Sun Solaris Now Running On Intel's 64-Bit Itanium Processor

Business Wire, Oct 25, 1999

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 25, 1999--

Sun Microsystems announced today that the Solaris(TM) Operating Environment is running on engineering prototype systems based on Intel's Itanium processor. The milestone was reached during Sun's designated testing sessions at Intel's labs in Beaverton, Oregon. Working together, Sun Solaris and Intel Itanium engineers successfully transmitted an email message over the Internet from the prototype system running the Solaris Operating Environment.

"With Solaris now running on the Itanium processor, Sun has achieved another key milestone on our IA-64 road map," said Rich Green, vice president, Solaris Products Group, Sun Microsystems. "Working closely with Intel, during our scheduled testing session, Sun has demonstrated that the Solaris Operating Environment is ready for the Itanium processor."

Formerly code-named Merced, Itanium will be the first product in Intel's IA-64 family, and is designed to address the increasing demands that the Internet economy places on e-Businesses.

Solaris: The 64-Bit Proven Operating Environment

Sun is leveraging its 64-bit Solaris Operating Environment, in the optimization of Solaris for Intel's IA-64 processor. The Solaris Application Programming Interface (API) and Device Driver Interface (DDI) are common across all Solaris platforms, meaning that ISVs that develop 64-bit applications today on Solaris SPARC Platform Edition can easily migrate these same applications to the Itanium platform by simply recompiling their application or driver. In addition, the Sun WorkShop development products provide a consistent software development environment across all Solaris supported platforms, delivering constant reliability and ease-of-use for developers.

Solaris: Protecting Customer Investments

To protect customer investments, the Solaris Operating Environment will provide full compatibility on Itanium with many of the more than 3,500 Solaris Intel Platform Edition applications that are available today. This means that many ISVs with applications that do not require 64-bit addressing or the full Itanium performance do not have to change or recompile their existing 32-bit Solaris on Intel applications to take advantage of Itanium.

For more information about Solaris and 64-bit computing, visit the Sun web site at http://www.sun.com/developers/solaris64.> Solaris 7 Product Line

The Solaris 7 Operating Environment is reliable, highly scalable, Year 2000 compliant, and delivers expanded capabilities for workgroups, data centers and Internet Service Providers who need "anytime, anywhere" access to computing resources. The Solaris 7 product line is the best network computing environment to support the business demands of today and the business innovations of tomorrow.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network is the ComputerTM," has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc., (Nasdaq:SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $11.5 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com.

Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, Solaris, Sun WorkShop and The Network Is the Computer 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.