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McNealy Steps Down as Sun Microsystems CEO
SlashdotOgre writes "Mercury News reports that Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, will be stepping down from his role as CEO. McNealy will continue as chairman, and fellow co-founder Jonathan Schwartz will now take the helm."
One less randroid as CEO of a major corporation.
Schwartz is not a co-founder of Sun - He joined the company in 1996!
z .html
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/ceo/mgt_schwart
Too bad he said just recently that he was "still chugging" and not planning to resign. Kind of makes him loose some credibility.
in flying bacon farms becuase now pligs can fly.
Knowing that Scott was his only barrier to TWD (Total World Domination) apart from Bill The Gates, Larry Ellison seizes the moment to purchase the once-vaunted Stanford University Network for an undisclosed sum and a few cases of Jolt Cola.
.NET division of Microsoft as "C# evangelist."
Scott, meanwhile, is rumored to be now working as "technology consultant" for the
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Good riddance and may the Schwartz be with you (ASAP).
This is just a bunch of people trading their CxO titles among each others like baseball cards.
I am surprised the editors did not link to this rumor that McNealy is stepping down from a few days ago on Slashdot.
Funny McNealy dismissed this as a 22 year old rumor only a few days ago.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
At any rate, this should prompt the 30-something crowd here and elsewhere to reflect on just what the hell they've been doing with thir careers while this guy becomes the CEO of Sun...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
"Since joining Sun in 1996, Jonathan has been a driving force within the Company. His leadership has been instrumental in streamlining Sun's operations, building a solidly competitive product line, securing key acquisitions and major partner relationships and positioning us globally and across industries to reap the benefits of the networked marketplace," said McNealy.
That much PR bullshit barfed in one statement tells me the actual translation is:
"I leave this company in a mess. Jonathan is the one in deep doodoo now, and I'm bloody out here. Farewell sucker."
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Funny McNealy dismissed this as a 22 year old rumor only a few days ago.
Well it was a 22 year old rumor a few days ago...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
How would Java evolve without Sun to "guide" it. What would Sun certifications mean without Sun there to back it up?
It seems that Sun is being hit hard because there's little money in the vertically scalable hardware as that has been replaced with better solutions for horizontal scalability.
If Sun does go out of business, Java may become fragmented and start losing the solid base it has around it.
The decision to go with Sun at quite a number of companies I've worked at has been based on the fact that Sun is strong, Sun will be around for a while, Sun will continue development and support. Which has all been true for quite some time now.
However, this is definitely one of the weakest points in Sun's lifetime and it may scare away potential enterprise level decision makers into going with Java and Solaris.
From Friday:
Asked if he is planning to step down, McNealy characterized the possibility as merely a rumor, without directly answering the question. "That rumor is about 22 years old and still chuggin'," he wrote in an e-mail.
McNealy was resistant to a massive layoffs (25-35%), which analysts say are the only way to revamp Sun at this point.
More importantly, revamp as what? Big iron only?
I dunno
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
My impression of McNealy from hearing him speak was that he was an amazing businessman (he told stories about his job before Sun... at a dog food company) but simply had no connection to the tech. He was a very bright fellow, and he understood technology, but the only extent to which he understood it was he understood how to make money off of it. He didn't understand why the technology was important-- or that is, the only thing he understood to be important about technology was that you could sell it. This sometimes lead to Sun doing things that were wonderful business moves, but more often, it lead to Sun doing things that simply didn't make sense from any perspective.
Johnathan Schwartz definitely understands the technology. I cannot help but wonder if this will produce changes in the way Sun behaves. Sun is doing a lot of things right now that just don't make sense-- selling products that the market doesn't want; selling products that the market does want but putting rediculous restrictions on their functionality or use*; charging out the nose for things every other company gives away for free; giving away for free everything that it would make sense for Sun to charge out the nose for; simultaneously allowing the divergent interests of Sparc, Solaris and Java to hold each other back and get in each other's way. Since I think many of these things were byproducts of McNealy's strange mastery of economics but total ignorance of what the computer market in specific wants, it seems this could change with Schwartz at the tiller. But on the other hand Johnathan Schwartz has been in a position of power within Sun for some time now, and one would expect that if he were going to make an impact on Sun's behavior, he'd have done it already.
How do you suppose Sun's behavior will change after this point?
* One of many examples: I think a lot of people might be interested in SunRay if it wasn't that its use is still painfully tied to Solaris, which nobody wants to use so much as within 50 feet of a desktop machine.
First sun waits until the closing bill to announce their third quarter results in which they posted a wider loss and then they announce that scott is stepping down. Probably to prevent drop of share price. Tomorrow when the trading opens the damage to which could have done to shares would have been greatly reduced by this announcement.
