Sun Announces New Java Center of Excellence Service to Transform Fortune 500 Companies' Software Development Organizations

New Service Drives Faster Deployment, Improved Quality of Service, and Maximized Return on Investment for Businesses

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JavaOne Developer Conference -- March 26, 2002 -- Recognizing that major businesses are using Java technologies as the premier platform for developing and deploying Internet applications, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced a new Java Center of Excellence service designed to help Fortune 500 companies advance their in-house development staff's best practices, processes and skill sets to improve their ongoing delivery of Java technology based projects. As a result, key early adopters of this new service such as Ford Motor Company are improving quality of service, reducing costs, enhancing their agility and increasing ROI in delivering products and services through the Web, all using Java technologies.

The new service will establish within the enterprise's development organization a Java Center of Excellence. This umbrella organization will work across the enterprise and will be jointly staffed by customer personnel and experts from Sun's consulting and training groups, Sun Professional Services and Sun Educational Services. The Java Center of Excellence will provide:

• assessment of current architecture designs, practices, and processes
• systematic approaches for capture and dissemination of best practices
• standardization on software architecture and development methodologies and architectural frameworks
• implementation of software reuse strategies and processes
• mentoring and knowledge transfer on best practices, methodologies and architectural approaches
• ongoing review and guidance for individual projects
• assessments of organizational skills and professional development practices, training plans and delivery
• new technology evaluation and dissemination

Sun Professional Services' consultants have worked on numerous innovative Java technology projects and have captured their collective experience into best practices, patterns and methodologies. Through the Java Center of Excellence service, customers will be getting broad expertise from the source of Java technologies to improve their design and development capabilities and processes and capture and disseminate best practices within their own organizations.

"The Java Center of Excellence service is a powerful new concept and an innovative model for how Sun can help companies develop software," stated Larry Hambly, executive vice president of Enterprise Services for Sun. "By enhancing the enterprise's inherent Java technology expertise, best practices and processes, we are helping customers become more self-sufficient in architecting, building and deploying Java technology based projects."

Last year, Ford Motor Company turned to Sun for assistance in setting up a Java Center of Excellence staffed by architects from Sun Professional Services. The Java Center of Excellence is serving as a driving factor in the roll out of Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technology across enterprise-wide operations.

Please visit http://www.sun.com/service/sunps/jdc/excellence.html for more information on the Java Center of Excellence service.

About JavaOne Developer Conference

JavaOne Developer Conference is the world's largest conference for developers. Started in 1996, JavaOne provides opportunities for developers and businesses who want in-depth technical training, a chance to network with top developers and exposure to real-world solutions and the over-arching developer community. For more information about the Conference, visit http://java.sun.com/javaone/.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- The Network Is The Computer -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, JavaOne, J2EE and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.