Sun Microsystems host Assistant Provost of UAE University

Through a series of day-long discussions at the briefing center in Palo Alto, California, UAE-U and Sun charted a joint course of action for building a robust and open Sun platform at UAE-U that will support the integrated delivery of services to students, faculty and staff. The Sun team was joined in these discussions by key thought leaders at Sun, to include John Gage, Sun Microsystems Chief Scientist, Brian Wilson, Distinguished Director, CTO-Strategic Insight Office, Art Pasquinelli, Director, Education and Research Solutions and Emil Sarpa, Director, External Research.

Central to the UAE-U strategy for integrated services delivery are the Sun Solaris Operating System, Sun server hardware and the software solutions included in the Sun Java Enterprise System. Deploying these solutions as standards at UAE-U makes it possible to maximize the benefits of their mutual partnership with SunGard Higher Education, a key Sun ISV and strategic partner of UAE-U.

"Building strategic partnerships with the management of Sun Microsystems gives us an unrivalled views of their roadmaps and visions for the future, which is a fantastic tool for taking the UAE's science and technology education into the next generation," commented Michael Dobe, Assistant Provost for IT Services, UAE University. "Leveraging open standards to benefit our students and their families is a positive step for the education sector as well as the economic sector of the UAE in the future."

Over the next four months, Sun and UAE-U will be working closely together with SunGard to ensure that the value of Sun's platform is delivered directly to customers through the SunGard Unified Digital Campus, UAE-U's chosen Enterprise Resource System.

"Running SunGard on Sun will allow the University to deploy and support an integrated ERP portal "out of box" in the form of SunGard's Luminis Portal," commented Tarek Ayass, Regional Manager, Education and Research Sun Microsystems MENA. "As a key component of the Luminis solution, Sun's Java Enterprise System (JES) provides the integrated Web, Mail, Calendar and Directory Services that will constitute the central components of the enterprise portal at UAE-U."

Building on the broader Java Enterprise System product suite, UAE-U and Sun will implement an extensible, standards-based platform for further enterprise systems development. By working together as a team with a common vision, UAE-U, Sun and SunGard will enable the delivery of world class services to students, faculty and staff through the UAE-U Portal.