Sun Teams with Vodafone for Sun Products Lin

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (www.sun.com) announced that Vodafone (www.vodafone.com) - the world's largest mobile carrier - has entered into a new and extensive global framework agreement with consistent terms for Sun's entire hardware, software, and services product line.

"With this agreement with Sun, we anticipate significant cost and synergy savings over the next few years due to reduced support and deployment costs," said Detlef Schultz, global supply chain director at Vodafone.

This deal specifically includes extensions for the Sun Java Enterprise System and the Sun Java Desktop System and allows Vodafone to use Sun software in providing services and support to customers in over 26 countries worldwide.

"The most demanding large-scale organizations are trying to simplify the integration of their infrastructure and cut costs to deliver more services to their customers over the network," said John Loiacono, executive vice president, Software, at Sun.

The Java Desktop System is a comprehensive, secure, highly affordable enterprise desktop solution that is simple to use and works with existing infrastructure.
The deal also has the potential to dramatically change the commercial software landscape for Vodafone on product deployments.

Vodafone provides a full range of mobile telecommunications services, including voice and data communications. Vodafone has equity interests in 26 countries with a proportionate customer base of over 139 million. It also has Partner Networks in a further 13 countries.