The opening of the center was officiated by Mr. Teo Ming Kian, Chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board and Dr. David Yen, Executive Vice President of Sun's Scalable Systems Group.

As a global center of technology expertise, the Asia South iForce Solution Center showcases creative solutions, fuels innovations with partners and allows customers to test Sun and partner solutions before making an investment in new technology.

The iForce Solution Center is designed to help customers reduce risk and lower total cost of ownership, while increasing productivity through the development and implementation of solutions that addresses business objectives. The center has a real-world environment that customers can leverage to quickly and securely solve integration challenges and promote interoperability across multi-vendor solutions. It also provides customers focused assistance with the entire solution implementation process, from brainstorming to developing pilot programs.

"Sun Microsystems' decision to set up its iForce Solution Center here is instrumental in bolstering our efforts to be the IT hub for Asia. It gives a boost to our local IT industry through its collaborative efforts with local and regional IT players, which can now leverage Sun Microsystems' strong technology expertise and worldwide network," said Teo Ming Kian, Chairman, Singapore Economic Development Board. "I would like to congratulate the management and staff of Sun Microsystems and wish them every success."

"This is a significant milestone for Sun in Asia South. The opening of this center underpins Sun's commitment to the potential of this region. The ready talent base and infrastructure, coupled with the fact that we are working towards a network computing hub here, makes it a natural choice to have this facility in Singapore," said Lionel Lim, Vice President and Managing Director of Asia South, Sun Microsystems. "The next step for Sun will be establishing satellite centers and more partner-run authorized iForce Solution Centers around the region to complement this facility. We are very excited about the potential for innovation here."

The center is supported by Sun's partners in the region, including Applied Business Systems (Malaysia), CSA Holdings (Singapore), ECS Holdings (Singapore), First Logic Company (Thailand), Frontline Technologies (Singapore), Ingram Micro Asia (Singapore), PT Sun Microsystems Indonesia and Wipro Infotech Ltd (India).

Sun currently has three other Sun-run iForce Solution Centers worldwide, in Paris, Tokyo and Menlo Park, California. There are also more than 75 solutions-specific iForce Solution Centers worldwide; 50 partner-run Authorized iForce Solution Centers; and nine Competency Centers focused on application partners such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel. More than 85 application partners worldwide have their solutions installed in Sun iForce Centers. More information on Sun's iForce Centers is available at http://www.sun.com/executives/iforce/centers/