Pakistani bank switches to Sun

Server manufacturer Sun Microsystems has clinched a deal in the financial services vertical with BankIslami in Pakistan.

Following a proof-of-concept, the bank replaced one hundred of its HP thin clients at its headquarters in Karachi with Sun Microsystems's Sun Ray ultra thin clients, the US company announced this week.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to Sun, its solution offered the Pakistan Islamic bank with a system that reduced hardware and maintenance cost and improved security and scalability.

"We were impressed with the superiority of Sun Ray thin clients and decided that it was best suited for our organisation," Asad Alim, CIO of BankIslami commented. "It is vital in our industry to have a secure solution to protect corporate data and intellectual property. Sun's proven track record in the financial services industry and market leading solutions met our business requirements for a secure and scalable desktop solution."

He added that the bank planned to extend its Sun Ray deployment as it expanded its operations.

"In an industry where one could potentially have thousands of networked desktops, which regularly need updating with the latest applications, the savings in terms of time and cost is significant," Sun Microsystems MENA Chris Cornelius stated.

"Sun Ray offers real benefits in terms of efficiency, speed of response, ease of maintenance and cost. The software will co-exist with the bank's backend infrastructure and offer multi-platform OS support," he added.

Other deals Sun has won in the Middle East financial services sector include the Central Bank of Egypt, which last year contracted Sun to provide servers, data processing systems and specialised services as part of a US$2.85million overhaul of its IT infrastructure.