Sun's Project Mad Hatter is designed as a secure, low-cost alternative for the Linux and Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS). Details of the integrated, open-source desktop environment such as a full suite of desktop applications were displayed as Sun previewed Project Mad Hatter at the LinuxWorld Conference.

Sun has announced its intent to acquire the application provisioning software developer CenterRun to help fill out its N1 computing initiative. With the new acquisition, Sun would be able to automate at the application layer. The $66 million deal is expected to close in September.

The Sun Fire V480 server now features 1.05 GHz UltraSPARC III Cu processors and is able to provide customers with more processing power, offering a 22 percent performance increase and a 26 percent price-performance increase. In recent industry-standard benchmark tests, the newly equipped server proved to be the best price-performance four-way system on the market.

To help push forward the development of open standard software, including Linux, Sun has joined with the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) to lend its expertise in the data center and carrier-grade markets. Sun will take part in the Carrier Grade Linux and Data Center Linux working groups.

Mozilla 1.2.1 for the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) is now available. It includes the Browser, Mail, Composer and ChatZilla. AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) has been replaced with ChatZilla, an Internet Relay Chat Client (IRC) client. With Mozilla 1.2.1 for the Solaris OS, users can surf the Web, communicate with colleagues, participate in discussion groups and create dynamic Web pages. Mozilla 1.2.1 for the Solaris OS is free; there are no licensing fees.

Sun Software Support services have been repriced to meet market/competitive requirements. Sun Software Support services offers two distinct levels of service: Standard and Premium. Many software products from the Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) group have been repriced.

The 15th annual Hot Chips Symposium addresses the latest topics in the high performance chips market. Designers and architects of high performance chips, software and systems will find three days of presentations, tutorials and technical sessions on the most recent developments and leading-edge designs. Session topics include testing and reliability and cryptographic engineering.

Trade in and upgrade existing UltraSPARC III 750 MHz, 900 MHz (Cu) or 1.05 GHz (Cu) Uniboards to receive a trade-in allowance of 35 percent towards the purchase of select new UltraSPARC III Cu 1.2 GHz Uniboards. This promotion applies to upgrades for the Sun Fire 4800 servers, Sun Fire 6800 servers, Sun Fire 12K servers and Sun Fire 15K servers. The expiration date of the promotion is March 30, 2004.

Sun is introducing a lower-priced base cabinet (F6800-1) for the Sun Fire 6800 server. The cabinet also has new warranty terms. Sun is also now offering an optional earthquake restraint kit for the Sun Fire 6800 server. And, the configuration requirement which mandated that all four I/O assembly slots be occupied with either PCI, cPCI or Sun Fire Link assemblies has been reduced.

The "Cisco Cookbook" from O'Reilly by Kevin Dooley and Ian J. Brown provides recipes of the most common tasks network engineers perform to solve Cisco router problems. Examples of the problems include configuring interfaces of many types, from serial to ATM and Frame Relay; and configuring authentication and other services, including DHCP and NTP.

"AspectJ in Action: Practical Aspect-Oriented Programming," by Sun Certified Architect of Java Technology, Ramnivas Laddad, is a 512-page book that contains reusable code examples, presents design patterns and idioms and new AspectJ patterns. The book is aimed at intermediate to advanced Java technology developers.

The SunNetwork Conference 2003 will offer Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions, over 200 technical sessions, news such as new hardware and software features for designing, implementing and managing architectures that support future growth, and information on Project Orion and Project Rave. Other topics include security functionality and taking advantage of tomorrow's multi-threaded processors.

The Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) platform delivers a two-to-one total cost of ownership (TCO) advantage in messaging over IBM and Microsoft, according to a recent study by The Radicati Group. The study, titled "Messaging Total Cost of Ownership 2003," calculated annual TCO over a three-year period for enterprise messaging and collaboration.

To manage increasingly complex applications in today's business environment, VERITAS offers VERITAS i3. The new solution aims to fill the need for businesses to provide customers, users and partners with optimal service. By optimizing interactions VERITAS i3 is designed to offer benefits to a range of users, from the business user to IT staff.

Sun and VERITAS are helping Carnival Cruise Lines meet its growing business needs by supplying Sun Enterprise servers and the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) in combination with Oracle databases. This new system helps Carnival run all of its shipboard and shoreside operations, and the Oracle databases are administered by Sun's performance management partner, VERITAS.

Sun and Oracle are engaged in a joint sales training and telemarketing campaign to inform customers of the benefits of running Oracle solutions on Sun servers, specifically the newly released Oracle Collaboration Suite, release 2. Together Sun and Oracle want to reduce costs and give customers an improved collaboration platform.

Celequest 2.0 is an integrated software suite for building and deploying business activity monitoring (BAM) solutions across the enterprise. The solution consists of a server, modeler, dashboard and a workbench. It monitors events such as increases in call volume in a call center or a drop in inventory levels.