Sun and EDS Extend Partnership

Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com) and EDS today announced they are in exclusive negotiations on an eight-year services agreement, whereby EDS will transform the operations of Sun's data centers to the EDS Agile Enterprise Platform, its next-generation global delivery system. Financial details of the proposed transaction were not disclosed.

In addition, the two companies have agreed to jointly deliver IT services, including utility computing services based on Sun's Solaris 10 OS, to some of the world's largest enterprise customers.

"Customers are telling me everyday that they are experiencing tangible, bottom-line business benefits from the strong partnership between Sun and EDS," said Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

"An extension of the data center contract with Sun further validates the strong partnership between EDS and Sun," said Michael Jordan, chairman and chief executive officer, EDS.

Sun is a founding member of the EDS Agility Alliance, a federation of market-leading technology companies collaborating to innovate, develop and deliver the EDS Agile Enterprise Platform.

EDS' Agile Enterprise Platform will provide flexible IT systems that empower enterprises to manage change through agile processes, applications and technology architectures. Sun's SolarisTM 10 OS provides the operating system base demanded by this technology architecture. Solaris 10 OS also includes features from predictive self-healing to secure grid containers that reduce costs and reduce complexity.

One of the cornerstones of the partnership is EDS' management of many Sun back-office IT functions. Using the same technology and approach the two companies will offer their mutual customers, EDS will operate Sun's data centers and data center systems, and provide other technical services related to business systems and Internet operations.

A federation of market-leading infrastructure, application, BPO and industry providers collaborating to innovate, develop and deliver the EDS Agile Enterprise Platform - EDS' next generation global delivery system. Current EDS Agility Alliance partners include Cisco, Dell, EMC, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Siebel, Sun Microsystems and Xerox.