Sun Microsystems Helps Broadcast Industry Bridge the Gap to Next-Generation Multi-Format Content Delivery

Content Lifecycle Management Products Reshape Media, Entertainment and Broadcast Industries.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. NAB 2006, April 18, 2006 In advance of next week’s annual National Association of Broadcasters Conference (NAB) in Las Vegas, Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced a series of industry-leading, open standards-based products, technologies and solutions to help media, entertainment and broadcast companies manage and distribute digital content to next-generation multiple platforms.

With the convergence of voice, video and data over the Internet, consumers now have a great deal more choice in how and where they consume content -- over the Internet or via a TV, PC or cell phone. Media companies such as cable operators, movie production houses, content creators and broadcasters need to move quickly to adjust to this new phenomenon. They are turning to Sun for help. At NAB booth SL3809, Sun will show how it is working with key ISVs to provide one of the industry’s most comprehensive and cost-effective media distribution and management solution -- all the way from the data center to consumer platforms like HDTV, IPTV, Blu-Ray disc, mobile phone, PC and TV set- top box.

“Consumers are now driving the broadcast business -- they are determining where and when, and in what form, they would like to consume content,” said Juan Dewar, vice president, Internet Services, Media and Entertainment Industries. “Sun’s 20 years of IT networking experience and comprehensive product port folio makes us the ideal technology partner for the media industry as it is now turns to IT-centric technologies in its day-to-day operations to help it meet the demands of today’s empowered consumers.”

Most Comprehensive Media Storage Solution with StorageTek Acquisition

With the acquisition of StorageTek, a leading provider of enterprise content lifecycle management, Sun Microsystems will showcase one of the most comprehensive hierarchical storage management solution for the broadcast and production industry based on Sun StoreEdge(TM) and StorageTek Flexline(TM) Product Families (SL500, SL8500 and 6920 mid-range disk and NAS). These product lines are designed to reduce storage management complexity, improve performance, reliability and accessibility, and allow for easier growth cost effectively. Key new broadcast customers leveraging these winning products will be announced at the show next week.

Photo and interactive simulation of SL 8500 Robotic Data Retrieval: http://www.storagetek.com/products/product_page560.html

Dramatic Price-Performance Gains in Media Management and Storage

Sun will be holding a technology demonstration of low-price, media asset management products that provide a comprehensive end-to-end solution for managing video and rich media.

* Video Ingest Management System (VIMS): VIMS provides all the capabilities media professionals need to ingest, digitize, catalog, and store up to 200 hours of content (DV50) on a single high-performance video workstation at under $10K.
* Video Asset Management System (VAMS): A complete video asset management system in a single box at under $30K. VAMS will store up to 200 hours of MPEG2 video files plus proxies.

Media Asset Management Reference (MAM) Architecture 2.2: With MAM version 2.2, Sun has again made major improvements to the award-winning MAM Reference Architecture version 2.2. Java(TM) technologies have been employed to improve overall workflow efficiency and enhance integration with an even wider range of legacy broadcast systems such as Harris and AVID playout servers and Front Porch Digital’s DIVA archive solution.

Open Standards to Drive Innovation and Decrease Cost

Also at Sun’s booth, the High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance (HANA) will demonstrate a next-generation connected home entertainment experience based on new high-definition (HD) products and open standards-based networking solutions. Sun is a founding member of the HANA alliance. HANA’s mission is to create a design guideline for secure high-definition audio-video networks that will speed the creation of new, high-quality, easy-to-use HD products. More information on HANA can be found at: http://www.hanaalliance.org/.

Demonstrating Multi-Format Content Distribution with Industry Partners

As a leading advocate of open standards-based technologies, Sun works with a multitude of companies in the industry. Those demonstrating innovative solutions on Sun platforms at NAB include:

* Agnostic Media -- GridCoder, a multi-format software-based transcoding solution and introducing VODFlow, an automated VOD asset management playout solution that provides dynamically added graphic overlays, ratings and interstitials.
* PacketVideo Network Solutions -- turnkey solutions for content encoding and application development to deliver compelling TV and media user experiences on Java technology-enabled handsets.
* Digisoft Limited -- a stand-alone IPTV laboratory to design, develop, deploy and test IPTV applications.
* Zodiac Gaming -- Cross platform game play from mobile phones to TVs, employing Java as the common language across both the handset and the OpenCable Applications Platform (OCAP) set-top box.
* Sonic Solutions -- Scenarist®, a Blu-Ray Disc authoring tool that uses a powerful Java integrated development environment to build interactive Java-enabled applications.

Experts to Share Industry Experience

Tom Jacobs, Director of Engineering in Sun Labs, will be speaking at the conference about Sun’s Open Media Commons, a community initiative to develop open source, royalty-free digital rights management (DRM) solutions.

Date: Monday, April 24
Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00pm
Location: South Hall, Room S221
Title: Consumer or Content: Who’s Really King of the Digital Rights Hill?

Katherine Parker, Manager of Sun Media and Entertainment Media Sales will be moderating an industry panel to discuss HD.

Date: Wednesday, April 26
Time: 2:15pm - 2:45pm
Location: South Hall, Lower Level, Room S114
Title: Low Resolution to Hi Definition: Analyzing the Different File Formats

Members of the press and analyst community interested in meeting with a Sun executive prior to NAB or at the show are invited to contact: Diane Hepps at diane.hepps@bitepr.com or Rebecca Lui at rebecca.lui@sun.com for press inquiries; Christine Sten at christine.sten@sun.com for analyst inquiries.

Sun Microsystems NAB virtual press kit: http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/nab2006/index.html
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision -- “The Network Is The Computer” -- guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

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

Contact Information

Rebecca Lui

Press Contact

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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