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Sun's Scott McNealy's Days are Numbered?
alek writes "The Wall Street Journal writes 'Dusk could be near for Sun's McNealy' where they conjecture that the founder and and CEO of Sun Microsystems might be leaving soon. They suggest that the return of former CFO Michael Lehman and and a more active Board pressing for improved performance could result in COO Jonathan Schwartz taking over the top job. We've heard stories like this for years but Scott has hung in there for a long time - his response to the WSJ was 'That rumor is about 22 years old and still chuggin.'"
No more hockey, welcome back PowerPoint!
One has to wonder if Sun is ripe for a takeover by the likes of Google. There is alot of speculation on this and it kinda makes sense. What's Sun's bread and butter these days?
http:religiousfreaks.comYou have to pick one if you are a developer.... who do you think knows where the industry is headed, and who thinks they ARE the industry? http://blog.tallsails.com/2006/04/18/who-are-you-g onna-bet-on.aspx
Hey, then can just hire Darl McBride and sue BSD!
Too bad they can't seem to fully adopt/develop Linux/FOSS software on their hardware instead of flogging Solaris.
Don't get me wrong, Sun has given a lot to OSS but they really need to stop sucking that dry Solaris tit while they slowly starve to death. It looks kinda funny when there is a full Linux teat right next to them and they wont fully embrace it.
The Sun always shine on TV.
Dude, Sun has the hugest beer bong in the world!
Do you see what I did there?
INSIDER & RULE 144 TRANSACTIONS REPORTED - LAST TWO YEARS
Date Insider Shares Type Transaction Value*
17-Feb-06 MCNEALY, SCOTT G.
Chairman 2,400,000 Direct Option Exercise at $3.125 per share. $7,500,000
17-Feb-06 MCNEALY, SCOTT G.
Chairman 2,400,000 Direct Sale at $4.30 - $4.37 per share. $10,404,0002
17-Feb-06 MCNEALY, SCOTT G.
Chief Executive Officer 2,400,000 Direct Planned Sale $10,344,0001
Get out while the gettin's good, take the money and run.
Sun is trading at $5 a share, time to buy? or forgeddaboudit!?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Replacing McNealy with Schwartz would be like performing a brain transplant in which a poorly functioning brain is replaced with a kidney.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Seriously, Ray Ozzie ( of Lotus fame ) has serious power at Microsoft. He is definatly a man of vision, the question is, do you agree with his vision. My understanding is the work he was doing at Groove was quite impressive, plus Microsoft basically bought groove to get this guy on board.
Of all the people listed, I would rather have him running the show.
Before those too (Balmer & Otelini) both were run by people with a tech background who had the vision to push technology to create new markets. Now they're run by bean-counters who only know how to give speaches and maintain the market against competitors.
Bring back tech leaders to run tech companies.
I know he isnt popular with the /. crowd, but Schwartz -IS- popular with the Fortune500 CEO crowd... I've seen the guy work a room, he comes across very charismatically (way WAY more than McNealy ever has) and the dumb PHB/CxO types seem to really take an interest in what he's saying.
Now, I'm no fanboy of either one, but McNealy is probably better suited to chair thier R&D or something than he is to being CEO these days. Schwartz at least would put a more energetic face on the company and (one could hope) re-vitalize thier core competancies.
Now, I know im dreaming, but maybe of McNealy got out of the top slot, Sun could/would FINALLY ditch thier 4000% margin policy and start selling crap that I (me personally, or the company I work for) could actually afford to buy!
Sure there is. Sun has been trying to break into Web services -- witness OpenOffice.org, various Java initiatives, grid farm, etc. Google has Web services down, since that's all they do, so such a merger would be beneficial to Sun.
;)
For Google, the benefits are more dubious. Sure, they get OpenOffice.org, but don't they have Sun talent working on an AJAX OpenOffice.org already? Plus, they have Writely, now. Plus, OpenOffice.org is LGPL, so Google can pretty much do what it wants. OTOH, the OpenOffice.org source code is about as comprehensible as a program written in Brainf*ck or Perl, so maybe that's what it's about for them.
I don't think Google is at all interested in Sun's hardware business, and, well, why do anything with OpenSolaris when you have so many Linux hackers on staff already?
My blog
This article is from Wall Street, nb. What it seems to be saying is that a lot of Wall Street brokers would do very nicely out of a share price rise if Mr McNealy stepped down. Well, they would say that wouldn't they? What the article does not mention at all is a credible strategy to secure Sun's future prosperity, if one can be found. Without that, it doesn't matter whether McNealy, Schwartz or for that matter Donald Duck is at the helm.
Just my 2 cents, but whatever you think of him Scott McNealy is a colourful and entertaining character in an industry of direly grey men. I'd be sorry to see him go, at least until he'd found a new home for Sun as it is hard to see how it can continue on its own for that much longer.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Lets hope you don't work in Wall Street as an advisor!
... everybody's days are numbered... It would be very cool to have them in alphabetical order...
I mean the man's mortal, like everyone else...
I mean, he is, right? Can we get confirmation on this?
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
If this is true it would seem the board would like to put Sun up for sale.
"May the Schwartz be with you." God knows Sun needs a helping hand. Maybe they should let Steve Jobs take over the company? Or sell everything to IBM?
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
Wasn't he supposed to fall on his sword after the Sun/Microsoft pact. Was it a coincidence that a lot of commentators came to the exact same conclusion.
Scott McNealy's reign as chief executive of Sun Microsystems could be coming to an end, say analysts.
