It's Not the Size of Your Wave

It's the Power of Your Ocean

Sun's latest Solaris Upgrade Delivers High-end Capacity and Price/Performance in a month-long test at Netscape's Web-site

MENLO PARK, CA -- September 11, 1996 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced that an enhanced version of its SolarisTM 2.5.1 operating environment can offer companies the high performance necessary to successfully extend their businesses onto traffic- intensive Internet Web-sites. During a month-long series of tests with Netscape Communications Corporation, the enhanced version of Solaris 2.5.1 software running on a single, dual- processor NetraTM Internet Server, managed 18 million hits a day to Netscape's Internet site -- which currently receives more than 90 million hits a day.

The enhanced version of the Solaris 2.5.1 operating environment resulted in a 300 percent performance increase over previous tests running 2.5 software on the same hardware. Solaris 2.5.1 software is currently available for both SPARCTM and Intel platforms. The web-enhanced version is expected to be available in October, 1996.

"Sun and Netscape provide their customers with technologies that support the kind of growth mandatory for realistic Internet applications," said Janpieter Schereeder, president of SunSoft. "On the Internet, businesses can no longer predict or control the number of customers that will use the services they extend. It is imperative that the software they choose be able to accommodate the ever increasing numbers without failure."

"Netscape's server software, for Sun's Solaris and Netra, offers customers a flexible and affordable means of extending their business to the Internet," said Srivats Sampath, vice president of server marketing. "Together, Netscape and Sun are making it easy for customers to leverage the open standards of the Internet and their enterprise software and hardware investments to build high- performance intranets and commercial web sites."

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

With annual revenues exceeding $7 billion, Sun Microsystems, Inc. provides products and services that enable customers to build and maintain open network computing environments. Widely recognized as a proponent of open standards, the company is involved in the design, manufacture and sale of products, technologies and services for commercial and technical computing. Sun's SPARC workstations, multiprocessing servers, SPARC microprocessors, Solaris operating software and ISO-certified service organization each rank No. 1 in the UNIX® industry. JavaTM, Sun's platform-independent programming language, provides a comprehensive solution to the challenge of programming for complex networks, including the Internet. Sun Microsystems was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, SunSoft, Java, Netra, and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and in 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. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

Netscape and Netscape Communications Corporation are trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation.