Sun kicked off the new fiscal year in July 2008 with moves designed to elevate and propel its Network.com business into the clouds. Sun's cloud computing initiative was one of the first in the industry out of the blocks with its Sun Grid offering going live in 2005. Since then, Sun's Network.com service has grown to offer a powerful collection of HPC applications on demand, as well as serve as the compute engine behind computer-animated feature films and countless advanced research and HPC projects.

Starting in July, the Network.com organization has seen a number of changes. First, David Douglas was named Senior Vice President of Network.com, and is now the head of Sun's cloud computing initiative. The group now reports directly to CEO Jonathan Schwartz, and Douglas sits on Schwartz's staff. Finally, Douglas recently announced the addition of two more executives to the Network.com team. The first is Ingrid Van Den Hoogen, Sun's Senior Vice President of Brand, Global Communications & Integrated Marketing, who will be adding the Network.com marketing, adoption and business strategy to her responsibilities. The second is Lew Tucker, who was hired in August as the Vice President and CTO of Sun's Cloud Computing initiative.

In announcing Tucker in his new role, Douglas noted, "Lew's career has been focused on scalable computing and web development. He spent much of the '90s at Sun and contributed to the explosive growth of Java and growing Sun's presence on the Internet. In 2002, Lew joined Salesforce.com and led the design and implementation of App Exchange, which remains one of the largest cloud computing success stories to date. After Salesforce.com, Lew was CTO at Radar Networks, where he focused on the scalable design and build out of its semantic web service. With this background, Lew brings a unique combination of technical experience and past success in Sun, which will be a great asset to the Network.com team."

Commenting on the overall organizational changes, Douglas said, "We continue to see huge potential in the cloud space, and I'm very pleased about the team we've put together to further extend our reach in it."

Sun Java System Content Delivery Server (CDS) is a market leading product that allows mobile operators, service providers and enterprises to deliver a variety of content to mobile users. CDS provides a single content catalog that can support multiple storefronts on phones and PCs, as well as content pricing, promotion, preview, payment and delivery services.

The new CDS version 5.1 offers enhanced support for rich media, makes it easier for subscribers to locate content and provides a more compelling and personalized subscriber experience.

Some of the new CDS features are:  

• Support for streaming content
• Advanced searching & sorting
  
• Customizable fields
  
• Popularity ranking for content and ability to create "featured" content
  
• Device Client Interface
• Online help for the Catalog Manager administration console and the Vending Manager administration console

OpenCDS, the open source version of Sun CDS, can be found at the OpenCDS community project on Java.net.

Expanding the scope of its HPC software solutions, Sun announced the release and immediate availability of Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.0.

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.0 is a high-performance production quality MPI (Message Passing Interface) implementation based on the Open MPI 1.3 open source project, and with the release of HPC ClusterTools 8.0, Sun now supports Linux distributions as well as Solaris and OpenSolaris OSs. With growth of HPC systems outpacing traditional IT due to the rapid expansion of modeling and simulation in research projects and product innovation, Sun continues to successfully build out some of the largest installations in the world, like the Texas Advanced Computing Cluster (TACC), and also deliver complete HPC hardware, software, and services solutions for customers. In addition to Intel x86, AMD x86, and Sun UltraSPARC-based servers, Sun now offers complete software stack offerings on both Linux and Solaris OSs, with all the innovations of OpenSolaris now available to the HPC community.
For developers, Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.0 works with both Sun Studio and GNU/gcc-based toolchains on Solaris, OpenSolaris, and Linux OSs. With Sun Studio software that includes optimizing C, C++, and Fortran compilers, support for OpenMP, optimized math and performance libraries, and performance analysis tools, developers have an advanced integrated solution optimized for the performance and productivity requirements of HPC applications. From the Lustre cluster filesystem, to Sun Grid Engine resource management software, to Sun HPC ClusterTools -- Sun is a leader in HPC software.

For more information, check out Kuldip Oberoi's blog.

