Sun Microsystems Joins SOA Consortium as Sponsor

Needham, MA, USA – February 4, 2008 – The SOA Consortium™ today announced that Sun Microsystems, Inc. has joined as a Sponsor. The SOA Consortium is an advocacy group of end users, service providers and technology vendors committed to helping the Global 1000, major government agencies, and mid-market businesses successfully adopt Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) by 2010. Sun Microsystems joins sponsors Cisco, IBM Corporation, SAP AG and Sparx Systems.

SOA Consortium Sponsors are industry leaders dedicated to helping this SOA advocacy group promote the value and attainment of business-driven SOA, develop a lively community of practice, and get the message out that SOA is an important business strategy.

“As a leader in open source enterprise class software, Sun is focused on delivering highly scalable, secure products at commodity based prices,” said Bill Vass, president and COO of Sun Microsystems Federal, Inc. “Sun is pleased to be an advocate for the SOA Consortium and the important work it does in moving the industry toward a distributed service oriented enterprise environment, based on open standards.”

“The SOA Consortium is pleased to welcome Sun Microsystems as a Sponsor and participant, especially as they have helped to spark the SOA revolution not only in the commercial sector, but in the US Federal Government,” said Richard Mark Soley, Ph.D., executive director, SOA Consortium. “Through their sponsorship, Sun is continuing to show their market leadership for business-driven adoption of SOA, supporting the ROI of SOA investments and helping the SOA Consortium in its mission to educate the marketplace on SOA as a winning business strategy for all organizations, including government agencies.”

Together, SOA Consortium members are:

• Redirecting the industry conversation to “business-driven SOA”
• Exchanging real-world insights on preparing their business and IT organizations for SOA
• Influencing technology vendors and service providers on the techniques, products and services to derive business value from SOA
• Influencing standards-organizations on pragmatic standards related to SOA

The next SOA Consortium meeting is March 12-13, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel. Organizations interested in joining the SOA Consortium and attending the meeting should visit the website, http://www.soa-consortium.org or email info@soa-consortium.org for more information. Visit the SOA Consortium’s SOA Insights blog at http://blog.soa-consortium.org.

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About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision — “The Network is the Computer” — Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

About The SOA Consortium
The SOA Consortium is an advocacy group of end users, service providers and technology vendors committed to helping the Global 1000, major government agencies, and mid-market businesses successfully adopt Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) by 2010. SOA Consortium founding enterprise members include Fortune 200 companies in Financial Services, Travel, Manufacturing, Retail and Telecommunications. Sponsors are BEA Systems, Inc., Cisco, IBM Corporation, SAP AG and Sparx Systems. Participants in the consortium to date include: Aberdeen Group, Inc., Adaptive, Inc., American Red Cross, Avis Budget Group, Bank of America, Bunge Agribusiness, Cambridge Technology Enterprise, Capability Measurement, Cape Clear Software, Inc., CellExchange, Inc., Center for Public-Private Enterprise, CGI Federal, Computer Sciences Corporation, Daugherty Business Solutions, ebizQ, eCube Systems, LLC, EDS, Equally Keen, Ltd., Evans Data Corporation, Federal Signal Corp., Fidelity Investments, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Forestay, LLC, Fraunhofer FOKUS, General Services Administration, H2O GmbH, Helm Solutions Group, HP, Hitachi Consulting, Hurwitz & Associates, ICW Group, Integration Consortium, Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, Interoperability Clearinghouse, iWay Software, Kohl's Department Stores, Lake Trail Partners, LLC, MAKE Technologies Inc., Maryfran Johnson & Associates, Mercury Interactive, MITRE, Model Driven Solutions, MomentumSI, Monsanto, OMG, Penn National Insurance, PricewaterhouseCoopers , SAIC, PHS Operation, Schlumberger Technology, SDG Corporation, Software AG, Sonoa Systems, TethersEnd Consulting, Thomas & Hebert, Torry Harris Business Solutions, TPP Global Services LLC, WebEx, Wells Fargo, and ZapThink, LLC. Any organization may join the SOA Consortium. The SOA Consortium is managed by the Object Management Group.

For more information, please visit http://www.soa-consortium.org or email info@soa-consortium.org. 

Note to editors: SOA Consortium, OMG and Object Management Group are trademarks of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.