Sun Microsystems Laboratories, or Sun Labs was the research and development

Research and development

The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...

 branch of Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

. It was established in 1990 by Ivan Sutherland

Ivan Sutherland

Ivan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal...

 and Robert Sproull

Robert Sproull

Robert Lamb Sproull is a retired American educator, physicist, and US Department of Defense official.Sproull was born in Lacon, Illinois. A graduate of Deep Springs College, Sproull studied English literature at Cornell University before taking a Ph.D. at the same university in physics...

. Facilities were located in Menlo Park, California

Menlo Park, California

Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...

 and Burlington, Massachusetts

Burlington, Massachusetts

Burlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 24,498 at the 2010 census.- History :It is believed that Burlington takes its name from the English town of Bridlington, however this has never been confirmed....

, USA.

Sun Labs worked in areas, such as asynchronous circuit

Asynchronous circuit

An asynchronous circuit is a circuit in which the parts are largely autonomous. They are not governed by a clock circuit or global clock signal, but instead need only wait for the signals that indicate completion of instructions and operations. These signals are specified by simple data transfer...

s, optical communications, new web technologies, Java

Java (Sun)

Java refers to several computer software products and specifications from Sun Microsystems, a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation, that together provide a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform environment...

 technologies, and computer network

Computer network

A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....

s. James G. Mitchell

James G. Mitchell

James "Jim" Mitchell Ph.D. , is a Canadian computer scientist. He has worked on programming language design and implementation , interactive programming systems, dynamic interpretation and compilation, document preparation systems, user interface design, distributed transactional file systems, and...

 directed the labs starting in 2000.
When asked in 2007 why Sun continued to put resources into research as the market turned to commodity pricing, chief executive Jonathan I. Schwartz

Jonathan I. Schwartz

Jonathan Ian Schwartz is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Picture of Health. He was formerly the President and CEO of Sun Microsystems prior to its acquisition by Oracle, and previously the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse Design, Ltd., a software company focused on...

 said, "You need to spend enormous amounts of money to differentiate."

In 2010 after Sun was purchased

Sun acquisition by Oracle

The acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation was completed by Oracle on January 27, 2010. Significantly, Oracle, previously only a software vendor, now owned both hardware and software product lines from Sun The acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation was completed by...

 by Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...

, it became Oracle Labs.
Sproull was director.
He was appointed in June 2006.