---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash HOT OFF THE PRESS SunFLASH Vol 39 #7 March 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is an edited version of an internal newsletter that I have been given permission to post to this mailing list. -johnj ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recent News February, 1992 Published by SMCC Public Relations ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUN'S MOMENTUM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sun Microsystems, Inc. Highlights ----------------------------------- - Despite the sluggish economy, SMI's revenues for its second fiscal quarter rose more than 20%, to $909.1 million, over the $753.5 million reported for the corresponding period of fiscal 1991. Net income for the quarter also increased more than 20%, to $47.4 million, or 47 cents per share, from the $39.1 million, or 39 cents per share, for the same period a year ago. For the first six months of fiscal 1992, Sun recorded revenues of $1.7 billion, up 16% from the same period a year earlier. Net income for the six-month period increased nearly 14% to $74.2 million, or 74 cents per share, from the $65.2 million, or 65 cents per share, reported in the corresponding period a year ago. - SMI and Cray Research, Inc., announced plans to engage in joint engineering and marketing for products using the SPARC RISC processor. The firms will cooperate on the design of technologies for the development of high-end SPARC computers from Cray Research, with information on these future products to be announced later this year. The new systems will complement the product lines of both companies. The firms also plan to create a seamless software environment that will allow Sun systems and Cray Research supercomputers -- including the top-of-the-line CRAY-MP C90 system -- to work together with unprecedented efficiency. Cray Research also joined SPARC International. Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation Highlights -------------------- - The Bombay Stock Exchange plans to automate its trading floor by investing $30 million in SPARC workstations and servers over the next 12 months. The purchase will allow India's premier stock exchange to manage the estimated 1993 volume of more than 150,000 trades per day -- twice its present volume. Bombay is the largest stock exchange in India -- second only to the Taipei Stock Exchange and the Tokyo Stock Exchange in terms of trades per day, and well ahead of the New York Stock Exchange and the International Stock Exchange of London in terms of peak transaction density. - SMCC introduced the Solaris 2.0 Migration Kit, a free set of tools and documentation developed to assist SMCC customers with their transition from Solaris 1.0 to Solaris 2.0. The Migration Kit utilizes the AnswerBook search and retrieval technology and contains the System V Migration Tool (the Pipeline Tool), transition planning guides for developers and system administrators, a site-migration planning worksheet and dozens of technical white papers --all on a single compact disc. - Five of SMCC's graphics partners -- DuPont Pixel Systems, Evans & Sutherland (E&S), Nth Graphics, VICOM Visual Computing and Visual Information Technologies Inc. (VITec) -- endorsed the SMCC "open graphics" initiative by announcing new products. The open graphics initiative echoes SMCC's open systems strategy of encouraging the creation of a broad selection of SPARC/Solaris systems from many different vendors. With open graphics, SMCC is moving on several fronts to facilitate the development of a wide range of graphics products that are easily integrated into the SPARC/Solaris platform. In support of the open graphics strategy, SMCC and E&S signed a joint agreement under which E&S will develop new, sophisticated 3-D graphics accelerators for SMCC's SPARC systems. The new E&S graphics accelerators will be software compatible with workstations currently available from both SMCC and E&S. - SMCC and Motorola, Inc., introduced two new SBus interface controllers, the SBus Goldchip and the SBus SLIC. With these new devices, developers of systems and add-in cards for SBus-based workstations and servers will no longer have to design the interface between their products and the system's SBus controller. Designed by SMCC, the chips will be manufactured, marketed and supported worldwide by Motorola. SunPics Highlights -------------------------------------------------- - SunPics introduced NeWSprint XP, licensable software that extends the capabilities of NeWSprint 2.0 software to a wider range of printing devices. The new technology, which will be available to developers and OEMs, makes it possible to print files from any computer on a network to output devices such as imagesetters, high-resolution laser printers, large-format plotters, and other high raster memory output devices. SunPro Highlights --------------------------------------------------- - SunPro is making available the industry's first compilers and development tools for SunSoft's Solaris 2.0 distributed computing solution. SunPro's SPARCworks Professional family of products, which have been enhanced and specifically optimized for Solaris 2.0, are now available through SunSoft's Solaris 2.0 Early Access Program. SunSoft Highlights -------------------------------------------------- - SunSoft and Eastman Kodak completed the acquisition of Interactive Systems Corporation's Intel UNIX business. With its combined engineering resources, SunSoft will accelerate development of the Solaris 2.0 distributed computing solution on 80X86 platforms. SunSoft now has a worldwide sales presence and customer base for UNIX/ 80X86 products in the United States, Europe and Asia. - SunSoft unveiled the Solaris 2.0 Early Access Program, which allows software developers to create applications for SPARC and 80X86-based systems that take immediate advantage of SunSoft's next-generation system software. More than 50 independent software developers and computer manufacturers worldwide are participating in the program. - SunSoft continues to meet its planned 80X86 delivery schedule with the shipment of SunSoft Interactive UNIX. The product, assimilated by SunSoft during its recent acquisition of Interactive Systems Corp.'s Intel UNIX business, provides a migration path to Solaris 2.0. Customers purchasing SunSoft Interactive UNIX from now until June 30, 1992 will be able to upgrade to Solaris 2.0 on Intel for $195 for single-user machines. - SunSoft introduced the ONC Application Toolkit for its Solaris 1.0 product that allows developers to quickly create client-server applications that communicate with other applications running on heterogeneous systems. The new toolkit, which combines the Netwise ONC RPC TOOL technology with SunSoft's TI-RPC platform, gives developers the ability to create ONC-based network applications that can easily be migrated to Solaris 2.0. - SunSoft demonstrated several key software packages running on its Solaris 2.0 distributed computing solution at UniForum `92, including those from Oracle, Frame and AutoDesk. In addition, Aldus offered a technology demonstration of Persuasion, its desktop presentation product, on Solaris 2.0, and the cc:Mail Division of Lotus showed a Solaris version of its flagship application, cc:Mail. - SunSoft released CDware Volume 3, a comprehensive CD-ROM demonstration resource for Solaris applications. CDware Volume 3 allows users to "try and buy" applications directly from the desktop with a single phone call. The compact disc contains information on 61 software products from companies, including Lotus, Informix, SAS Institute and Clarity Software. STATE OF THE BUSINESS - SMCC remained the workstation market leader in 1991, with 40.8% of worldwide workstation/server shipments, according to IDC reports. Sun: 40.8% HP: 17.2% DEC: 13.6% IBM: 5.6% NeXT: 5.5% - Sun's Q2 FY92 revenues were $909.1 million, a 20% increase over the $753.5 million reported in the same period a year ago. - Net income for the quarter was $47.4 million, or $0.47 per share, up from $39.1 million, or $0.39 per share, reported in the corresponding period a year ago. - SMCC shipped a record 49,000 units in Q2. Cumulative installed base is more than 550,000 units. - Sun is truly global: half of Q2, FY92 revenues were derived outside the U.S. (U.S. = 50%; Europe = 28%; Other = 22%) - Q2 revenues per employee hit a record level of $279,000, which is the highest revenue per employee of any computer company utilizing a direct sales business model. - Sun's FY91 revenues were $3.22 billion, up 31% from the $2.47 billion reported in FY90. - Net income for FY91 increased more than 70% to $190.3 million, or $1.85 per share, from $111.2 million, or $1.21 per share, of FY90. - Sun is ranked #181 on the 1991 Fortune 500 list (Sun is approximately 140 at present run rate). - Sun is ranked as America's second largest exporter as a percentage of sales (45%), according to the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 1991. - SMCC was voted number one among mid-range and mainframe suppliers in customer satisfaction in the Computer Weekly/DataPro 1991 user survey. "Over the past year, Sun has kept its customers happier than any other supplier." Rank Supplier Marks out of ten 1. Sun 8.2 2. HP 8.19 3. DCE 7.9 4. Amdahl 7.8 5. Wang 7.7 6. IBM 7.69 - In case you didn't notice...Sun's CY 1991 revenue and income surpassed Compaq's results: 1991 Revenue Q4, CY91 Revenue 1991 Profit Sun $3.45 billion $909.1 million $199.3 million Compaq $3.30 billion $873.0 million $131.0 million - "Because of their astounding price/performance ratio, SPARCstations are becoming more popular as AutoCAD platforms. They currently account for approximately eight percent of the AutoCAD market, and this number is expected to increase dramatically in the next year," according to Cadence Magazine, Jan. 1992. FORTUNE'S CORPORATE REPUTATIONS SURVEY Fortune Magazine's February 10 issue featured the 10th annual Corporate