning Forum,

Gathering Industry Leaders From 20 Countries to Discuss Best Practices

and Technologies For Global Education and Research

"The conference activities and sessions will help set the technology agenda for global education and research, and we are looking forward to meaningful discussions with all of our distinguished guests and partners," Kim Jones said.

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://sun.com/.

Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Solaris, Sun Ray, StarOffice, Java and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Karen Kahn

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(415) 297-5035

Karen.Kahn@sun.com

Jennifer Farrior

Alexander Ogilvy PR for Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(415) 677-2719

jennifer.farrior@ogilvypr.com

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

CONTACT: Karen Kahn of Sun Microsystems, Inc., +1-415-297-5035 orKaren.Kahn@sun.com; or Jennifer Farrior of Alexander Ogilvy PR,+1-415-677-2719 or jennifer.farrior@ogilvypr.com, for Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Web site: http://sun.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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