"Many FORTUNE 1000 companies today are telling us they are tired of lack of integration across the spectrum of software they use to run their business, and even more frustrating, the amount they have to pay for it," said John Loiacono, Sun's executive vice president of Software, as General Motors Corporation yesterday chose Sun Java Enterprise System (Java ES) to provide an integrated software environment for its global IT infrastructure - bringing the total number of Java ES subscribers to nearly 1 million.

"A company of GM's caliber adopting the Java ES is a tremendous endorsement of Sun's ability to bring an integrated system to customers, large and small, that can dramatically lower their software IT costs," Loiacono added.

Additionally, Sun announced that GM plans to deploy the Solaris 10 OS as the standard operating system for this infrastructure.

The decision to integrate the complete Java ES stack is largely based on the success GM has enjoyed with Sun Java ES software components. It supports our objective of increasing the value of our development investment while reducing operating costs," said Fred Killeen, GM's Information Systems and Services Chief Technology Officer. "By expanding our infrastructure to the full Java ES stack, we will simplify integration between systems throughout our network while improving the user experience."

GM will be the largest company to use Java ES to build a Service Oriented Architecture that delivers innovative, interoperable Web services while reducing development and maintenance costs. Java ES is the software companies use to build their web based applications, ensure the identities of people who access their services and enable them to quickly and securely develop and deploy applications and services.

Sun will aid GM's information systems efforts by adding additional integrated software suites in the Java ES family. To date, GM has been using Sun Java Web Infrastructure Suite and Sun Java Application Platform Suite. GM plans to extend its current portal implementation by adding the sophisticated Sun Java Identity Management Suite to maintain a secure and reliable environment while simplifying the user experience through single sign-on, which reduces the need for multiple passwords.