Sun Sponsored Challenge Program Recognizes Open Source Technology Innovation With 13 Winners Sharing $127,500 Prize

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Business Wire EON/PRWEB ) September 29, 2008 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) today announced the winners of the NetBeans(TM) Innovators Grant contest designed to fuel innovation around the NetBeans open source project. The contest was part of Sun's Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program, a multi-year program running across several open source communities with a $1 million total prize.

In support of Sun's commitment to free and open source software, we developed the Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program to foster innovation and recognize the most interesting initiatives within the communities worldwide

The winners chosen demonstrated extraordinary creativity and collaboration, and their work has fuelled significant growth within the NetBeans community.

It has been a wonderful opportunity to bring something alive that we believe in

Taking part in the project and winning the NetBeans Innovators Grant project was an opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime!

I never imagined that I would have such an impact on an open-source project before I started working with NetBeans. Now, I know that a vision of something can become reality. I am honoured to have had such strong support – from the NetBeans Community and the NetBeans Dream Team – all helping me to successfully bring my project to completion. Dreams do come true.

The Network Is The Computer

The Network Is The Computer

In related news, the NetBeans Community is kicking off its World Tour with its first stop, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The NetBeans World Tour events are hosted together with local Sun Tech Days.

“In support of Sun's commitment to free and open source software, we developed the Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program to foster innovation and recognize the most interesting initiatives within the communities worldwide,” said Jiri Kovalsky, technical community manager at Sun. “The winners chosen demonstrated extraordinary creativity and collaboration, and their work has fuelled significant growth within the NetBeans community.”

“It has been a wonderful opportunity to bring something alive that we believe in,” said Anuradha Gunasekara, creator of Cube°n NetBeans plug-in as he reflects upon the contest. “Taking part in the project and winning the NetBeans Innovators Grant project was an opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime!”

Hong Wei Deng, author of Scala Support project agrees, “I never imagined that I would have such an impact on an open-source project before I started working with NetBeans. Now, I know that a vision of something can become reality. I am honoured to have had such strong support – from the NetBeans Community and the NetBeans Dream Team – all helping me to successfully bring my project to completion. Dreams do come true.”

The NetBeans Innovators Grant winners include the following:

• Anuradha Gunasekara for Cube°n – NetBeans integration with issue tracking systems
• Hong Wei Deng for Scala Support – full featured Scala development support in NetBeans
• Bill Snyder for CashForward – personal cash-flow system built on top of the NetBeans Platform
• Alessandro Nascimento Dourado for NB Project – projects management tool based on the NetBeans Platform
• and 9 additional projects

To hear podcast sessions with gold award winners Anuradha Gunasekara (Cube°n), Hong Wei Deng (Scala Support) and read interviews with Silver Award winners, Laurent Forêt (IvyBeans) and Alexandre Soumbatov (PL/SQL Editor) visit Sun news.

Sun is celebrating the growth of the open source community throughout the month of September. In addition to NetBeans, Sun's open source portfolio of products includes GlassFish(TM), OpenSolarisTM), OpenOffice.org(TM), OpenJDK(TM), MySQL(TM), Open Storage, PostgreSQL and OpenSPARC(TM). For more on Sun's open source offerings.

About NetBeans

A free, open-source Integrated Development Environment for software developers. You get all the tools you need to create professional desktop, enterprise, web, and mobile applications with the Java language, C/C++, and Ruby. NetBeans IDE is easy to install and use straight out of the box and runs on many platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer"(TM) -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, OpenSolaris, OpenJDK, NetBeans, OpenOffice.org, MySQL, OpenSPARC and “The Network Is The Computer” are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

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