Reputations Survey, which includes 307 companies and 32 industry groups that appeared in the 1991 Fortune 500 and Fortune Service 500 directories. More than 8,000 senior executives, directors and financial analysts were asked to rate the 10 largest companies in their own industry on eight attributes: - Quality of management - Innovativeness - Quality of products or services - Long-term investment value - Financial soundness - Ability to attract, develop and keep talented people - Wise use of corporate assets - Responsibility to the community and the environment Sun has moved up to third on the "most-admired" list for Computers & Office Equipment -- up from "unranked" last year. IBM slipped from first to fifth in the ranking. Results: COMPUTERS AND OFFICE EQUIPMENT RANK LAST COMPANY SCORE YEAR ==== ==== ======= ===== 1 2 HP 7.34 2 4 APPLE 6.96 3 -- >>> SUN <<< 6.86 4 3 COMPAQ 6.53 5 1 IBM 6.50 6 6 NCR 6.03 7 5 DEC 6.00 8 7 Pitney Bowes 5.82 9 9 Unisys 3.32 10 10 Wang 3.17 SMCC EXPANDING INTO RETAIL MARKETS SMCC is significantly expanding its presence in a broad range of retail markets worldwide. Retailers are using networked SPARCstations and SPARCservers for a wide variety of "mission critical" retail applications, such as point-of-sale support, inventory management and control, credit card authorizations, electronic data interchange (EDI), sales tracking and research, online transaction processing (OLTP), decision support, financials and accounting, labor management, and advertising layout and design. In addition, SMCC's retail customers are capitalizing on the power and flexibility of SMCC's Solaris environment for communication tasks, such as two-way data transfer between multiple store locations and corporate headquarters, as well as robust electronic mail and other functions. Summit Strategies Research stated in a recent report that SMCC is the clear leader in selling workstations into networked desktop commercial environments. RETAIL CUSTOMER EXAMPLES: McDONALD'S designed and is running a very sophisticated executive decision support system on Sun SPARCstations. McDonald's system is a powerful strategic planning aid that assists in marketing analysis, site evaluation, operational performance and product line evaluation. So successful has this program been that McDonald's is marketing it to other companies under the name Quintillion. Now other firms can utilize this advanced software tool running on Sun SPARCstations. BREWER'S RETAIL operations in Canada, from point-of-sale (POS) reporting to order processing and distribution, are increasingly managed by a network of Sun SPARCservers and SPARCstations running Sybase database applications. BURDINES, a regional department store chain with 45 locations in Florida uses a network of Sun workstations and servers for all of its print advertising design and layout work. CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES utilizes Sun workstations on many of its passenger liners for point-of-sale support activities for retail and food and beverage service, as well as general administration tasks such as passport and visa checking and activity requests from boarding passengers. HOTEL GRAND CENTRAL, an Asian hospitality chain, will be using Sun systems for reservation, reporting and interfacing with POS and CALL accounting. JC PENNEY chose Sun SPARC systems for a new application that will increase its productivity. Penney's headquarters now has a computerized "help desk" to assist users in resolving computer-related problems quickly. JOHN MENZIES LTD., a major convenience store/news agent chain in the United Kingdom, selected Sun SPARC systems in order to give it new capabilities while utilizing existing computers. KASH & KARRY, a grocery store chain with 120 locations, uses Sun systems in a network for inventory management and control, purchasing, marketing and executive decision support applications. ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE LINES uses Sun systems for field management, market research and cost analysis. In the first two months after installation of the Sun systems, the company increased its net profit by two percent. SEARS CANADA uses Sun SPARCstations for electronic publishing of product catalogs. VALUE CITY will have Sun SPARCstations in each of its 58 department stores in the Northeast and Midwest for collection of inventory and markdown information for financial analysis and control. Each store's SPARCstation is linked via telecommunications lines to an IBM AS400 at the company's Columbus, Ohio, headquarters. US ORDER, an innovative start-up company that allows people to order groceries from Safeway and other stores, mail order and pay bills electronically from their homes, is using Sun systems for back-end processing, online transaction processing, as well as office automation, accounting, and publishing. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, paris.cs.miami.edu, uunet.uu.net, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.