For those of you who may have missed out on IDF last week, there was a significant amount of news generated by (or about) Sun. I've tried to include all the highlights below, but you can always go to www.sun.com/intel for more information.

Sun's compact Sun Fire X4450 server has been holding a World Record score of 464,355 SPECjbb2005 bops (58,044 SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM) for all four-socket systems since May 2008. During Pat Gelsinger's keynote at IDF, Intel and Sun announced the SPECjbb2005 score of 531,669 bops (132,917 SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM) on the Sun Fire X4450 server using the latest Intel Xeon processors. Fueled by the latest version 1.6.0_06 Performance Release of Sun's Java Platform, Standard Edition software, this is a new world-record score for all systems with four sockets and demonstrates an almost 15% improvement over the previous best score. The SPECjbb2005 benchmark emulates the design of real-world server-side Java applications and provides an accurate reflection of the business logic and objects, while stressing the implementation of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the scalability of the system's processors and memory.

In addition, Sun released a white paper discussing how the Solaris ecosystem and the new Intel Core Microarchitecture (formerly code-named Nehalem) for the Intel Xeon processor are optimized to work together to maximize performance, power efficiency, reliability and virtualization features.

Finally, Sun announced two new servers based on Intel Xeon processors -- the Sun Fire X2250 and Sun Fire X4250 servers. The Sun Fire X2250 server is an extremely fast 1U server for technical computing workloads, with three new record-breaking benchmarks to its name. The Sun Fire X4250 is the most expandable 2U enterprise-class system powered by Intel Xeon processors, with the highest disk count of any comparable server in the market -- 16 SAS disk drives. Check out these audio and video interviews to learn more about these new servers.

Benchmark footnote stuff: SPEC and the benchmark name SPECjbb are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Claims are valid as of 8/20/2008, see www.spec.org for latest results. For comparison purposes, the terms CPU, chip and processor are used interchangeably. Each socket can accommodate one chip

It started with a handshake and a t-shirt exchanged between two industry leaders in November. This week, Dell expanded its support of the Solaris OS by leaps and bounds as it began offering Solaris 10 as an OS option on nine of its most popular Intel & AMD based PowerEdge servers.  Dell now offers Solaris across a broader range of x86 based systems than any vendor - aside from Sun - including both Intel and AMD based rack servers and blades.

In addition to shipping and supporting Solaris on PowerEdge servers, Dell will provide technical assistance for Solaris on Dell systems to its customers, better simplifying the experience when they’re seeking to purchase a complete hardware, software and service solution.

For more information about Solaris on Dell servers, including a complete list of the newly certified PowerEdge systems, check out http://www.dell.com/solaris.

Dell is just one of a number of leading global systems vendors  to offer Solaris on its systems.  This week’s news with Dell underscores the growing demand Sun has seen for Solaris on x86 systems and offers even broader choice of supported systems for Solaris customers.  For the very latest information on Solaris, visit http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/index.jsp

At this week's XChange 08 conference, Sun’s Director of U.S. Partner Programs Cheryl Turja was named one of the most powerful women in the channel by VARBusiness magazine. Cheryl joins Sun's Cheryl Cook who won the award in 2007.

Check out the article here and her profile below.

Congratulations, Cheryl!

CHERYL A. TURJA Director, U.S. Partner Programs Sun Microsystems Inc. Menlo Park, Calif. Years In Position: 1 Years In Channel: 6 www.sun.com Hope To Accomplish: Turja is committed to leading and participating on the team that is building a competitive business proposition for Sun partners by creating programs that reward for value and investment. She also aims to capture and retain partner mind share predisposing partners to sell Sun first. In addition, Turja aims to drive partners to engage and align with Sun's offerings. Mentor: Turja says there are many individuals she admires but she is most motivated by those who go after their personal and professional dreams with "vigor and balance" and see the "preparation and adventure of pursuing the course to be just as exciting and important as the end result." Executives You Admire: Tom Wagner, vice president Americas, channel sales, because of his commitment and loyalty to those on the channel team. She also admires Tim Lieto, who once led Sun's Americas sales organization, because of his commitment to always do the right thing and not be afraid to "march to the beat of a different drummer."

