The alliance provides for the global deployment of resources from both companies to offer the platform, applications and support that help businesses realize efficiency, customer satisfaction and profitability from their customer management and e-commerce initiatives.
ATG and Sun run many of the world’s most highly visited and successful Web sites today. Fortune 1000 companies in multiple industries, including financial services, retail, and telecommunications, as well as emerging markets such as wireless, are using ATG applications running on Sun systems as their platform for customer management and e-commerce. This includes two of the top three retailers, more than a dozen of the world’s largest financial institutions, and in fact, more than 10 percent of Fortune 100 companies. The enhanced relationship will deliver more comprehensive global support for current mutual customers such as AT&T, HSBC, Target, General Motors, Playstation.com (North America) Inc., Procter & Gamble, Smith & Hawken, Cummins Inc., John Hancock Funds, and Transora. Additionally, the Sun Web site, sun.com, runs on ATG Dynamo 5.
Our numerous customer installations with ATG is further proof of our success on how our companies are delivering on the promise of shorter time-to-market for our mutual customers, said Doug Kaewert, vice president, Sun Developer Network Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc. By strengthening our relationship with ATG, we can continue to empower our global customers to take advantage of the Net Effect to further improve their business efficiency.
Sun and ATG have collaborated to deliver innovative and profitable e-business solutions since our inception, said Jeet Singh, CEO of ATG. Our close working relationship has resulted in more than 650 mutual customers and as our relationship continues to deepen, we look forward to growing our businesses together in every corner of the world.
Global Programs to Accelerate Reliable Time to Service
ATG is participating in two important Sun-led programs, the SunTone[sm] Certification and Branding Program and the iForce[sm] Initiative, which can help mutual customers accelerate time-to-service. ATG recently achieved SunTone Certification for ATG Dynamo 5. The SunTone program is an industry-wide program that has become a mark of excellence, certifying that the applications have met rigorous standards for quality and which are designed to run effectively on a SunTone Certified Service platform.
The iForce community is designed to help customers improve time-to-service with tested, integratable and easy-to-deploy iForce solutions. ATG solutions have already been installed in all three of Sun’s iForce[sm] Ready Centers, and the companies are collaborating on proof-of-concept demonstrations with such customers as Cummins Inc. Sun Professional Services and the iForce Ready Center team of engineers work with ATG and mutual customers in building and testing integratable solutions that solve business problems.
Technology Alignment Delivers Solution Strength
An important part of the alliance is an enhanced technology alignment that will allow ATG products to be further optimized to ensure that combined customers get the best performance for their ATG applications running on the Sun platform. Currently, more than 650 ATG customers are running on the Solaris[tm] Operating Environment. Further, ATG is committed to developing customer management applications on the Java[tm] platform and embracing open, industry standards.
The strength of the relationship is further enhanced by the companies’ mutual commitment to open, standards-based solutions. ATG was one of the first e-commerce application providers to adopt Java[tm] technology in 1995. Today, ATG solutions are fully compliant with the Java[tm] 2 platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE[tm]) standard. For its wireless solutions, ATG is working on the adoption of Java 2 platform, Micro Edition (J2ME[tm]) to enable companies to access personalized information from multiple devices. Sun and ATG’s combined technology advantage is further underscored by the unprecedented benchmark results for ATG Dynamo running on Sun Enterprise[tm] 10000 servers, announced today in a separate release (See also: Sun and ATG Unveil Technology Milestones for ATG Dynamo on the Sun Platform).
