During NBC's Universal coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics from Beijing, China, August 8-24, Sun Microsystems has been selected to provide the technology platform for its Olympic web site, NBCOlympics.com. The announcement was made today by Senior Vice President, Digital Media, NBC Sports and Olympics, Perkins Miller, and executive vice-president, Global Sales and Services, Sun Microsystems, Peter Ryan.

NBC’s online coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, powered by Sun’s high-performance, eco-efficient systems, will set a new standard in delivering digital content to viewers with live streaming of events, live chat, blogs, video archives of completed events, athlete profiles and many other unique features. Olympic fans will have access to approximately 2,200 total hours of live streaming Olympic broadband video coverage of 25 different sports on the site.

Executive vice-president, Global Sales and Services, Sun Microsystems, Peter Ryan, declared: “Sun has worked hard to architect a powerful, energy efficient platform for NBCOlympics.com that will rapidly scale for hundreds of millions of sports fans who look to the Internet for the latest events and results.” “In 2008, NBCOlympics.com is redefining the Olympic experience and Sun Microsystems has been an important partner in that effort. We have recognized the growing online viewership for the Olympics and have worked with Sun to create a powerful and feature-rich Web experience for NBCOlympics.com.”

The NBCOlympics.com site is supported by 160 Sun Fire X4450 and Sun Fire X4150 servers. These Intel® Xeon® processor-based x64 servers combine world-class performance, high compute density and storage with compact footprints and leading energy efficiency. Sun Services will provide installation, engineering expertise and support to NBCOlympics.com in the lead-up to and during the games.