Sun Microsystems celebrates silver anniversary

Peter Ryan, Sr. VP, global sales and services EMEA, and Jean-Paul Bergmans, Sun Microsystems Vice President for South and Eastern Europe, ME and Africa (SEE region) met with customers and channel partners in key markets including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as the media to underscore the company's overarching vision - 'The Network is the Computer', and its mission to create technologies and fuel communities that power the 'Participation Age.'

Founded a quarter century ago in 1982, the vision for connecting everyone irrespective of their location, with technology that works for people, has propelled Sun to its position of a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Today, Sun is a market leader in storage solutions, systems, software and services and powers some of the world's most demanding businesses.

Sun Microsystems commenced its Middle East operations in 1992 with six employees in Jebel Ali, and in 1993 in Dubai with eight employees, to oversee the region. The company then expanded operations to Dhahran in 1996, and Riyadh in 1999. An office in Cairo opened up in 1999 to oversee the North Africa market.

"Our passion to eliminate the digital divide, grow communities, and create world-changing new market opportunities, has led to Sun's expansion across the Middle East," said Deena Habib, Marketing Manager, Sun Microsystems MENA.

"After successfully passing this milestone, we are now poised for another 25 years of innovation, delivering new open, eco responsible network computing technologies to empower the people and organisations that will push the boundaries of the Participation Age."

"Our partners have been significant contributors to our success. Sun's growth over the years has been splendid as we focused on solving the most challenging customer problems through networking computing, and consistently brought to market superior technologies that help our customers save precious time and money. Today we are leaders in verticals such as telecommunications, financial services, governments, manufacturing, and energy," added Deena.

Since 1982, Sun has introduced a series of industry- shaping technologies including the freely-licensed NFS distributed file system in 1984, the SPARC processor in 1987, the Solaris Operating System in 1991, the ground-breaking Java technology in 1995, StarOffice software and Sun Ray thin client in 1999.

Sun's innovations also came in the form of business models like Open Work, which relies on network computing to give employees the flexibility to work 'anywhere, using any device'.

Sun Microsystems currently employees 34,600 people worldwide, and conduct business in more than 100 countries across the globe.