Open Port Technology, Inc. announced today its support of SunTone Service Delivery Architecture Specification 1.0 announced by Sun's SunTone Architectural Council, and plans to have its IP LaunchPad platform solution SunTone-ready by January 2000. Open Port is a founding member of the SunTone Architectural Council, which was created in July with the goal to define a standard of best practices for the deployment of highly reliable and available service provider infrastructures to make it easier for service providers to evaluate the many offerings in the service provider marketplace. In related announcements today, AUCS and Tele Danmark announced their IP Fax Services, which are based on IP LaunchPad. Certification of IP LaunchPad under the SunTone program will benefit these service providers, as well as all other customers deployed on IP LaunchPad, such as China Telecom, Net2Phone and MCI Worldcom Inc. Currently, there is not a standard which service provider customers can use to qualify a service provider, making the process difficult and time consuming. The SunTone Architectural Council will promote minimum requirements for service provider quality of service (QoS) hardware infrastructure and operational processes so that service offerings are as reliable as traditional dial-tone services with minimal downtime. The SunTone program is designed to help customers decide which service providers best serve their needs and to help service providers deliver the best products and services to customers. Open Port will help Sun and 17 other industry leaders define and promote minimum requirements for service provider QoS, and will make sure that its own products are SunTone-compliant. "The SunTone program will define service level guarantees for network-based services such as e-mail, fax, e-commerce, and enterprise applications. Open Port is a founding member and key contributor to the SunTone council because they are well known as a leader in Internet telephony messaging applications which must deliver these guarantees to service providers," said Tim Dwyer, Vice President Worldwide Sales Development & Marketing, Network Service Provider division for Sun. "Open Port applauds Sun Microsystems for leading the data networking industry into this new era of 'telco quality' reliability and security," said Tony Dutra, co-founder and vice president of strategy for Open Port. "Open Port pledges to do its part by offering highly-available software solutions for service providers to bring that quality to IP-based voice and fax messaging. We expect that IP LaunchPad will be one of the first solutions to attain SunTone certification when it becomes available, and that any service provider wanting to deploy a SunTone-certified IP messaging service will be comfortable deploying it on our IP LaunchPad platform." Dutra is confident that Open Port's IP LaunchPad platform, introduced in March of this year, will be SunTone-certified, and will therefore be one of the only true carrier-class messaging solution for service providers. IP LaunchPad's carrier-class features include: Built-in service level agreement mechanisms that allow service providers to package their network capability into new SLA guarantees that target specific levels of service; a modular architecture that results in massive scalability; system- wide security through a combination of LDAP and RADIUS authentication servers, and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption algorithms; compliance to industry standard protocols, such as LDAP, T.37, T.38, and SNMP; and the ability to leverage popular network infrastructure requirements which result in minimal startup costs for service providers. Open Port's IP LaunchPad, an Internet services creation platform, is designed for network service providers, ISPs, resellers, and local exchange carriers to deploy new IP services by easily snapping in applications. IP LaunchPad enables service providers to roll out new, value-added IP services beyond fax, helping service providers to easily broaden their revenue base. The first application suite available for IP LaunchPad is IP LaunchPad Fax Suite, which lets service providers offer productivity-enhancing applications, such as PC fax, web-based faxing, email-to-fax, and fax broadcasting. IP LaunchPad was recently awarded CTI Editor's Choice Award, and its voice solution, IP LaunchPad Voice Suite, recently received Davidson Consulting's 1999 Analyst's Choice award in the category of "Most Innovative Voice-centric U-mail Solution." Open Port Technology, Inc. Open Port Technology, Inc., founded in 1993, is a pioneer in the Internet messaging industry, and is one of the top 10 IP telephony vendors (Piper Jaffray, February 1999). Open Port has deployed global IP messaging services for leading Internet and telecommunications companies, including AUCS, Guangdong PTA (China Telecom), Net2Phone and MCI WorldCom Inc. Open Port's technology is at the core of the UUfax service from UUNET, one of the world's first global, carrier-class Internet fax solutions. In addition, Microsoft Corp. holds a minority investment in and is partnering with Open Port to add IP-faxing capabilities to Microsoft(R) Windows(R) NT Server-based products. Open Port's headquarters are located at 676 North St. Clair Street, Chicago, Ill. 60611. Additional information can by obtained by contacting Open Port by telephone (+1.312.867.5000), email (info@openport.com), or via the Internet ( www.openport.com ). 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 high quality hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $11 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com . Open Port, Open Port Technology, Open Port IP LaunchPad, Open Port IP LaunchPad Fax Suite, Open Port IP LaunchPad Voice Suite, Open Port IP LaunchPad Fax Client, and Open Port Technology and IP LaunchPad logos are registered trademarks of Open Port Technology, Inc. All other marks are trademarks of their respective organizations. ots Original Text Service: Open Port Technology, Inc. Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Lisa Donovan of Open Port Technology, Inc., 312-867-5022, or E- mail, ldonovan@openport.com Web site: http://sun.com Web site: http://www.openport.com