Sun Microsystems Powers More Web 2.0 Innovators

Sun Startup Essentials Program Removes Barriers to Advanced Sun Technology for Next-Generation Companies.

SANTA CLARA, CA .- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) today announced that cutting-edge Web 2.0 companies continue to turn to Sun and its Sun Startup Essentials program for advanced server, software and storage technologies to run their businesses. For startup innovators such as FortiusOne, Postful, Inc., and SearchForce, Sun’s Startup Essentials program provides discounted access to the company’s award-winning technologies including the Solaris Operating System (OS), Sun Fire x64 servers, Sun Fire SPARC servers with CoolThreads technology and Sun’s storage products.

Since its inception in 2006, 1,200+ early-stage and Web 2.0 companies have applied to the Sun Startup Essentials program and approved startups are eligible to receive program member benefits that improve their time to market, maximize IT efficiencies and cut costs.

FortiusOne
FortiusOne provides next-generation intelligent mapping solutions that make the exploding world of geographic data widely accessible via the Internet. The company’s intelligent mapping Web services require huge amounts of computational power and storage capacity. To meet the needs of its growing business, FortiusOne had to strike a balance between costs and the need for a scalable and high-performance infrastructure. After reviewing alternative options, the company chose Sun’s Startup Essentials program enabling them to purchase Sun’s highly scalable server and storage technologies at discounted prices.

“We are at the forefront of the next-generation Web, where massive amounts of structured and unstructured data and powerful Web computing technologies are converging,” said Sean Gorman, CEO of FortiusOne. “The technological breakthroughs implemented in our GeoCommons Web service platform required a very scalable and high-performance infrastructure. Sun met our needs with cost-effective solutions across our product lines.”

Postful, Inc.
Taking web-based collaboration to a new level, Los-Angeles-based startup Postful, Inc. provides customers with an integrated print and mail utility service for the Web. The company offers small firms and mobile workers the resources of a large corporate mail room. It also provides a service where e-mails are sent via traditional mail benefiting the 65 million Americans who are not online. The company previously hosted its service on a virtual private server (VPS) and then migrated to its own Linux-based servers, but required more reliability. After conducting an extensive search for alternatives, Postful chose the Sun Startup Essentials program which provided access to free software and enterprise grade-IT products at low prices and discounted Web hosting. As a result of choosing the Solaris 10 OS and the Sun Fire x64 servers, Postful has noted a fifty percent reduction in the amount of developer time spent maintaining servers and a forty five percent reduction in hosting costs.

“The Sun Startup Essentials program was my first direct contact with Sun and I am deeply impressed,” said Justin Garten, Founder, Postful. “The switch to Sun has proved its worth many times. We can clearly see the advantages of Solaris over Linux. Additionally, the stability, tools and flexibility of Solaris are hugely valuable. As a result of using Sun, Postful has seen a thirty percent increase in performance and an eighty percent reduction in power and cooling costs. These are big savings that really impact the bottom line and our ability to offer customers a reliable and cost effective service.”

SearchForce
SearchForce, a Web services software provider, offers agencies and advertisers a single united interface for search engine marketing and portfolio management. Advertising agencies with a vested interest in the search engine performance of millions of keywords benefit significantly from SearchForce’s highly scalable platform, targeted at maximizing return on investment on pay-per-click marketing initiatives. After comparing the Solaris 10 OS on the Sun Fire x64 servers with other vendor offerings, SearchForce found that Sun’s technologies offered better throughput numbers and a seventy percent decrease in power consumption. Based on this information, SearchForce made the decision to move away from Dell servers powered by Red Hat Linux ES4 and leveraged Sun’s Startup Essentials program to conduct a complete datacenter refresh. As a result of using Sun servers, the Solaris 10 OS and Sun StorageTek arrays, SearchForce has tripled throughput and enhanced its storage environment.

“By choosing Sun, we have cut costs and improved our performance, especially in the area of response time,” said David Simon, Chairman, SearchForce. “Sun’s Startup Essentials program was extremely helpful and enabled us to implement a full datacenter refresh in a cost effective and timely manner. We were particularly impressed to find that Sun Fire servers with CoolThreads technology can handle two to three times the load of our former machines while consuming about one quarter of the electricity used.”

Sun Startup Essentials Program

In addition to offering deeply discounted servers, storage and services to Web 2.0 and early-stage companies, the Sun Startup Essentials program also offers free technical advice via email and access to free software, such as Apache, MySQL and Perl (AMP), Ruby on Rails optimized to run on the Solaris 10 OS. The program also offers eligible companies the option of reduced price Web hosting services through Sun partners including Joyent, Layered Technologies and NaviSite. For more information or to join the program, please visit http://www.sun.com/startup.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- “The Network is the Computer” -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Sun Startup Essentials, Sun Fire, Solaris, StorageTek, CoolThreads, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.