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Sun Microsystems' Keynote Opens Service and Support Professionals Conference Best Practices and Processes Shared in Achievement of Prestigious Service Awards

May 5, 2008 San Diego, CA- The Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA) Best Practices 2008 “Essential Elements of Support” Conference opened with a keynote from Sun Microsystems. “Achieving Service Excellence” delivered by Mary Cay Kosten, senior vice president, Global Customer Service, provided valuable insight into the journey Sun undertook to achieve the J.D. Power and Associates Certified Technology Service and Support (CTSS) award for an outstanding customer service experience and certification of Excellence in Service Operations from the SSPA.

“Sun Microsystems’ commitment to service excellence and desire to use this as a key competitive differentiator drove our organization to seek certification. The J.D. Power and Associates Certified Technology Service and Support award for an outstanding customer service experience and certification of Excellence in Service Operations from the SSPA is the most in-depth in the industry requiring extensive cross organizational assessments, audits and customer surveys,” stated Kosten. “Through this program we were able to identify our areas of strength, as well as areas that needed closer attention. We were also able to use the program criteria as a guideline for best-in-class performance, which resulted in us surpassing the performance thresholds required to receive these prestigious awards.”

Key to Sun’s achievement of these awards and recognition was the commitment of the executive management team, strong communication and collaboration across the organization, and laser focus on meeting and exceeding customers' service requirements and expectations—including making innovative changes to the support structure and incident handling flow to improve key performance metrics.

The Best Practices 2008 “Essential Elements of Support” is being held in Santa Clara, California May 4 – 6. Conference highlights are available through the SSPA blog.

The SSPA has issued a call for speakers for their next SSPA conference - Services Leadership 2008 “Winning Service Strategies in a Shifting Global Economy” - Las Vegas October 20 – 22, 2008.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network is the Computer" — 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.

About SSPA
The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) is a key resource for information and best practices needed to make better business decisions. It brings together the best minds from across the industry—from established companies with successful track records to pioneering newcomers with out-of-the-box ideas. Visit www.thesspa.com.