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                                                        The Florida SunFlash

                        HOT OFF THE PRESS

SunFLASH Vol 45 #6					      September 1992 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an edited version of an internal newsletter that I have been
given permission to post to this mailing list.  -johnj
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              Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation
                           Recent News
                          August, 1992


               Published by SMCC Public Relations
*******************************************************************************
                            Contents

                         SMI Highlights
                        SMCC Highlights
                     SunConnect Highlights
                     SunExpress Highlights
                       SunPics Highlights
                       SunPro Highlights
                      SunSelect Highlights
                    SunSolutions Highlights
                     STATE OF THE BUSINESS
                          SPARC Facts
                         SUN'S MOMENTUM


SMI Highlights ---------------------------------------------------------------

* The American Red Cross named Sun Microsystems the "Corporate
  Philanthropist of the Year", a national award given to the corporation
  that best exemplifies the spirit of community involvement.

* SMI reported record revenues for the fourth quarter and fiscal year
  1992. See the "State of the Business" section for more financial
  information.

* In the United States, SMI will be consolidating its Massachusetts
  offices into a single "campus" located in Chelmsford. The new location
  will serve as Sun's East Coast headquarters. Relocation to the
  Chelmsford campus will be complete by the end of 1993.

* Sun selected Oracle's manufacturing and financial applications for
  the automation of its worldwide manufacturing facilities and signed a
  joint development agreement to advance Oracle Manufacturing and
  Oracle Financials to new levels of distributed functionality. The
  Sun/Oracle implementation will be the first distributed solution to
  address a global corporation's multi-plant, multi-country, and
  multi-lingual requirements across all Sun distributed manufacturing
  facilities.

SMCC Highlights --------------------------------------------------------------

* SMCC launched an aggressive worldwide trade-up program to move
  Hewlett-Packard/Apollo users to SMCC's popular SPARCstation systems.
  The trade-in values being offered to trade-up customers by SMCC are as
  much as 50 percent greater than those from HP. SMCC also offers
  generous trade-in terms and a vastly superior system upgrade and
  expansion solution.

* FANUC LTD. of Japan, the world's largest supplier of manufacturing
  automation tools, will sell SMCC's SPARCstation workstations with
  CADKEY computer-aided design (CAD) software in an advanced system
  called FANUC CAD DIE. This agreement marks the first time FANUC has
  chosen to distribute hardware and software technologies other than its
  own.

* SMCC announced that Solaris 2.0 is available for all Sun workstations
  currently being shipped. Solaris 2.0 support for the SPARCstation 10,
  SPARCserver 10 and the SPARCserver 600MP Series is scheduled for later
  this year. All future SMCC workstation and server products will be
  based on Solaris 2.0 and future Solaris releases.

* Machine Design recognized SMCC with its 1992 CAD/CAM Leader Award.

* SMCC opened its Japan Technology Center in Kanagawa Science Park,
  Tokyo. The engineering center will build on key Japanese technologies
  in products developed by SMCC for worldwide markets. The center will
  explore joint development projects in areas such as peripherals,
  displays, input devices, portable products and consumer electronics
  integration. The center will also perform software localization and
  cooperative engineering with local suppliers.

* Oracle achieved the highest-ever Transaction Processing Council
  Benchmark A (TPC-A local) result among database vendors running on a
  Sun SPARCserver 690MP. This benchmark test, which resulted in 107.28
  transactions per second (tps), is the first performance figure reported
  for Oracle's latest RDBMS release, ORACLE7.

* Three of SMCC's customers were honored with the Computerworld
  Smithsonian Award for their innovative use of information technology.
  The winners were Federal Express Corporation, The Wilderness Society
  and Intelligenetics, Inc.

* In an effort to make using and supporting Sun workstations even
  easier, SMCC introduced SunSolve and Sun HelpDesk. SunSolve is a new
  software product that gives Sun SPARCstation users instant on-line
  access to service information such as technical bulletins and
  problem/resolution databases. Sun HelpDesk is a service product that
  assists Sun resellers who deliver support through the SunPartners
  service programs in setting up their own help desks, so that they can
  support their users more efficiently.

* The Foxboro Company introduced industrial automation products based
  on Sun SPARC systems. With the addition of Foxboro, three of the top
  distributed control system (DCS) vendors in the United States -
  including Westinghouse and Johnson-Yokogawa - now use SMCC's systems as
  their sole or primary platform. SMCC has been making rapid gains in the
  process control market, and anticipates sales of more than $100 million
  in hardware into this market by 1995.

