Sun Changes the Game with Revolutionary New Subscription Pricing Model; Announces Early Access for Sun Java Studio Enterprise

"Java Studio Creator is the culmination of a strategy Sun announced last year at the JavaOne conference to address the market for corporate developers � a hot, high-growth market," said John Loiacono, executive vice president of Software at Sun. "Sun is setting the pace in the Java technology market, delivering an unbeatable value by offering innovative tools, updates and comprehensive support forums, all for an incredibly low subscription price."

"Java technology has freed our server-side developers to concentrate on higher-level application issues and integration of diverse components," said Dick Wall, lead system engineer at New Energy Associates, a Siemens Company. "Java Studio Creator has the potential to significantly accelerate the development of future Web user interfaces, which can take up to one-third of the time on our projects. The product will also let us rapidly develop cross-platform GUIs, which until now have been too expensive and complex."

Java Studio Creator is designed to address the needs of skilled developers whose primary, day-to-day concern is the rapid delivery of business-critical applications. The first pure Java technology visual development tool, Java Studio Creator will be available for free with the purchase of a one-year Sun Developer Network Standard subscription, priced at US$99. This price includes a perpetual license for Java Studio Creator and access for one year to product updates and upgrades, plus access to premium content and Community Support Forums.

Java Studio Creator is currently available on the Solaris Operating System, Windows and Linux platforms. Sun also announced support for the Mac OS X platform, and the availability of the Early Access release of the Macintosh version. As part of a special promotion, Java Studio Creator for Mac OS X will be made available via free download under a Sun Developer Network subscription that is included with the purchase of an Apple 15- or 17-inch PowerBook.

Java Studio Creator is a comprehensive develop/debug/deploy solution that includes Sun Java System Application Server 8, Platform Edition, a component of the Sun Java Enterprise System, as a target development and deployment platform. It also includes the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition Software Development Kit (SDK).

Key features include:

• Data aware user interface components that automatically connect to data sources dragged onto them, providing quick visual access to SQL queries.
• Simple event-driven coding model enabling developers to focus on business logic and hiding infrastructure details.
• Visual Web services consumption for easy access to Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA).
• Ability to visually create Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.3 technology compatible Web applications that run on any Web or application server supporting JavaServer Pages 1.2 software.
• Intuitive page navigation design, allowing visual connection creation between pages and defining navigation cases through simple rules.

For more information, visit http://sun.com/jscreator.

Java Studio Enterprise 7 Environment: Summer Early Access Release

Sun also announced today that the Sun Java Studio Enterprise 7 Early Access release is slated for late summer. This release will feature integrated Embarcadero Technologies' Describe UML model-driven analysis and design technology. Release 7 will support all major phases of the development lifecycle, from reverse engineering and documentation of code to user interaction and process modeling, to code generation and deployment of applications.

Other new capabilities will include application profiling, which will chart performance and trace individual browser requests, enhancing overall application performance, including transactional details for single requests with individual application-level Java Enterprise System components and method-level type analysis. The release also offers integrated collaborative development for improved team productivity with code-aware instant messaging and real-time file sharing. Finally, refactoring for simplified code maintenance and extended Java Enterprise System software components will be available.

Customers of the current release of Sun Java Studio Enterprise who are registered subscribers of Sun Developer Network will have access to a preview version of the next release featuring the integrated UML technology as soon as it becomes available.

JavaServer Faces Component Catalog at java.com

Since Java Studio Creator is one of the first developer tools to come to market based on JavaServer Faces component technology, Sun also is announcing a JavaServer Faces Component Catalog at java.com. Giving developers ready access to these compatible third-party components can help to significantly shorten project cycles. A number of industry-leading vendors, including ILOG, Otrix and Software FX are currently displaying their offerings, while other companies, including ESRI and Quest Software, have announced their intent to participate shortly when they ship products based on JavaServer Faces technology.

For more information on the JavaOne 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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

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