The international headquarters of Sun Microsystems Laboratories in Mountain View, Calif., employs more than 100 researchers. Under the helm of James Mitchell, its charter is to develop, demonstrate, and introduce new, advanced technologies and methodologies.

Sun Labs California sets the strategic direction that is followed by all Sun Labs locations, and is most directly connected with the dynamic, vigorous culture of innovation in Silicon Valley. It has strong ties with local universities, research institutions, and technology enterprises in the area, facilitating a rich exchange of ideas and expertise among technical professionals.

Tapping the talents of Boston-area researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs since 1990, Sun Labs Massachusetts is the East Coast counterpart to Sun Labs California. Located in Burlington, Mass., it takes on a broad spectrum of applied research projects, including expansion and enhancement of the Java[tm] technology platform, conceptual indexing technology for better passage retrieval from documents, online collaboration tools for applications such as interactive technical support, speech recognition technologies for telephony applications such as voice-over-IP, and Internet security technologies.

Headed by Bob Sproull and with a staff of more than 30, Sun Labs Massachusetts has played a key role in the development of many important Sun technologies and products over the years. Working closely with local Sun engineers and drawing on their expertise in distributed computing, workgroup server technology, and Java software, Sun Labs Massachusetts has contributed to the development of Jini™ network technology, garbage collection for Java virtual machines, the Java speech recognition API (JSAPI), and more.

Sun Labs Europe is just outside the city of Grenoble, France, at Sun's International Center for Network Computing. Its mission is to seek innovation globally, develop breakthrough ideas that can be used to create breakaway products, and build relationships with computer and communications research communities throughout Europe and beyond.

Sun Labs Europe focuses primarily on fourth-generation computing and communications technologies that leverage Internet Protocol (IP) as the universal platform for anytime/anywhere network services. It complements the activities of Sun Labs California and Sun Labs Massachusetts in exploring the boundaries of what is possible, with technology transfer as the ultimate goal.

Headed by Jeff Rulifson, Sun Labs Europe employs about 10 researchers. Its official launch last autumn was followed by an international conference for high-level academics from selected universities in Europe and Asia.