Sun and SAS Announce Business Intelligence Software Support For Solaris 10 on X64 Platforms

Growing Customer Demand for Business and Analytic Intelligence on Sun Platforms Drives SAS Certification

04 April 2006 -  Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and SAS, the leader in business intelligence, jointly announced today that SAS will port its data integration, business intelligence and analytic intelligence software to the SolarisTM 10 Operating System (OS) running on x64 servers. This new support for Solaris 10 on industry-standard x64 servers brings a lower total cost of ownership to customers running SAS® software, along with access to the sophisticated features available only in the Solaris 10 OS.

"With this announcement, SAS and Sun are furthering their technology vision to develop and deliver the most complete, integrated, end-to-end business intelligence solutions available," said Keith Collins, chief technology officer at SAS. "The Solaris 10 and x64 combination is ideal for supporting the power and breadth of the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform. We look forward to continuing our long-standing relationship with Sun in driving the value of data integration, BI and analytics throughout the enterprise."

The Solaris 10 OS running on x64 will be an excellent platform for customers that want to use SAS data mining and data integration products in a grid architecture. Sun FireTM x64 (x86, 64-bit) servers powered by Dual-Core AMD OpteronTM processors in a grid rack system are an ideal deployment option for customers that want grid-enabled SAS products. The benefits recognised by SAS customers include increased productivity and performance from the new "Galaxy" Sun Fire x64 servers, in addition to compatibility with more than 580 platforms that support the Solaris 10 OS, such as those from Dell, HP and IBM.

"We have heard from numerous, major customers around the world through letters and petitions -- requesting SAS support for the Solaris 10 OS on x64 servers," said Stephen Borcich, vice president of Partner Marketing, Sun Microsystems. "Customer demand was also a key factor in naming SAS a new executive member of the Sun Partner Advantage Programme, and shows growing momentum and support for the Solaris 10 OS on x64 in the ISV community."

SAS support of the Solaris 10 OS underscores the growing demand for one of the most advanced operating systems on the planet running on x64 servers. With SAS business intelligence software running on the Solaris 10 OS, customers now have access to the most popular features that are unique to this operating system, such as Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), Predictive Self-Healing and Solaris Containers. These sophisticated features found in the Solaris 10 OS provide customers with increased network security, enhanced system observability and less overall server downtime. SAS will make its software available on the Solaris 10 OS running on x64 platforms in a phased rollout starting later this year.

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