SUN MICROSYSTEMS ANNOUNCES OPEN JIVE REGIONAL CHALLENGE FOR STUDENTS IN SINGAPORE, MALAYSIA, THAILAND, INDONESIA AND PHILIPPINES

Open Jive Regional Challenge cultivates student-drive innovation to tackle business needs using the latest open source technologies

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – April 29, 2009 – Sun Microsystems today announced the launch of its annual Open Jive Regional Challenge 2009 in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines. Open Jive will reach out to more than 100 schools and top universities across the region, giving students the opportunity to learn and innovate on open source technologies. In Open Jive, students have to use open source technologies to build web 2.0 solutions that respond to businesses’ needs to lower costs and increase business efficiencies. Organized by Sun Microsystems and supported by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), the challenge is part of IDA’s 2009 series of the National Infocomm Competition (NIC). Students can register at www.sg.sun.com/openjive

Centers of academia are a hotbed for developing and encouraging interest in the use of open source technologies. As the largest commercial contributor to open source, Sun is working closely with schools and engaging with students encouraging them to participate in open source communities.

“Open source technology and communities offer student developers the best opportunities to further their IT education and become extremely competitive in today’s market. With open source, students can study how some of the world's leading software is crafted,” said Mr Gan Boon San, president, Sun Microsystems, Asia South. “Open source communities also offer access to some of the world's leading software engineers. By participating directly in the open source communities, students will have access to work with some of the world’s leading software engineers and learn firsthand how next generation software is crafted.”

The open source model is in the spotlight more than ever in these globally economic tough times. As companies look for new ways to continue to move their businesses forward at a lower cost, open source is helping them reap immense savings by escaping proprietary costs. Open source is also enabling innovation on a higher level, enabling companies to experiment, innovate and incubate new projects before having to build a business case.

Participants will pit their skills against their peers on a national level. The Open Jive Challenge is open to all tertiary students from the universities, polytechnics and ITE colleges. Teams which have their business cases selected will develop their Web 2.0 solutions using Sun’s leading-edge portfolio of open source technologies such as Java™ technology, Open Solaris™, NetBeans™ IDE, and MySQL™ database and have a chance to pitch it to a panel of judges comprised of Sun developers and industry experts.

The winning Open Jive teams from Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia will compete on a regional level.

Students from Philippines and Indonesia are joining the challenge this year for the first time, bolstering the challenge’s growing footprint amongst schools in the region. Since Sun launched Java Jive three years ago, Java Jive has seen active and innovative participation from more than 100 teams representing the universities, polytechnics and private colleges in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

“Open Jive demonstrates Sun's commitment to Freely available and Open Source Software (FOSS) and nurturing even greater student engagement, participation and sharing on open source innovation, by having students build next generation applications using a gamut of technologies to address opportunities they see in the World around,” said Mr Naveen Asrani, senior manager, Global Developer and Outreach Programs, Sun Microsystems.

Mr CP Loo, managing director, Sun Malaysia echoed this sentiment, “Students are at the forefront of pioneering new trends and making them mainstream, teaching us a whole new level of innovation.”

Teams will be judged on innovation and creativity, effective use of technology and its commercial relevance and value. The winning team from the Malaysia Finals will receive RM13,300 in cash as well as other prizes. The team will also stand a chance to compete in the regional challenge and win an additional prize bounty of US$3,000 (RM10,500) in cash and attend Sun’s worldwide developer conference – Sun Tech Days in 2009/2010. All challenge winners can receive Sun Learning Services exam vouchers. Also to be won in the Malaysian challenges are technology awards sponsored by industry partner, Parasoft.