NEWS BRIEFS
Palo Alto, CALIF. — Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced its participation in the Planet Project, the largest worldwide global interactive poll. Sponsored by 3Com Corporation, the project will utilize Sun’s powerful servers as the database and web infrastructure for the voluminous global polling data collected during the November 15-18 poll.
As a leader in Internet technology and network computing, Sun will provide the project’s Mission Control Center in Santa Clara, Calif. with Netra servers and Sun Enterprise servers. Sun’s servers are designed for reliability and scalability – helping to ensure that millions of people will be able to share and compare their views on philosophical, thought-provoking and practical subjects, such as religion, health and marriage.
“A poll spanning this many continents and cultures has never before been attempted, and Sun is proud to play such a significant role in making it happen,” said Geoffrey Baehr, Sun’s chief network officer. “Our servers are designed to deliver the bandwidth, reliability and scalability needed to pull off an event of this magnitude.”
Available in eight languages, the poll will demonstrate how technology can promote greater understanding of geographic, cultural and economic differences. It will consist of eight sections, each of which cover areas such as religion; beliefs and fears; health and well-being; sleep and dreams; self-image; marriage; dating and sex; and law and order. There are 20 questions per poll section.
“There will be a tremendous amount of data flowing through the servers,” said Bruce Claflin, 3Com president and COO. “We needed to make sure that the hardware used for this project is efficient, robust and reliable. The Planet Project technical team has worked closely with Sun to make sure these needs are met.”
In order to engage people online and those without access to the Internet, volunteers will be dispatched around the world, even to the most rural and remote areas, with handheld computing devices to facilitate poll taking. After receiving responses, a pollster will transmit the collected data through a wireless modem. Anyone with Internet access can take the poll at http://www.planetproject.com or at one of the other local country domain names registered.
Additional technologies required to help bring the Planet Project to life include contributions from 3Com, Harris Interactive; Akamai Technologies, Inc.; Oracle Corporation; BEA Systems, Inc.; Mercury Interactive; Macromedia; Eucid, Inc.; and AT&T.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision – The Network Is The Computer – has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc., to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to dot-com their businesses. With $15.7 billion in annual revenues. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com .
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