(August 11, 2003) - In a keynote speech at LinuxWorld last week, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president of software at Sun Microsystems, Inc., challenged the status quo in personal computing with the unveiling of a new Linux-based alternative desktop and Java-based innovations that will expand the user experience.

During his keynote, Schwartz previewed -- for the first time publicly-- Project Mad Hatter, Sun's fully-integrated open desktop environment for Linux, Solaris, and SunRay deployments that includes Java technology, the GNOME desktop environment, Ximian Evolution, and Sun's StarOffice productivity suite. Sun's alternative desktop, due later this year, will deliver dramatically lower per-seat costs in business environments while delivering familiar look and feel, interoperability and comparable functionality to the typical PC more securely. Schwartz also showed the future of this effort when he demonstrated a three-dimensional evolution of the desktop built entirely in Java on Linux. Sun will formally launch Project Mad Hatter at its SunNetwork conference in September 2003.

"Project Mad Hatter will change the economics, definition and experience of desktop computing," said Schwartz. "But this is only the beginning. The combination of Java and Linux is a driving force - bringing network services to 1.2 billion devices supported by over 3 million developers. Our Linux strategy is to leverage the powerful combination of Java and Linux to open and grow new markets for network computing."

Finally, Schwartz reaffirmed Sun's commitment to open communities and open standards by detailing its contribution of over 8 million lines of code to the open source community, driving participation in OpenOffice.org, Mozilla.org, java.net and its recent membership in the Open Source Development Lab (ODSL).