Sun Microsystems Announces Sun OpenSSO Express : Industry's First Enterprise Support for Open Source Identity Management and Web Single Sign-on Sof

PORTLAND, Ore. (Business Wire EON) July 23, 2008 -- New versions of Sun OpenSSO Express will be released approximately every three months to provide fast moving organizations with early access to the latest technologies available in the OpenSSO community. New or existing customers with a Sun Java(TM) System Access Manager, Sun Java(TM) Identity Management Suite or Java(TM) Enterprise System license or subscription will receive Sun OpenSSO Express at no additional charge. Support from Sun's technical team is available in three different levels: standard, premium and premium plus. To access Sun OpenSSO Express, visit: http://www.sun.com/software/products/access_mgr/get.jsp.

"Enterprise software customers are increasingly choosing open source software because it gives them greater flexibility, access to cutting-edge technology and faster time to market. Over the past year and a half, we've seen tremendous interest and participation in the OpenSSO community from hundreds of companies around the world," said Mark Herring, vice president of marketing, Software Infrastructure, Sun Microsystems. "Sun is delivering Sun OpenSSO Express in response to demand from users of OpenSSO, who would like to leverage Sun's expertise in providing enterprise-grade support and indemnification for open source software."

With more than 700 members, the OpenSSO project is attracting large enterprises with extensive identity infrastructures, who want an open source, identity management solution with Sun's support and indemnification. OpenSSO is now backed by Sun's world-class support, giving customers the choice of deploying the latest OpenSSO releases to help address their web access management or federation challenges right away instead of waiting for the next commercial product release.

"Medavie Blue Cross provides personalized service to more than a million members in Canada and due to the needs of our business, we couldn't afford to wait for the next commercial version of Sun's federation and access management software, so we joined the OpenSSO community and started using the OpenSSO Express product, which was a great decision because we've received full support and indemnification from Sun. Since then, we've implemented the OpenSSO version of the product and took advantage of its features. This approach has helped us keep pace with our needs and it improved our time to market. Plus, we were able to have access to Sun's most innovative web access management and federation offerings in open source," said Vince Blanchard, director of architecture and new technology, Medavie Blue Cross.

"We are using Sun OpenSSO Express as an extension of our Datagrid Suite, which provides application developers with a single point of access to all their application data from multiple, heterogeneous data sources. The integration with Sun's federation technology enables Datagrid users to create secure, federated mash-ups of partner content," said Jeff Cortley, vice president, Subscriber Data Management Business Division, Alcatel-Lucent. "By taking advantage of the OpenSSO project, we are able to leverage the most current and innovative identity and federation features for the Datagrid solution."

About the OpenSSO Community

Founded 18 months ago, the OpenSSO community includes members from companies like Audi, Medavie Blue Cross, Telenet and France Telecom. Started as a Sun Microsystems-sponsored open source project, the OpenSSO community provides core identity functionality, such as: single sign-on, access management, federation and secure web services in a single Java technology-based distribution. The community also bases their development on enterprise-focused standards, including SAML 2.0, XACML and WS-Federation, in addition to creating extensions to OpenSSO through sub-projects around other protocols like OpenID and Information Cards.

Sun's Identity Portfolio

Sun technology manages billions of user identities worldwide for more than 5,000 organizations, including Fortune 100 companies, that rely on Sun's identity management portfolio for provisioning and secure access, ongoing compliance and federation. Sun's identity management portfolio is designed to streamline and simplify the process of managing user identities across a variety of applications. Sun received an overall positive(1) in Gartner's Vendor Rating report from June 2008 and Sun's open source and developer initiatives received a strong positive(2). For information on Sun's identity management portfolio, visit: www.sun.com/identity.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network is the Computer(TM)" -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the web at http://sun.com.

About Gartner's Vendor Rating(1)(2)

The Vendor Rating is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Vendor Rating is an evaluation of a vendor as a whole, not just on its position within a single market. It is based on Gartner's assessment of the vendor's vision and execution for a product or service, relative to Gartner's analysis of clients' requirements. It is not intended as a comparison relative to competitors in the market. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Vendor Rating, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, "The Network is the Computer," Sun Java System Access Manager, Sun Java Identity Management Suite, Java Enterprise System are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.