Munir Kotadia April 06 2004
They've been so obsessed with Microsoft that they failed to see that their biggest threat was IBM. Sun could have easily come in and preempted IBM by making the transition to OpenSolaris sooner, heavily supporting Linux in a real way earlier and making a name for itself in open source sooner. Imagine if they'd started 7-8 years ago with supporting PostgreSQL on their systems and actively developing it into something that was a quality part of their software stack (not saying it's a bad DB). How about if they'd done the official port of Java to Linux, instead of making Blackdown do work on it until Linux became too strong to ignore?
Their leaders are arrogant and resistant to change. That's a bad combination when you're in a competitive field where swallowing your pride and accomodating your users is the most important way of making money.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=zfs+linuxr y/l-inotify.html?ca=dgr-lnxw51Inotify
I thought I had read dtrace was on linux too, but what I had really read was Inotify replacing Dnotify on Linux.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/libra
How hard would it be to port these things to Linux?
Sun is a shadow of its former self and it doesn't have to do with McNealy, except to the extent that he could make the rounds and "moticate" people. Personally:
- Tried to call Sun 4 times to get quotes for hardware and support contracts. Did not get hold of a human, phone system made me leave messages each time. No one ever returned my calls.
- All Sun's patches, and their treasure trove of support information, SunSolve, is behind a paid firewall now, and you need to buy a support contract to get access. See item above. Why not just a support subscription I can charge to my credit card. Zillions of people would probably pay $500 per year for that. I would, gladly.
- We bought several of the new X4100 boxes. Nicely designed, but serial console management did not work in Solaris 10 (or else required a fistful of undocumented hacks), and the LOM remote console was buggy and crashed a couple of times, requiring a system power cycle. We sent the servers back.
- It takes me twice as long to build any OSS on Solaris - no one is really developing on it consistently. Ever tried building Firefox on Solaris?
Basically, this is all execution. It's just easier to buy something other than a Sun. If need a Web server, I can have a Linux host installed and up from CDROM in 15 min, 45 min if I care about building the absolute latest version of Apache or an obscure Apache module.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I thought Hu rather than Mr. Scott McNealy heard a heckler say, "Your days are numbered." At around the same time, Scott McNealy just read a Chinese fortune cookie saying "according to the sun, your days are numbered." Hu knows why...
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
I worked for Sun for 7 years, some of that time at VP level, so I got to know Scott, and work with/for him. He taught me an important lesson: never, ever, give up. There were at least two occasions when I was sent out to fight "hopeless" battles for Sun against the arrayed masses of competition. He pushed hard to not give up in the face of impossible odds, and we won.
He never gives up.
It's very easy to armchair quarterback what Sun and Scott have been doing this past decade or so. Whenever I find myself wondering why my SUNW shares aren't worth a tenth of what I paid for them, I'm tempted to think of how I could run the company better than Scott. And then I realize that my puny mind can't come up with anything. The company generates cash, employs a lot of people and satisfies a lot of customers. Scott's never been afraid to remake the company (I lived through the transition from technical workstations to commercial servers and that was quite something), but there's only so much that you can do.
I have no clue what's going on inside the company now but, of one thing I'm sure: if Scott does step aside, it's because he thinks that it's the best thing for the company. He's given everything to it for over 20 years, and could easily have taken the "go lie on a beach" path years and years ago.
That was Peter McNeely, but I think Scott McNealy could take Tyson.
Here's my witty comment about a signature. Ha. Ha.
microsoft.com
These aren't two business people finishing a deal! These are comrades, even more THAT'S LOVE! Look at their eyes, how they look at each other, the smiles in their faces, incredible. There's hope for mankind, we're still able to really, really love each other.
Replacing Scotty would - of course - destroy this enormous love...
Oh my..., all these feelings...
Until ZFS is released for the real production version of Solaris (Not Solaris Express), then a lot of people will spend some real time with it.
Otherwise. . . it is just a piece of software with lots of promises with no real release.
Either the program is new, or none of the people I've talked to have known about it. Thanks for the link.
You'd think they'd put a links allover their web site to rope in all the legacy Sunsolve users and the people downloading free Solairs 10.
I know Sun's trying; with my past connection to them and Silicon Valley, it's physically painful to watch.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Maybe at a Toastmasters competition, but not in the ring!
John Howard has spent all but two years of his ten years as PM of Australia having to deal with speculation on when he'll retire - it's an open joke. WRT McNealy similar rumours have passed around for years and years and years also and it's even more stupid for him because he's so much younger.
In the article it says "Mr. Stahlman wrote a research note about the possibility of a management change in early March." If I were him, I wouldn't be boasting about it.
"Dusk could be near". That's news with confidence.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Are you still looking for Cocoa wannabes? I work in Cambridge where it appears you are located.
-mkb
read all about Schwartz to be new CEO, Scott will stay as chairman of board
The LOM just randomly hung. I would suggest just pounding it I guess. Try connecting from different marginally compatible browsers like older Mozillas. Use the virtual console applet heavily.
/devices path for the serial port as a kernel parameter, but never said what those values were except that it was "hardware dependent")
The other issues were that we just could not get consistent serial port access all the way through the boot process. The documentation was either nonexistent of inconsistent (like, it said to supply the
Also the move to GRUB required that we make major reworks to our finely honed Jumpstart architecture. It was just cheaper and quicker to order OpenBoot SPARC boxes than do that.
I documented all this stuff is several postings to Sun's old support forums, and then about two weeks later they deleted the support forums when they performed a major update to their web site. A typical f***-up.
They are nice hardware, if you have an established Linux or Windows netinstall infrastructrue I am sure they work OK. We could see our Windows net install server on the 4100s.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"