"NASD is pleased to be working closely with Sun Microsystems", stated Marty Colburn, executive vice president and chief technology officer, NASD. "Thanks to our relationship we have been able to move forward quickly on several initiatives while increasing efficiency and reliability in our systems and processes."

"Working hand-in-hand with a thought leader like NASD is a strong reflection of Sun's commitment to Wall Street. Sun will continue to help NASD and others fight down costs while improving reliability to gain a unique, competitive position", stated Stuart Wells, executive vice president, Strategic Development and Sun Financing, Sun Microsystems.

In 2003, Sun worked closely with NASD to migrate its mid-range systems to Sun Fire E12K and E15K servers. Sun's Customer Solutions Organization provided migration services to help ensure a successful implementation. The new systems platform provides NASD additional performance, capacity, and reliability while substantially lowering operational costs.

NASD is currently evaluating the Solaris 10 OS on Sun SPARC-based and x64 (x86, 64-bit) Sun Fire servers with the AMD Opteron processor for its mission-critical regulatory applications. Solaris 10 OS is the industry's most robust operating system, delivering carrier-grade reliability and scalability, and military-grade security.

NASD touches virtually every aspect of the securities business - from registering and educating all industry participants to examining securities firms - enforcing both NASD rules and the federal securities laws and administering the largest dispute resolution forum for investors and securities firms.