Sun Microsystems has added the education market to its effort to reduce cost and complexity in the IT marketplace. Sun is now offering the Sun JavaTM Enterprise System, a consolidation of Sun's entire network services architecture, to schools at the rate of $50 per faculty/administrator per year. The Sun Java Enterprise System entitles customers to infinite right to use in Internet applications and includes an integrated JavaTM Web Services platform.

Not only does this offering reduce direct deployment costs, it also eliminates the conventional software audits called for by other vendors in establishing price points. Sun has already provided more than $7 billion in software, support and training to education and research communities by offering its broad range of software technologies and Web-based training curriculum to eligible institutions.

"We are continually evaluating our technology and the budget required to update, maintain and train our staff to use them. But with many vendors, it's difficult to predict licensing costs because they vary by numbers of users and deployments," said Kevin Legget, assistant director Enterprise Application Technology Services from Northeastern University. "The Java Enterprise System will dramatically reduce our acquisition costs with the attractive faculty and administrative employee pricing plan and provides us with a predictable cost structure for managing the University's IT budget."

"While other major technology vendors continue to lock schools into expensive and restrictive licensing agreements that they can't afford, Sun understands the unique technology needs and budget restrictions that schools face," said Kim Jones, vice president, Global Education and Research for Sun. "By offering a lower-cost alternative, Sun is changing the education technology market for the better -- ensuring that schools have the best, affordable options available for their specific computing needs."

Three important new features characterize the Sun Java Enterprise System as a powerful tool for aligning IT investment with business priorities. These are:

• An integrated, open, standards-based software system that delivers a core set of industry-leading enterprise network services: Network identity; portal; communications and collaboration; application and Web; availability; and security services

• A new development, test, delivery and servicing approach enabling improved planning of software, services and resources to meet business needs

• A new business model that provides a single subscription and price for the software system, maintenance, support, consulting and education services

Sun also continues to make free donations of the StarOfficeTM Office Suite to educational institutions, giving students and teachers worldwide access to the Internet and open source technology. To date, Sun has given free StarOffice software licensing to nearly 138,000 school districts, higher education institutions and Ministries of Education in 19 countries. [...read more...]

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