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A dozen Suns for Clickatell

The Cape Town based telecommunications hardware company, Clickatell, has implemented Sun Microsystems V65x enterprise servers to handle more than 17-million transactions a day from clients in over 180 countries.

Clickatell offers bulk SMS tools that can be used to automate or send personalised text messages to a local, regional or global recipient base.

Popular applications include peer-to-peer messaging, SMS marketing, alerts, info-text, web-to-mobile content, notifications and more.

According to Patrick Lawson, Technical Director at Clickatell, its hardware and software technology systems are essential to the effective conduct of its business. "Every day, Clickatell handles vast amounts of SMS messages, distributed all over the world. Many of these messages are time-sensitive - they have to be delivered to the recipient at the correct time, or their impact may be lost. Our need, therefore, was for highly reliable hardware that provides a guaranteed uptime and guaranteed performance."

With these demands, Clickatell opted for no fewer than 12 Sun V65x servers, supplied by Cape Town-based Breakpoint Solutions.

Breakpoint Solutions is a Sun iForce business partner that leverages off extensive skills and relationships in the Sun arena. In addition to its Sun competency, Breakpoint Solutions offers storage, backup and archival solutions using building blocks of products from other selected storage hardware and software vendors.

Lawson explains the factors that secured Sun as its hardware supplier: "Sun has a proven and lengthy track record in supplying the hardware for telecommunications businesses the world over. With Solaris as the basis of many operational support systems (OSS) critical for telephony operators, we were assured that with the V65x machines we could meet our needs," he says.

Sun's V65x servers are based on the Intel Xeon platform, and offer the user a choice of the Linux distributions, Red Hat Enterprise, SuSE Enterprise Linux Server, or the Solaris Operating System, x86 Platform Edition. Each machine can take up to two processors, up to 12GB RAM and six 73GB hard drives, and incorporate Sun's management systems and the proven reliability of their SPARC siblings.

Just as important as reliability is access to support and technical expertise.

Says Lawson: "Because Sun has a presence in Cape Town, as well as access to an international network of technical expertise and support, we are assured that even in the unlikely event of any interruption, we have immediate access to an escalation procedure to resolve any issues. It's this peace of mind, coupled to the performance and headroom for expansion that makes Sun our technology supplier of choice."

Furthermore, says Lawson, Breakpoint Solutions offers considerable expertise as a fully accredited Sun partner.

Java Systems Engineer for Sun Microsystems SA, Sean O'Hare, says despite the trend to hardware commoditisation, Sun presents unique attributes in its offerings that continue to make it the vendor of choice for demanding business applications.

"Companies like Clickatell appreciate the research and development that Sun applies in the production of systems like the V65x. Continuing developments on the x86 platform ensure that businesses opting for blade and entry-level modular systems have access to the expertise and in-depth knowledge of an enterprise server vendor," he concludes.

About 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 industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com

About Java Enterprise System

Serious software made simple, the Java Enterprise System seamlessly integrates award-winning and market-leading enterprise network applications and services at the heart of Web services. This complete standards-based software system is delivered as a single, pre-integrated entity on a predictable release cycle. Radically simplified customer pricing - $100 per employee per year (U.S. list price) - delivers the peace of mind CIOs need to focus on what they do best: leverage IT to achieve business goals.

The Java Enterprise System enterprise network services provide the core set of functionalities that businesses need to compete effectively in the marketplace: Portal, Communication and Collaboration, Network Identity, Application and Web, Availability and Security services. For more information on the Java Enterprise System please visit:

http://www.sun.com/software/javaenterprisesystem

Issued by : Citigate SA PR, (011) 804-4900
for : Sun Microsystems SA, (011) 256-6300

www.sun.com/rsa

Contact : Elise Roscoe, Sun Microsystems SA

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