FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Frank E. Smith
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
(650) 786-7215
franke.smith@sun.com


SUN MICROSYSTEMS A LEADER IN TOTAL WORLDWIDE
WORKSTATION REVENUE

Sun Shipments Continue to Grow, While Overall
Market Slows

PALO ALTO, CA - May 31, 2001 - Sun Microsystems,
Inc.  announced today that it is in a virtual tie
for the top revenue position in the total
workstation market, which includes NT and UNIX(R)
systems, according to the latest IDC report(1) for
Q1CY'01.  Sun rose to first place with an estimated
$432 million in revenues, capturing 20 percent of
the total workstation market.

Additionally, while Sun enjoyed a three percent
growth in shipments, the NT workstation market
shrank by 10 percent, per IDC's report(1).  Sun's
growth extended its leadership of the UNIX
workstation market, which it has led for 14
straight years.  In Q1CY'01, Sun earned 40 percent
of the UNIX market's revenues and grew its
shipments by three percent.  With 63 percent of
UNIX workstation shipments, Sun sold more
workstations than all of its competitors combined.

"Sun Microsystems has expanded its presence in
traditional engineering markets and beyond with a
full range of products, from the entry-level Sun
Blade 100 workstation to the power-graphics Sun
Blade 1000 system," said Kara Yokley, workstation
research analyst, IDC.  "Sun's UNIX market share
will likely continue to grow because of its
aggressive targeting of new markets and continued
commitment to the UltraSPARC(tm) architecture and
Solaris(tm) OS."

"Even in this difficult economic climate, Sun
continues to shine and forge ahead of the
competition because we provide our customers with
high performance workstations that feature our
robust 64-bit Solaris Operating Environment, which
can seamlessly scale from $1,000 workstations to
multi-million dollar deployments," said Shahin
Khan, vice president of Product Marketing in Sun's
Computer Systems Group.  "We have enhanced our
workstation portfolio with the powerful
UltraSPARC(tm) III microprocessor and the recent
introduction of the UltraSPARC IIe-based Sun
Blade(tm) 100 workstation, an affordable
workstation that will help our customers continue
to capitalize on the incredible opportunities of
networked computing."

Sun introduced the Sun Blade 100 workstation in
February 2001 as the first ever 64-bit workstation
priced under $1,000.  This new workstation, along
with the recently unveiled Sun(tm) Expert3D-Lite
graphics accelerator board, also priced under
$1,000, brings full 3D functionality to a new price
point for 64-bit workstations.

In the past year, Sun also announced its new
distributed resource management tool, Sun(tm) Grid
Engine software.  A free download at
http://www.sun.com/software/gridware/download.html,
the software is also pre-loaded on all Sun
workstations, making them "virtual compute farms."
This is a valuable utilization tool for users in
compute-intensive markets like EDA, MCAD and
digital media rendering.

The latest news and information about Sun's entire
line of workstation products can be found on the
World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com/desktops.


ABOUT SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC.  Since its inception
in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The
Computer"(tm) -- has propelled Sun Microsystems,
Inc.  (Nasdaq:  SUNW) to its position as a leading
provider of industrial-strength hardware, software
and services that power the Internet and allow
companies worldwide to take their businesses to the
nth.  With $19.2 billion in annual revenues, Sun
can be found in more than 170 countries and on the
World Wide Web at http://sun.com.


# # #

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Sun Blade,
Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun
Microsystems, Inc.  in the United States and in
other countries.  All SPARC trademarks are used
under license and are trademarks or registered
trademarks of SPARC International, Inc.  in the
United States and other countries.  Products
bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an
architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States
and other countries exclusively licensed through
X/Open Company, Ltd.


1.  IDC, The Workstation Market, 2001, Q1 Update