* Mitsubishi Bank of Japan has designed and installed the first trading
  system in Japan that links online with a bank branch system for
  real-time exchange of data between all 300 bank branches and the
  dealing room. The system includes 100 SPARCstation 2s and two
  SPARCserver 490s, a relational database from Sybase and Japanese
  OpenWindows.

* SMCC and Coral Systems will jointly market Coral's "Intelligent
  Network" solution for cellular service providers internationally. Under
  the companies' agreement, two new products, called HLR (Home Location
  Register) and FraudBuster, will be introduced at the end of 1992. The
  products will run on the SPARCserver 600MP Series and the Solaris
  environment.

* SMCC signed a reseller agreement with Auto-Grafica, one of the largest
  integrators and distributors of pre-press systems in the newspaper and
  graphic arts industries. SMCC is the first UNIX-based hardware vendor
  chosen and supported by Auto-Grafica.

* SMCC has been chosen to supply the computer equipment that is central
  to the Vasari project. Vasari (Visual Art System for Archiving and
  retrieval of Images), a three-year project, is funded by the EEC's
  ESPRIT II program (Office & Business Systems) and is driven in the UK
  by the National Gallery and Birkbeck College, University of London.
  The Vasari project aims to show that it is feasible to make
  high-resolution digital images with accurate color directly from
  paintings. The digital images can record color more precisely than
  photographic materials and are not subject to deterioration over time.

* SMCC and General Electric Information Services (GEIS) entered an
  agreement to promote networked, UNIX-based information and document
  management systems. The new solutions will combine SMCC's SPARC/Solaris
  systems with GEIS' expertise in system integration and development of
  customized applications. The solution's advanced database retrieval,
  messaging and electronic data interchange (EDI) technology will allow
  users throughout an enterprise to share not only text but complex
  compound documents containing graphics and images.

* SMCC shipped new versions of four SPARCompilers and the SPARCworks
  development tools, the first development environment for the new
  Solaris 2.0 distributed computing environment. This suite of compilers
  and tools gives programmers unparalleled productivity in designing UNIX
  software on Sun SPARC systems and other SPARC platforms.

* SMCC introduced the SBus Expansion Subsystem, a new high-performance
  desktop SBus expansion product that provides three additional SBus
  slots for several of SMCC's popular desktop workstations and
  servers.The new SBus Expansion Subsystem allows increased disk space,
  accommodating up to two 424-megabyte disk drives.

* Ten leading software and system vendors in the retail industry are
  moving to the Sun platform. SMCC and its new partners will work
  together to provide a full range of retail solutions, from those for
  corporate headquarters to in-store systems and distribution centers.
  These vendors include: American Turnkey, Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing,
  IMC Systems Group, Inc., Information Marketing Businesses, Inc., Micro
  Computer Systems, Inc., Progressive Solutions, Inc., Quintillion,
  Software Artistry, Inc., Symbol Technologies, Inc., and Telesis
  Computer Corporation.

* SMCC will supply a SPARCstation-based client-server system to MTV
  Europe, the fastest-growing cable and satellite television channel in
  Europe. The system will be used to run a Sybase database of its
  subscribers and third parties around Europe. The system is also being
  used to archive news scripts and will be employed to digitize MTV
  Europe's substantial press clippings database for optical storage
  archiving.

*SMCC established Sun Mexico as its 20th worldwide subsidiary and its
  second subsidiary in Latin America. Sun Mexico will provide local
  sales, service and marketing support to SMCC's distributors,
  value-added resellers and customers in Mexico. Latin America is one of
  SMCC's fastest-growing geographies, with Mexico playing a key role.
  SMCC is the leading workstation/server vendor in Mexico, according to
  International Data Corporation.

* SMCC systems were selected as the software development platform for
  Switzerland's Electronic Stock Exchange. This project will be developed
  under the responsibility of the Association Tripartite Bourses (ATB),
  an association of the three Swiss stock exchanges (Basle, Geneva and
  Zurich).

* SMCC client-server systems have been selected by the Thai Insurers
  Datanet Company, a part of Thai Reinsurance Company Limited. The SPARC
  workstations and servers will be used to store automobile insurance
  data and will run a turnkey solution based on a relational database
  management system provided by Datamat Company.