It seems to me SUN's demise is similar to DEC/SGI where fewer and fewer people need big bulky machine -> enterprises are ok with cluster of'disposable' Intel boxes vs an ever-living-upgradable box. Is HPC an area they are good at? Have they explore any 'alternative' business?
I offer this topic so all threads on it can be put below:
From what I've seen in my past 12 years in IT, Sun has been about 80% on the money. They've succeeded in some wonderful areas and are one of the few companies that can still churn out their CPU architectures despite the best efforts of Motorola, Intel, and AMD to put them out of business. They've developed Java which has been a success as well as OS components like NFS.
Despite all that, the company has really screwed up. I don't think they did a good job advocating Java or buying the mindshare of the development community. Most sys admins would still rather use Linux and all the cool toys it comes with compared to Solaris. Sun is just cool enough that you want to use it, but you'd never recommend it to your friends.
I'll throw out the first salvo: the best thing for Sun at this point would be for Schwartz to step down at the same time. McNealy was a likable guy and he cast Sun in a good light (no pun intended.) Schwartz seems to backpeddle and tends to alienate communities that genuinely want to help the company succeed.
----- obSig
I am surprised the editors did not link to this rumor that McNealy is stepping down from a few days ago on Slashdot.
Funny McNealy dismissed this as a 22 year old rumor only a few days ago.
a) most rumors are true, they sometimes take more than a lifetime to be confirmed or believed
b) rumor has it that slashdot editors don't know what is posted on slashdot hence the frequent inability for there to be unique or follow up articles
On topic, I don't know if a new CEO will help Sun. I guess it could not hurt them any worse than they have been for the past few years.
Lighthouse Design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_Design
Lighthouse produced awesome NeXTstep/Openstep applications. Recall that Openstep was an open standard cross platform framework provided by NeXT (Steve Jobs) and Sun (Scott McNealy). Little things like the first web browser and content editor, the dev tools for the game Doom, and Lotus Improve originated in NeXTstep. Scott McNealy once famously said Sun puts all of its wood behind one arrow, and Openstep is that arrow. Um, then Java came along and Sun forgot about Openstep.
Sun acquired Lighthouse Design in ~1996. Lighthouse produced Diagram which was imitated in the form of Visio. Lighthouse was rumored to be producing a project management application (think MS Project). Sun initially said they would release the Lighthouse suite of NeXTstep/Openstep applications as Java applications for enterprise users. Sadly, Sun was never released them. Maybe there was no market or Sun wasn't able to get them to work as Java apps.
Openstep went on to become Apple's Cocoa.
Lighthouse's applications dies inside Sun.
Jonathan Schwartz became Sun CEO.
"Have they explore any 'alternative' business?"
Invest in the disposable IT market to go with those disposable boxes.
Maybe this will stop Sun's habit of lying. Rememer the Ultra 20 (AMD) for 30 per month that was really 450.00 for the first year then 360 per year for the next two years because their backend system 'could not handle monthly payments'?
Good Riddance to the Man. He, John Akers (IBM) and Ken Olsen (DEC) had a chance to take on Microsoft using Unix; a far superior operating system to DOS or Windoze.
Remember their Open Software Foundation (OSF)? But instead of pricing Unix sensibly, they continued to charge ridiculous prices. Their Motif GUI was only available at a price. They bickered and fought, trying to show each other up. Akers and Olsen when they met for OSF would not even publicly shake each others hand in public.
Akers resigned from IBM the day before the stockholders were going to sack him. Olsen to this day refused to admit a mistake that cost his company. He still thinks the PCs days are number. McNeally squandered Unix, kept Java proprietary and continued to charge like a wounded bull. Surely stupidity in an Industry famous for increasing power and decreasing prices. His brash arrogance, 'You Have no Privacy, Get Over It!' won him no friends and no customers. What McNeally never learned was that while winners can afford to be arrogant, runners up cannot.
It's too late for Sun. In the world of Wintel/AMDnux, there is no room for a company that pushes their own overpriced hardware with Unix, an technically-brilliant operating system who was killed by the sheer arrogance of its owner and its licensees.
McNeally will not be missed.
Scott strategy was simple. Lots and lots of companies in the mid 90's were finding that they really didn't like the PC model (users install there own software) and were moving back towards a managed model with NT. But fundamentally if you are going to toss the primary advantage of the PC OS (user installed software) why not just go to dumb X terms and get all the advantages of a fully managed solution?
Sun Microsystems: We put the "O" in Game Over.
he was an amazing businessman (he told stories about his job before Sun... at a dog food company) but simply had no connection to the tech.
Some of the lousiest managers and executives are techies. This is not to say that every techie is lousy manager/executive, but rather that it does not go automatically that a good engineer would be a good manager.
