UXBRIDGE, U.K. & BALLYCOOLIN, Ireland--Oct. 21, 2004-- Xerox Corporation today announced it has been awarded a five-year, multimillion-dollar international outsourcing services project by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Xerox will assume total responsibility for the management, maintenance, and streamlining of Sun's entire fleet of printing, copying, faxing and multifunctional products used by the company's 11,500-strong work force across 119 sites in 31 European countries and South Africa. Sun is using Xerox Office Services to reduce printing costs, improve financial administration and service levels, and boost its bottom line right across Europe. Xerox completed an audit of all devices in Sun's European offices and proposed a plan for how to reduce the quantity of those devices and redeploy them to ensure Sun maximizes utility from each individual device. Xerox is also assuming management of Sun's different European device manufacturers, consumables suppliers and maintenance contracts, as well as sole responsibility for resolving device queries from all Sun employees through its Xerox Global Services support center in Ballycoolin, Ireland. "In effect, the initial benefits we've seen already are twofold," said Larry Matarazzi, director, Workplace Resources, Sun Microsystems. "Where financial administration is concerned, we've gone from having to process over 3,000 invoices per quarter across Europe from all 27 device, consumables and maintenance suppliers, to just one invoice per country per month from Xerox. "Secondly, our employees have reported a dramatic improvement in customer service when it comes to device problem resolution across Europe. We set Xerox a target of resolving 80 percent of issues immediately, but Xerox is actually resolving close to 99.8 percent, and Sun has already cut its ongoing European print and document management costs by around 10 percent." The next step of the project, which has already begun, is the rationalization of Sun's device fleet by Xerox. Xerox will continue to assist with every employee query regarding devices - from how to find a printer driver to how to deal with the IT aspects of moving a Sun office to a new site - but simultaneously work to reduce the number of on site devices. This will reduce the financial burden of the legacy fleet at Sun. In this phase, Xerox has committed to reduce Sun's print and document management costs in Europe by 25 percent. "We have already received dramatic 'human' benefits from Xerox's work in the form of improved morale and better staff productivity," said Matarazzi. "In fact, it's fair to say we started to see the benefit from day one. For the first time we know exactly how many devices we have in these countries. We're now looking forward to the financial cost savings that will come from having a device fleet and management set-up that will better suit the needs of our European personnel." Sun is able to make cost savings through using Xerox's negotiation and buying power for equipment maintenance and other print consumables, as well as increasing productivity and reducing downtime caused by device failure. "The first part of the project has gone very well from both companies' points of view," said Shaun Pantling, director and general manager, Xerox Global Services, Xerox Europe. "As we continue the rationalization, we will significantly improve Sun's asset utilization by increasing the number of users per device from seven to 17 while enhancing functionality to increase productivity."