* SMCC and Xerox signed a joint marketing and sales agreement to
  develop document and information management solutions and integration
  services targeted at the manufacturing and utilities industries. These
  solutions will combine SMCC's SPARC-based workstations and servers with
  integration expertise and document/information management software
  applications from Xerox.

* SMCC shipped the first in a series of on-line interactive training
  tools, condensing more than 16 hours of classroom lecture into a lively
  multimedia experience. Called "SunTutor: OpenWindows Environment for
  Users," the new course is designed for first-time users of Sun
  workstations, allowing them to be trained on a Sun system in the
  convenience of their own office.

* Mentor Graphics Corp. is migrating its industry-leading electronic
  design automation software to the Solaris 2.0 operating environment.
  Mentor Graphics is porting its Sun-based products to SunSoft's new
  operating environment and expects to complete most of this effort in
  1993.

* PRC and SMCC plan to jointly market technical document managememnt
  imaging solutions to petrochemical industries worldwide. The systems
  integration agreement includes SMCC's SPARC systems and PRC's RoleModel
  TDMS (technical document management system). RoleModel TDMS is PRC's
  object-oriented technical document management application and software
  integration strategy for interfacing a variety of commercial
  applications, using multiple data formats, and diverse hardware
  platforms, to manage technical drawings and related information.

SunConnect Highlights --------------------------------------------------------

* SunConnect introduced SunNet Manager Version 2.0, which provides new
  management capabilities that allow users to manage complex multi-vendor
  networks quickly and efficiently. Today, SunNet Manager runs on
  SPARC/Solaris systems; in the future, it will also be available for
  other UNIX systems, including those running Solaris 2.0 for the 80X86
  platform, IBM RS/6000 and HP 9000 series systems.

* SunConnect also announced that more than 35 new development and
  distribution partners have been added to SunConnect's Partners Program
  for network management, bringing the current total to 68 vendors
  worldwide.

* SunConnect expanded its worldwide operations by opening two new
  offices in Europe. The offices are located in France and the United
  Kingdom and will market the full line of SunConnect UNIX integration,
  LAN/WAN connectivity and network management products throughout Europe.
  SunConnect will have a presence in Germany by the end of 1992.

* SunConnect, along with Intel, Microsoft, Novell and SynOptics
  Communications, jointly announced that they are working together to
  address PC workstation management issues. Specific customer concerns
  that the group expects to address include: resource management,
  configuration management, performance analysis, software monitoring and
  security. The group intends to specify PC workstation information that
  can be integrated into a variety of network management environments.

SunExpress Highlights --------------------------------------------------------

* SunExpress unveiled dramatic price reductions across its entire U.S.
  product line, moving from list pricing to highly competitive
  non-discountable "street" prices that are typically quoted by direct
  sales organizations. The pricing is part of SunExpress' new business
  direction, which is to focus on satisfying end user demand by being the
  low-price, direct source for Sun and third-party customer-installable
  non-system products.

* The Tadpole Technology SPARCbook, a notebook computer, is available
  to end users and resellers in the United States through the SunExpress
  telemarketing sales channel.

* SunExpress has expanded its operations to Japan and will initially
  support the end user education market.

SunPics Highlights -----------------------------------------------------------

* SunPics, with Nihon Sun, has signed an agreement with two additional
  Japanese type vendors, who will produce Kanji fonts in F3 format.  Type
  suppliers in Japan have announced the availability of 25 F3 Kanji
  typefaces by the end of the year.

* SunPics, in cooperation with ICON, shipped a version of NeWSprint for
  Korea. With this localized version available, NeWSprint is providing
  open network printing for the emerging Korean market.

* A BIS International study reported that the SPARCprinter has a 77
  percent share of unit shipments in its UNIX market performance class.
  The next closest competitor is the H-P LaserJet IIIsi, with a 17
  percent market share.

SunPro Highlights ------------------------------------------------------------

* SunPro's SPARCworks Professional family of development environments
  has been enhanced to improve performance of applications running on
  SuperSPARC-based workstations by 8% to 12% over the previous release.

* SunPro introduced the C Transition Pack - a combination of compilers
  and development tools that ease the process of migrating C applications
  from Solaris 1.0 to Solaris 2.0. Transition Packs were also introduced
  for C++, Pascal, and FORTRAN. Each Transition Pack combines a compiler
  and development tools for use on Solaris 1.0, with the latest version
  of the SPARCworks Professional development environment for use on
  Solaris 2.0.

