Student Developers Increasingly Adopt Solaris and OpenSolaris Project
SAN
FRANCISCO, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Worldwide Education and
Research Conference (WWERC)-February 6, 2007-Sun Microsystems Inc.
(NASDAQ:SUNW),
the creator of Java(TM) technology and Solaris(TM), today reconfirmed
its commitment to empowering academic developers through sharing,
collaboration and open innovation -- the key elements of what Sun has
coined the Participation Age. With a variety of programs and offerings,
Sun is proving its dedication to providing the next generation of
developers with the educational tools and resources they need to
cultivate important IT skills, participate in today's global economy
and contribute to the innovation of new technologies. These resources
include Sun's successful Campus Ambassador Program, which supports more
than 180 student evangelists in more than 30 countries who are
introducing Sun technologies and open source projects to academic
developers.
Sun also announced increasing adoption of the Solaris 10 Operating
System(OS)
by student developers and growth of the OpenSolaris(TM) project
community on campus. These students are preparing for the web-based
business world by learning how to develop on the most advanced
operating system on the planet with its advantages in security,
virtualization and performance.
Here again, Sun has been active in
providing Solaris training and support with programs such as the Campus
Ambassador Program, and by posting Solaris curricula on opensolaris.org
for any teacher to use. As a result, more than 100 universities have
adopted Solaris OS education into their curriculum.
Sun has also
held several Solaris training events around the world: In China,
almost 100 professors from 45 institutions were trained on the Solaris
OS at a workshop in December, and in India, faculty members from the
country's National Institute of Technology received training at a
four-day workshop in January.
Other programs include Sun's
Academic Initiative (SAI), a collaborative program between Sun and
academic institutions, whereby Solaris 10 OS developers can gain the
skills they need to meet immediate business challenges and to gain
industry-recognized credentials. As part of this program, more than
2,500 educational institutions have become authorized to deliver
training on Sun technologies to their faculty, staff and students.
"Solaris
is the predominant environment for our programming classes and
cpu-intensive CAD tools. More than 4000 students use Solaris OS on the
Sun SPARC technology and AMD Opteron-64 processor hardware for EECS
classes (200 SunRays, 6 Sun UltraSPARC IIIi technology servers, 40
workstations). Core computer classes use either the gcc/gdb, the Sun
Studio 11 native C++ software and Fortran compilers or the Sun ONE
Studio 5 native Java technology developer tools for topics as diverse
as compiler theory, programming methodology, computer graphics,
databases, WEB interfaces and network topology. OpenSolaris allows our
students to study the underlying operating system structure and to
match the lab environment on their home computers," said Kevin
Mullally, manager, EECS Instructional Support Group, University of
California at Berkeley. "We are very pleased with the ease of
maintenance of the SunRays, the performance of the computers and the
responsiveness of Sun tech support."
Campus Ambassador Program
Sun's
Campus Ambassadors are facilitating the adoption of open source
technologies on campus, as well as fostering community and innovation.
These technologies and open source projects include the Solaris 10 OS;
Java technology-based systems; community projects such as the
OpenSolaris project and OpenSPARC(TM) technology project; and the
NetBeans(TM) integrated development environment (IDE) and Sun
Studio(TM) software tools. Sun provides the Campus Ambassadors with
free training and support; in turn, ambassadors help student developers
take advantage of Sun's robust portfolio of high- value, no-cost
resources, such as free web-based training, free developer tools, open
source technologies and communities, and easily accessible technical
support via forums and communities. "
In selecting candidates
for the Campus Ambassador program, Sun is choosing from among the most
original and innovative young minds on campus today.
Anil Gulecha, a
Campus Ambassador from India, invented a way for Solaris to be booted
off a USB drive. One of Sun's Canadian Campus Ambassadors, Martin
Morissette, led a team of students who built a Java technology-powered
submarine, called Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, that dazzled judges at
the prestigious International Autonomous Underwater Competition
sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems
International (AUVSI) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
Sun
is also turning to its Campus Ambassador community in order to provide
business and academic decision makers valuable insight into needs and
expectations for university IT infrastructures. In a recent survey of
Sun Campus Ambassadors, students expressed high expectations for
e-learning resources, wireless access and open source tools -- insight
that may shape IT decisions, purchasing and the market itself. Several
sessions at WWERC will address these issues, and Sun's Hal Stern,
senior vice president of systems engineering, will host a panel of
students who will share their IT challenges, triumphs, expectations and
frustrations.
"The people at Sun are a great mentors and the
internship opportunity helps enhance students' careers," said Fahad
Hussain, Sun Campus Ambassador at San Jose State University. "Sun works
closely with the universities to equip students with advanced skills,
hands-on experience with leading-edge, open source technologies, and
the confidence to create new technologies. Not only does Sun offer
training and support, the dialogue goes both ways. Sun is interested in
hearing what we really need to get the most from our IT education and
be ready to make a difference in the business world."
Contests Encourage Student Innovation
As
one way to foster innovation among student developers, Sun has
sponsored several academic contests. For example, in Singapore, Sun is
sponsoring JavaJive for the second year in a row. Java Jive is a
contest that offers university students an opportunity to develop
applications on NetBeans and Solaris in a fun yet competitive
environment. At WWERC, Sun will also announce the winners of the
Solaris 10 OS University Challenge. To view that announcement, please
visit:
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2007-02/sunflash.20070206.1.xml .
Many
of Sun's resources for young developers are part of Sun Developer
Network (SDN) Academic Developer Program. Launched in 2005, this
program extends Sun's resources for the developer community to
students, researchers and faculty around the world. The program aims to
increase the access that students have to educational developer tools,
thus helping them graduate with the skills they need to contribute to
the advancement of technology.
For more information, please visit
http://developers.sun.com/learning/academic/ .
Sun's
commitment to education overall is exemplified by Curriki, which
started as online project started by Sun Microsystems to develop works
for education in a collaborative effort, originally called Global
Education and Learning Community (GELC). Curriki's mission is to
improve education around the world by empowering teachers, students and
parents with user-created, free, open source curricula. By building a
world class learning environment that is community developed and
supported, and publishing it for free on the Web, Curriki works to help
ensure that anyone, from anywhere can participate.
The
leadership team consists of people with a long-time commitment to
exploring the use of technology to improve education, such as Scott
McNealy.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
A singular vision
-- "The Network Is The Computer" -- guides Sun in the development of
technologies that power the world's most important markets.
Sun's
philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the
forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun
can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at
http://sun.com/ .
NOTE: Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo,
Java, Solaris, OpenSolaris, NetBeans, Sun Ray. 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 US and other countries. Products
bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All SPARC trademarks are used under
license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC
International, Inc. in the US and other countries.
Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, the AMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices.
Contact: Melissa Pereira
Sun Microsystems
Phone: 408-884-4980
email: melissa.pereira@sun.com
Contact: Asa Fenton
Bite Communications
Phone: 415-365-0482
email: asa.fenton@bitepr.com
Source: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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