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                                                        The Florida SunFlash

                 IBM and SunSoft Sign Solaris Agreement

SunFLASH Vol 67 #1					           July 1994
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            The Electronic Journal For Sun Users Since 1988
         John J. Mclaughlin, Publisher & Editor - flash@sun.com
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67.01 	IBM and SunSoft Sign Solaris Agreement

	IBM Corporation and SunSoft, Inc. announced a series of
	agreements to port and distribute the Solaris operating
	environment on IBM's PowerPC-based personal systems. These
	agreements include the porting of SunSoft's Solaris operating
	environment to PowerPC-based personal systems and an OEM
	agreement whereby IBM will distribute Solaris on IBM PowerPC
	platforms.  Also, SunSoft announced it will establish a support
	program for ISVs and IHVs. IBM will assist SunSoft with this
	effort.

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The following announcement was made by SunSoft.  If you have any
questions regarding this announcement, please contact Carol Sacks
of SunSoft Public Relations at (415) 336-1462.



	IBM AND SUNSOFT SIGN SOLARIS OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
			   AGREEMENT 

    Companies Will Work Together to Port and Distribute Solaris 
			for the PowerPC 


"These agreements allow Solaris customers the opportunity to take
advantage of PowerPC technology," said Dick Guarino, general manager of
personal systems development and marketing for IBM's Power Personal
Systems Division. "We are glad to be working with SunSoft to offer
customers this exciting new open computing platform."

Solaris on PowerPC

The Solaris software environment will be available on IBM's
PowerPC-based personal systems during the first half of 1995, and will
be PowerPC Reference Platform-compliant. The PowerPC Reference Platform
defines an open architecture -- a framework of technical concepts and
definitions, functional specifications and interfaces -- with the
objective of establishing a standard industry implementation of
PowerPC.

According to SunSoft, Solaris on PowerPC-based systems from IBM will
contain the same features, functionality and Application Programming
Interface (API) as Solaris 2.4, which will be available on SPARC-- and
x86-based systems this summer. In most cases, according to SunSoft,
software developers will need only a simple recompile to migrate their
applications to the Solaris PowerPC platform.

"We are very excited to be working with IBM," said Janpieter Scheerder,
vice president of the Solaris Products business unit in SunSoft. "IBM
PowerPC users can take advantage of the power of Solaris and
application builders can program against one API across multiple
hardware platforms."

OEM Agreement

IBM and SunSoft have put in place a coorperative and mutually
beneficial business agreement that allows IBM to be an OEM for Solaris
on its PowerPC-based personal systems. Customers will be able to
purchase Solaris pre-loaded on the PowerPC-based personal systems or in
CD-ROM format for later installation.

ISV/IHV Support Programs

In order to facilitate the successful and rapid porting of key
applications to Solaris for the PowerPC, SunSoft will launch, with
IBM's assistance, support programs to assist ISVs and IHVs migrating to
the PowerPC platform. These programs include technology conferences,
worldwide porting centers, expert technical support, seminars and early
access for end users. In addition, SunSoft will be expanding its
existing third-party Catalyst program to include PowerPC developers,
and will be making Early Access Developer Kits for Solaris on
PowerPC-based personal systems available in October.

SunSoft, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a subsidiary
of Sun Microsystems, Inc., the exclusive computer supplier to World Cup
USA 1994. The company has offices in North America, Europe and Asia.
SunSoft is the leading supplier of 32-bit UNIX system software
solutions for SPARC and Intel 386/486- and Pentium-based computers.
The products are licensed by SunSoft and distributed through major
computer manufacturers and resellers worldwide.

IBM's Power Personal Systems Division was formed in 1993 to pursue new
PowerPC-based opportunities worldwide emerging at the juncture between
the processing power of workstations and high-performance personal
computers. PowerPC-based personal systems will feature AIX, IBM's UNIX
operating environment, a version of OS/2 for the PowerPC, the Solaris
operating environment from SunSoft, Windows NT from Microsoft Corp.,
and Taligent.

			# # #

(c)1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems,
Catalyst and Solaris are trademarks, service marks, or registered
trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All SPARC trademarks, including
the SCD Compliant logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of
SPARC International, Inc. PowerPC is a trademark of IBM Corp. UNIX is a
registered trademark licensed exclusively through X/Open, Ltd. Intel
and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corp.
Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture
developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other product or service names
mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.