* SunPro established its European headquarters in Velizy, France.
  SunPro plans additional regional offices in the United Kingdom and
  Germany by the end of 1992.

SunSelect Highlights ---------------------------------------------------------

* SunSelect established its European headquarters in Bagshot, United
  Kingdom. It is responsible for the marketing, service, support and
  distribution of the PC-NFS, SunPC and NetWare SunLink product lines in
  the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Finland, Denmark,
  Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal.

* SunSelect is shipping its NetWare SunLink software for integrating
  Novell NetWare networks with SPARC and Solaris environments. The
  NetWare SunLink product allows DOS, Microsoft Windows and OS/2 NetWare
  system users to share data, files and print services with UNIX system
  workgroups.

* SunSelect, FTP Software, Inc., JSB Corporation and Microsoft
  Corporation unveiled the Windows Sockets API, a public interface
  specification for TCP/IP applications running under Microsoft Windows.
  The Windows Sockets API specification defines a standard interface
  between a Microsoft Windows application and a TCP/IP protocol
  implementation. An application written to this interface will be able
  to run unchanged over TCP/IP implementations from many different
  vendors under Windows and Windows NT.

SunSoft Highlights -----------------------------------------------------------
* SunSoft shipped Solaris 2.0 for SPARC, culminating one of the
  computer industry's most ambitious software undertakings.

* SunSoft demonstrated its Solaris 2.0 distributed computing solution
  operating on X86-based computers at PC Expo, running the full 32-bit
  environment on systems from leading personal computer manufacturers
  including Dell Computer, Zenith Data Systems and CompuAdd.

* Five additional computer manufacturers - NCR Corp., Everex, Zenith,
  Olivetti, and ICL - announced their intention to support Solaris 2.0 on
  their X86 systems. These companies join the growing list of vendors
  that have announced support for Solaris 2.0 software, including some of
  the world's most powerful PC and server suppliers such as Dell
  Computer, Toshiba, AST Research, CompuAdd and NetFRAME.

* SunSoft introduced Solaris Federated Services, technology that allows
  third-party network services to plug into the Solaris software. These
  include Novell's NetWare, the Open Software Foundation's Distributed
  Computing Environment (DCE) and the International Standards
  Organization's Open Systems Interconnect (OSI).

* SunSoft enhanced its existing Solaris networking technology to
  feature new naming, filing, distributed application and security
  services. Now called ONC+, the technology builds on the largest
  installed base in the heterogeneous networking arena - according to
  Dataquest, ONC technology currently has an installed base of 3.1
  million nodes, a 42 percent growth increase since 1990.

* SunSoft introduced the industry's first foundation imaging library
  with open hardware and software interface specifications - XIL. The new
  API (application programming interface) provides software and hardware
  developers with a standard interface for developing imaging and
  full-motion video products that are portable and scalable across
  Solaris-based systems. XIL adds to SunSoft's XGL interface for 2-D and
  3-D geometries, increasing the company's graphics offerings for the
  Solaris environment.

* Guy (Bud) L. Tribble, one of the industry's noted experts in software
  development and object-oriented programming, joined SunSoft as vice
  president of end user software. Tribble was most recently vice
  president of software engineering and one of the six founders of NeXT
  Computer.

* According to PC Magazine (May, 1992), "Solaris is one of the slickest
  and most elegant UNIX implementations on the market, and it feels much
  more like System 7 than Microsoft Windows 3.0. The GUI is elegantly
  designed and FAST, and it will be familiar to Windows users."

SunSolutions Highlights ------------------------------------------------------

* SunSolutions, a product development venture within Sun Technology
  Enterprises, introduced ShowMe, an easy-to-use computer conferencing
  software product. ShowMe software lets SPARC workstation users conduct
  on-line meetings, allowing groups to view and interactively collaborate
  on documents, graphics, spreadsheets and other images over a TCP/IP
  network. Using on-screen markers, participants in a ShowMe conference
  can annotate shared documents simultaneously in real time, so users
  interact and communicate much the same way they would in a meeting
  room.


STATE OF THE BUSINESS --------------------------------------------------------

* SMCC remained the workstation/server market leader in 1991, with
  39.6% of worldwide workstation/server shipments, according to IDC
  reports. (HP: 16.8%; DEC: 13.8%; IBM: 5.6%; NeXT: 5.4%)

* Sun's Q4 FY92 revenues were a record $972.7 million, a 3% increase
  over the $942.5 million reported in the same period a year ago.

