National Manufacturing Week, CHICAGO, -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced that Emerson (NYSE:EMR) has selected Sun as its corporate systems infrastructure provider for hardware for its global enterprise resource planning (ERP) project. The project is expected to provide Emerson's global divisions easier access to data through shared knowledge, applications and computing power. The initiative further enhances Emerson's use of information technology to achieve operational efficiencies that make it easier for customers to do business with the company. The project reflects Sun's commitment to leverage its own operations experience by helping other manufacturing companies streamline global production. Drawing upon the successes of project SunRAMP -- Sun's global ERP and server consolidation project resulting in significant savings in IT infrastructure and application support costs -- Emerson toured Sun's manufacturing and iForce(SM) Solutions Centers in Northern California. With the resources of the Sun-Oracle Applications Technology Center (SOATC), located in the Sun Microsystems iForce Competency Center in Menlo Park, Calif., Emerson then developed its own IT blueprint to standardize ERP applications running Oracle E-Business Suite on Sun(TM) systems, to eventually replace dozens of stand-alone ERP legacy systems. "Horizontal scalability promised by other UNIX/Linux providers has not delivered the economies of scale and reliability demanded by multinational companies like Emerson," said Bill Gerould, global manager for Sun in manufacturing. "To optimize global IT operations through shared technology services requires a rock-solid network infrastructure, with the proven ability to scale across an IT enterprise that spans the globe." "Discovering Sun's success through project SunRAMP confirmed that Sun understands what it takes to help Emerson achieve high-level performance and the fastest time to ROI," Emerson Vice President of IT Shared Services, Steve Hamby said. "By standardizing our back office platform on Sun systems, Emerson gains the flexibility and security demanded of complex business processes like ours, while improving productivity and integration with customers and suppliers."