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McNealy Addresses COVITS 2004 On 'Trusted Network Computing'

Speaking to an energized crowd of industry and government officials at The Commonwealth of Virginia Information Technology Symposium, Sun Microsystems Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Scott McNealy challenged IT administrators and CIOs in both the public and private sectors to "break down the silos that inhibit your ability to serve your customers and citizens."

"Sharing information between different branches of government and between governments is the new requirement in the post-9/11 world," said McNealy. "Sharing that information securely is the new necessity and the Trusted Solaris Operating System is the foundation to make this happen."

"The challenge lies in the fact that just when the states' IT missions are growing, their budgets are being constrained," McNealy said. "To balance both priorities, state governments must attack cost and complexity. Today Sun is instrumental in helping customers in all markets ranging from government, to financial services, to telcos build their IT infrastructure that is enabling them to deliver the web services that their customers are asking for."

As an example of this principle, McNealy praised the State of Virginia for its work to consolidate IT functions across the government and its work to create a highly usable portal -- www.virginia.gov-- for its citizens.

At the same time, McNealy noted, accessibility must be balanced with security: "The best way to strike the right balance is to build both principles in from the ground up. Meaningful security is not an afterthought, it should be coded into the DNA of your system."

The Commonwealth of Virginia's Information Technology Symposium (COVITS) is now in its 6th year. It is Virginia's signature annual business and technology event hosted by Governor of Virginia, Mark Warner, and Secretary of Technology, George C. Newstrom.

About Sun Microsystems Inc

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems Inc to its position as a provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at sun.com/.