* Net income for the quarter was $37.7 million, or $0.37 per share.

* SMCC shipped a record 56,000 units in Q4. Cumulative installed base
  is more than 650,000 units.

* Revenues per employee for the last 12 months were $280,000 - the
  highest revenues per employee of any computer company utilizing a
  direct sales business model.

* Sun's FY92 revenues were $3.6 billion, up from the $3.2 billion
  reported in FY91.

* Net income for FY92 was $173.3 million, or $1.71 per share.

* Sun is ranked #146 on the 1991 Fortune 500 list, moving up from 181.

* Sun is ranked as America's second largest exporter as a percentage of
  sales (49.3%), according to Fortune magazine, June 29, 1992.


		 -- Standard & Poor's 500 --

Sun was added to the Standard & Poor's 500, formally known as the S&P
500 Composite Stock Price Index. The S&P 500 is considered an accurate
indicator of the price movements of U.S. public company common stocks.
Many institutional investors are not permitted to invest in any
companies other than those on the S&P 500, and many index funds
automatically own S&P 500 stocks. As a result, the number of potential
Sun stockholders is now significantly larger than in the past. Sun was
added to the S&P 500 Computer Systems industry group, replacing Wang
Laboratories Inc., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

		 -- Fortune Global 500 --

The Fortune Global 500 features the world's 500 largest industrial
corporations. Sun is included in this list for the first time, ranked
at 425. Facts related to this listing:

	- Highest first-time ranking for a computer company
	- Second most profitable computer/office equipment company in
	  world based on profits as a percentage of assets (Apple is #1)
	- Second most profitable computer/office equipment company in
          world based on profits as a percentage of sales (Pitney Bowes
	  is #1)

The results also indicate that Sun increased sales and profits more
than any other computer company on the Fortune Global 500.


SPARC Facts -----------------------------------------------------------------

The success of the SPARC platform is due to a single binary interface
based on open technologies that are industry standards --
SPARC/Solaris. This ensures application software compatibility -
"shrink-wrapped" software that runs unchanged on a wide variety of
SPARC systems.

* SPARC is the highest-volume platform in the RISC/UNIX market - the de
  facto standard RISC architecture:

  - More than 600,000 systems have been shipped by all SPARC vendors to date 
  - IDC published workstation/server market report indicates that
    SPARC systems had 63.1% of the RISC workstation market in 1991,
    with MIPS systems having 16.3% and IBM Power 8%.
  - More than 4,300 SPARC hardware and software solutions
  - More than 700,000 chips have been shipped to date
  - SPARC International has verified 23 SPARC systems as compliant with SCD 1.1
  - SPARC International now has more than 250 members

* SPARCware developers can take advantage of the leading RISC/UNIX
  platform and the #3 (in volume) ABI in the industry (following
  Intel/Microsoft and Macintosh). This translates to more market
  opportunity for developers and more innovative solutions for end
  users.

* The SPARC microprocessor architecture is implemented by 10
  semiconductor manufacturers into a number of different microprocessors
  representing a broad performance range -- from 10 to 65 MIPS.

* SPARC International, through the SPARC Compliance Definition (SCD),
  will certify hardware and software binary compatibility after
  performing a series of tests. Only systems and software that are
  verified through SI will be allowed to use the SPARC trademark. This
  means vendors and end users are assured of hardware and software
  compatibility.

* More than 40 vendors are currently shipping SPARC compatibles or
  board products, or reselling SMCC/SPARC systems. Eighty-six SPARC chip
  implementations are available on the market today.


Recent SPARC Highlights

* SPARC International completed the SPARC Architecture Version 9, which
  extends the SPARC address space to 64 bits. Developed cooperatively by
  leading SPARC microprocessor architects from over a dozen companies,
  Version 9 contains new instructions, enhanced support for the UNIX
  operating system, and continued improvements in multiprocessor
  support.

* Chester Silvestri joined SMCC to head a new group devoted to securing
  technology design wins across a variety of industries, markets and
  geographies for SPARC. Silvestri comes to the company from Silicon
  Graphics, Inc., where he was most recently vice president and general
  manager of the Technology Products Group supporting the MIPS
  architecture.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM.
Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM.
Archives are on solar.nova.edu, paris.cs.miami.edu, uunet.uu.net,
src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au

All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third
party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local
Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in
your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications
within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or
publication by Sun Microsystems.

John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.


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