Today, Sun is announcing a new special offer for businesses considering to extend or buy new licenses for their middleware environment. The special offer will help new customers easily adopt Sun's Java CAPS service oriented architecture platform.

What's the logic?
1) More and more companies are reevaluating their SOA platforms as they face big price increases by vendors like Oracle as reported by The Register and ChannelWeb, uncertainty over product lifecycles from former vendors like BEA, and tighter IT budgets.
2) Sun's Java CAPS offers organizations a lower cost, open source platform for developing and deploying middleware software.

The new offer includes:
- Complimentary WebLogic adapters that allow customers to continue running their existing infrastructure while migrating away from vendor lock-in
- Guaranteed price lock-in for the suite for the next 12 months
- Free 5-day workshop with Sun's SOA architects to help select ideal SOA projects for the first 20 qualified customers who sign up

With over 2,000 customers, such as Carrefour, Medavie Blue Cross and Travelers, Sun recently launched Java CAPS 6, the next-generation of its SOA and business integration suite, providing IT managers with ESB, event processing, business process management, and master data management capabilities, as well as support for GlassFish and NetBeans (IDE) software.

Sun is a recognized leader in providing a comprehensive SOA solution with open source core components in the Open ESB, Mural, GlassFish and NetBeans communities.

To register for this special offer and for a quick comparison of how much companies can save with Sun's SOA platform, visit: http://www.sun.com/logic. Offer expires on October 30, 2008.

Mark and Kevin have more to say about this news.

For more information on Java CAPS 6, visit: http://www.sun.com/javacaps.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 will be getting a new splash screen to reflect our new and fresh release, and the community has the final word on it. Several great proposals have been submitted and we asking all community members to vote. Together with the splash screen, two other design elements will be included, namely the Windows installer graphic, and the about box image.

In the voting form, check your favorite splash screen and then submit the form - that's it!

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Voting guidelines. Voting ends on Monday 18 August  2008 at 12:00 UTC+1. All OpenOffice.org community members are eligible to vote, and voting is absolutely anonymous. You will need to register and a registration confirm will be sent to you via e-mail containing the link to your personal survey. This is to ensure that only valid votes are cast. Although you need to register, voting is completely anonymous! After your successful vote, you will receive a confirmation via e-mail.

Your email address will not be re-used for marketing (spam) purposes. 

Today Sun released the source code for its implementation of the Java-based light-weight UI toolkit (LWUIT) for mobile UI development to the java.net community under the GPLv2 w/Classpath Exception license.

The source code, documentation, and sample and demonstration code is available now.

LWUIT is an advanced UI library that enables rapid development of mobile applications that will run consistently across Java ME enabled devices. It includes a full set of ready-made graphical components, as well as sophisticated support for themes, fonts, animation and transition effects. To help you get started with the technology, more details about LWUIT can be found in the LWUIT Tutorial & on the Forum.

Craig Gering, Senior Director of Embedded Java Software at Sun said: "By creating LWUIT, Sun is reaffirming its commitment to the mobile development community and by open sourcing the LWUIT code, we are enabling mobile developers to quickly and easily create rich, portable interfaces for their applications - functionality that they have been requesting for some time.  This software will also help address the mobile industry's fragmentation issue by enabling developers to create a single interface that will work anywhere Java is found."

Shai Almog has a whole blog dedicated to Java development & LWUIT, which has some cool video demos & more sample code.

And Terrence Barr, the Ambassador of the Java Mobile & Embedded Community also offers some LWUIT commentary over on his blog.

With its goal of providing a superior environment that reduces development time, the NetBeans community is pleased to announce the availability of NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta. With simplified installation and configuration, this newest version includes enhancements and new features across all supported environments: Java technology, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, C/C++, and now PHP.

With the NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta, PHP developers now have feature rich tooling, such as syntax highlighting, code completion, code generators, debugging, database wizards, and FTP support, but with the speed and simplicity of a text editor.

NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta also supports client-side JavaScript development with a first class editor, including CSS/HTML code completion, as well as the ability to debug JavaScript code within both Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer browser environments.

Java developers get a variety of new features that accelerate development- from Compile-on-Save and Deploy-on-Change to complete Hibernate support and improvements to the Database Explorer. In addition, NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta now supports Groovy, a dynamic language for the Java Virtual Machine that seamlessly integrates with existing Java objects and libraries, as well as the Grails web application framework.

Jaspersoft Corporation, a NetBeans Strategic Partner and market leader in open source Business Intelligence solutions, has announced the full-production availability of the iReport plug-in for NetBeans, which allows developers to easily integrate business intelligence capabilities, such as graphical reports and dashboards, within their Java applications. Certified with NetBeans IDE 6.0 and NetBeans IDE 6.1, it also supports the NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta and can be downloaded here.

In addition, Jaspersoft announced that Jasper for MySQL, the MySQL OEM edition of the Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite, has been upgraded to version 3. Jasper For MySQL is the optimized version of the Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite that Sun's database group has licensed for its OEM business. The new Jasper for MySQL v3 incorporates all of the new features and functions in Jaspersoft v3, which was announced earlier this summer and is specifically certified and packaged for the MySQL database.

Download your free, unrestricted, copy of NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta today!

For more information, check out Kuldip Oberoi's blog to learn more about this beta release.

Mary Cay Kosten, vice president, Global Customer Services was honored for her professional achievements during an awards ceremony at the 10th annual Denver Business Journal Outstanding Women in Business Award luncheon on Thursday, August 7, 2008.

Over 700 Denver business leaders gathered to recognize Mary Cay and eleven other women who received awards in different categories. Mary Cay was selected as the Denver Business Journal's Outstanding Woman in business for the high tech and telecommunications industries.

Nominations for the Denver Business Journal's Outstanding Women in Business awards were judged on professional accomplishments, innovation, entrepreneurship, and community leadership. Awards were presented in twelve categories from more than 140 nominations. Companies of all sizes and a number of industries were submitted for consideration.

Congratulations to Mary Cay for her outstanding achievement!

Contact Eleanor Crow (eleanor.crow@bitepr.com) for more information.

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Sun has just released in the OpenSSO project the latest version of OpenSSO Express (build 5) -- an early access version of the upcoming OpenSSO Enterprise product, including access management, federation and secure web services capabilities. OpenSSO Enterprise is designed to solve the core SSO problems many organizations experience today.

Customers and prospects interested in participating in the early access program can download OpenSSO Express build 5 here and send feedback to opensso.eafeedback@dev.java.net.

OpenSSO Express Build 5 includes some cool features, such as:
- Centralized Agent and Server Management
- Lightweight federation
- Virtual federation
- Security token service

OpenSSO is the world's largest open source, identity management  project, providing highly scalable, high-performance single sign-on,  access management, federation, and secure web services capabilities. For more information, visit: http://wiki.opensso.org.

Chances are, you'll spend a little time in the coming weeks following all the action and athletes at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.  But why stop at simply watching the Games, when you can play along as well?  That's precisely what Sun is allowing Facebook users to do with a new application launched this week.  The application, called MyPicks Beijing 2008, allows players to predict Gold, Silver and Bronze medal winners throughout the Games and compete for national pride.

Facebook users can join in on the fun with MyPicks Beijing 2008 at http://apps.facebook.com/mypicksbeijing/Home

MyPicks Beijing 2008 was built by Pramati Technologies using zembly, Sun's new social application development environment.  Currently in private beta, zembly allows the development, deployment and hosting of social applications - not just on Facebook - but across a number of other popular platforms including Meebo, OpenSocial and for the iPhone.

Todd Fast, CTO of zembly, sat down with RedMonk's Cote' to explain what zembly is all about:

Here's a video demo of zembly:

You can learn more about zembly at www.zembly.com.