"Over 20 years ago we began our journey working with the world's most demanding markets, delivering systems that enabled financial services companies to become engines for growth," said Schwartz. "Now we're returning to our roots, showcasing the strongest technology line-up Sun has ever had. We're taking Wall Street into the future with the rocket science in the Solaris 10 Operating System, new Solaris on AMD Opteron processor-based servers that blow the doors off the competition, next-generation storage and professional services to meet customers' increasingly exacting demands. When you incorporate the innovative economic models and upgrade programs we offer to engage our customer base, it is quickly evident that Sun has the most advanced portfolio of any vendor targeting this market."

At the event, Schwartz announced significant new customer and partner wins and a select group of Solaris innovation award winners. Participating customers included the Tokyo Stock Exchange, The Philadelphia Stock Exchange, Visa, Reuters, Archipelago and SunGard. He also outlined details on Sun's latest quarterly product launch that includes innovative, cost-effective technologies, unrivalled global support guarantees and competitive upgrade programs designed to radically increase the computing power for the most demanding IT environments on the planet. (See related press releases at www.sun.com/news.)

"Like the Indianapolis Speedway or Wimbledon, this is where champions come to play. Wall Street is one of the most demanding technology environments on earth, setting the gold standard for companies in every other industry. Seemingly low-cost, under-supported solutions peddled by so-called discount vendors won't cut the mustard. With new products, services and upgrade programs, Sun is bringing its 20-plus years of Wall Street experience, its unwavering commitment to growing markets, its rock solid UNIX(R) foundation, and the deepest product portfolio in its history to the table to help these IT visionaries on their march toward growth," Schwartz concluded.

The cornerstone of these announcements is the enhancement of the Solaris Operating System (OS), the leading enterprise UNIX OS, that has been adapted for low-cost, industry standard systems. By pairing the industry-leading standards of AMD, Intel and Sun's SPARC(R) architecture with both Solaris 10 and Linux, Sun is bringing exceptional competitive advantage and choice to Wall Street. At the event, Sun also previewed market-leading servers and outlined promotions and professional services offerings specifically designed for financial services companies to exploit the price/performance capabilities of industry standard systems.

Sun Solaris: Advantage Wall Street

Sun is showcasing new solutions to address the key issues facing Wall Street today as financial services companies wrestle with the continual need to provide better differentiated services at lower costs. Customers report that the cost of acquisition is only the first step and now they are struggling with inherent problems of scalability, integration and security. The powerful management tools in the Solaris 10 OS-including Dynamic Tracing (D Trace), N1 Grid Containers and Trusted Solaris-deliver unrivalled security, system utilization and reliability to help capital market companies overcome the problems they have encountered with seemingly "low-cost" systems.

"We have been delighted by the results of the technology we have recently implemented from Sun," says William Morgan, CIO, Philadelphia Stock Exchange. "The D Trace technology that is part of the new Solaris operating system has enabled us to rapidly assess opportunities to tune our mission-critical trading applications for optimal performance. In addition, the Solaris 10 release delivers tremendous operating system performance gains. As the Philadelphia Stock Exchange continues with its rollout of the newly deployed PHLX XL Options Trading Platform, technological enhancements such as these will play an increasingly important role to our customers on the trading floor. The PHLX XL trading platform exemplifies PHLX's continued commitment to providing high capacity and feature rich trading platforms. We are relying on Sun to deliver on performance, and we have been impressed with Solaris 10," added Morgan.

Demanding Customers Demand Sun

Sun is easing the path to the most advanced technologies for security, scalability and availability with competitive programs like the Solaris-Opteron challenge, Linux to Solaris upgrade program, Xeon Migration Progam and market disrupting developer promotions.

Sun Preventive Services + Premier Options for financial services customers also offers mission-critical site support services with a portfolio of customized offerings including onsite personnel, a 30-minute response time guarantee and onsite parts inventory. This comprehensive set of Premier Options includes the best that Sun Preventive Services has to offer plus additional high-touch service options aimed at reducing total cost of ownership, mitigating issues before they arise, increasing availability and improving overall datacenter health.