ENTERTAINMENT

New Centralized System Replaces Stand-Alone Solutions Across All Stations, Automates Sales And Delivers Better Access to Data -- Sun Microsystems today announced that Fox Television Stations, Inc. (FTS), a wholly owned division of News Corporation and one of the largest broadcast groups in the United States, has selected Sun's Solaris 10 operating system (OS), servers, storage, and service to power its new centralized sales, traffic and programming management system. By replacing stand-alone solutions based on IBM AS400 servers with the Sun solutions, Fox will be able to more effectively monitor and manage the entire business process, from sales to billing, for all revenue streams. "We are pleased to select Sun for this important project," said Geoff Wells, chief information officer, FTS. "Sun's products provide a comprehensive range of platform options to meet our needs." The project, including integration with neighboring systems and the gradual rollout across all Fox Television stations is planned to take less than three years. FTS employees across the country will have access to the new centralized system. In addition to the Solaris 10 OS, the network will be supported by Sun Fire E6900 and E4900 enterprise-class servers powered by high performance 1.5 GHz UltraSPARC IV+ processors, Sun Fire x64 (x86, 64-bit) servers powered by AMD Opteron processors, the Sun StorEdge 6920 systems and the Sun StorageTek L500 tape libraries. The Sun hardware solution will support Pilat Media's sales, traffic, and program management software. "The true value of the computer becomes clear when crucial data can be easily be accessed and widely distributed via an effective, efficient and secure network," said Juan Dewar, vice president, Internet services, Entertainment and Media Industries. "You can really see this play out on grand scale with the Fox deployment we're announcing today. And the scope of the Sun solutions being used-Solaris 10, large enterprise servers, Opteron-based systems, Sun storage-is further validation of the breadth of solutions Sun delivers." Fox Television Stations, Inc., a wholly owned division of News Corporation is one of the largest broadcast groups in the United States, with annual sales nearing $3 billion. FTS operates 35 local television stations, covering nearly 45 percent of all American television households, and handles advertising sales for 11 regional sports networks.