Sun and Oracle's commitment to each other runs more than skin deep. Each company actually runs a considerable portion of their critical operations with products from the other. Oracle uses Sun products for many of its own mission-critical applications, while Sun uses Oracle applications while conducting its day-to-day business.

Sun uses Oracle solutions for a range of operations, including in its manufacturing facility in Linlithgow, Scotland. The complex makes use of Oracle's ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) applications, which are delivered from a centralized Sun server to Sun RayTM desktop appliances. The finance department at the Scottish site has been using Oracle Financials for years.

The facility at Linlithgow benefits from Oracle's ERP solution through streamlined business processes and greater efficiency across the entire enterprise. The solution offers a complete set of business applications to manage customer interactions, the manufacture of products, the shipment of orders, payment collection and more. Sun and Oracle work together closely to optimize Sun's investment in Oracle applications.

"Key benefits of the Sun/Oracle solution, versus our previous system, are the scalability and flexibility of both the infrastructure and the applications, together with the reduction in administration and maintenance costs and the increase in business efficiencies," said David Wilson, Business Process Analyst, Sun. "The cost of looking after the old system was huge compared with the Sun/Oracle model. Moving to the Sun/Oracle solution has enabled us to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of our manufacturing systems significantly -- and when you consider that we've now replaced similar legacy systems on a worldwide basis, the cost savings across the whole enterprise are massive."

With the recent implementation of the Sun/Oracle ERP program, which was implemented worldwide after its success in Scotland, Sun has achieved increased systems flexibility and scalability, streamlined its operations, optimized its supply chain and reduced its costs by million of dollars every year.

"As well as providing a platform that is optimized to get the best out of Oracle applications, Sun also has the ideal solution for delivering the applications to users' desktops -- thin client Sun Ray appliances." Wilson continued, "The ERP applications sit on one, centralized server in the US, and UK users can get instant access to the system from any Sun Ray device, using their own personal smart card. With no moving parts, Sun Ray appliances are far more reliable than PCs and they generate less heat and less noise, so the office environment is greatly improved."

Sun's savings include:

• $1.6 million annual savings on outsourced maintenance for EOL'd (End of Life) servers and databases

• $3.7 million annual savings on internal IT operations infrastructure costs

• Over $10 million estimated annual savings in cost avoidance on IT initiatives, by not having to undertake development and process integration on multiple systems

For more information, visit:

http://uk.sun.com/company/success/manufacturing/111.html

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