Some of the best executives for tech companies were non techies. Look at who turned around IBM from another dinosaur to be to what it is today: a tech capable respected company that is kinder and gentler: Lou Gerstner came from non other than Nabisco...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Scott did his best. He brought Sun back from nothing in the 90's with the Ultrasparc, gave the world Java, and was a true industry visionary. Remember, he coined the phrase, "The network is the computer." It is sad that he couldn't find a successful business model for Sun, but he will be missed.
In the late 90's Scott was quoted that MS Word was Nintendo for adults, and what he meant by that was that MS was putting new bullshit features into word every 18 to 24 months so that they could sell new versions to existing customers, whose employees were just using the new features to do goofy shit with their documents.
I wonder if he's stepping down in the same way Bill Gates steped down, or how Steve Jobs spent a stint as "interum CEO". On the other hand over the last 5 years McNealy has sucked as CEO.
I always lusted after one of those and just figured that over time Sun would hold the line on quality and reduce the price and eventually I'd be able to afford one. Instead (and here, without any data) I blame McNealy for essentially sleeping, keeping the price of a desktop Sun too high so that now while there is a multi-billion dollar market of Apple and desktop Linux even Win32, there is no Sun shining there.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Funny McNealy dismissed this as a 22 year old rumor only a few days ago.
I remmember thinking at the time - if this was a wild rumor, he would not have commented on it. They only deny it when it true or close to it. Otherwise they just laugh in private.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
My money is on the Sr. PGA tour. He's a scratch golfer. That comes from spending a lot of time on the course you know.
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know." Mark Twain
Am I the only one disappointed in Jonathan Schwartz? I met him a few times and while he seemed very knowledgeable and charismatic, he lacked quite a bit in mental flexibility. I doubt it was my comments on the panels I was on, but he pretty much laughed in my face when I made certain comments - and now, two years later the software at sun is treated pretty much in exactly the way I talked about. Now, its Sun's money and whatever - but that (and a few similar incidents with him) left a bad taste in my mouth. He does a good job at hiding it, but he's incredibly arrogant and suffers under the not-invented-here issue that already brought down many companies of substantial size - think Digital.
Sorry to say that - but Sun needs someone who is more open and listens better than Schwartz. He's a good leader, but he certainly lacks in vision and new, revolutionary ideas.
Peter.
I suspect that Schwartz was the guy who started the Silicon Valley speech idiom of beginning each answer to a technical question with the word "So". For example:
"Hey Johnathan, what is Java?"
"So, Java is this universal programming language..."
Not sure why this is important to me, but I've spent a lot of time in San Jose recently and I've noticed that everyone is talking that way now. To me it comes across as a teensy bit impatient and condescending, if you consider the tone of voice typically used.
Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho.
I'm gonna get a SUN workstation, because they're the coolest thing going, even thought they're under-powered and over-priced. They're NASA-approved, Jobs-free and you don't need to smoke Krakatoas to buy one. /usr/libexec that, you beret-wearing, poggio-driving, shiny white translucent hipsters.
daycare for the munchkin -and approximately 50% of my income is currently in the "disposable" column meaning unallocated and available for new cars, nicer houses, fantastic stereo systems, huge monitors, etc
How 'bout you take care of your kid instead?
Happy selling!
Here's the opportunity of a life time for Oracle to purchase a company who really wants to buy a linux OS. Before you flame me for thinking OpenSolaris is under the GPL (cause it's not), just here me out.
Oracle stated earlier this month that it was interested and attempting to purchase a Linux OS vender, namely Novell and Redhat. Of course this was spurred on by the acquisition of JBoss by Redhat and it certainly made Novell all squishy on the inside when they heard of the buy. Oracle has been wanting a OS for itself for some amount of time now and has been looking into buying into the open source community (I know... bbboooooooo!!!). This would be an opportunity for them to aquire Sun and take that crappy CDDL licensed OS and stick it under a it's own GPL compatible license.
Unfortunately, there is still some software code that is in Solaris that can't find it's owner and there's still some SCO code lingering around in there also. They couldn't put it under the GPL because that would cause an epidemic of lawsuits that would be even bigger than the SCO vs. IBM case. That doesn't mean they can't put it under it's own GPL compatible license like Sun didn't even try and do, start a venture of ownership of lost code, and a swap out SCO code, if possible.
It seems like a lot of work but it's still something very possible and delightful for the Oracle shark to tear into.
Just a thought.
Here is an article about Schwartz and the Lighthouse applications: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/22/suns_macos _x_suite/
.. Jonathan - Schwartz, told us that the source would in all likelihood remain in Sun's morgue."
"Lighthouse had a highly-regarded suite of software including the Quantrix spreadsheet, Diagram! vector graphics package and Concurrence presentation software. The names might mean little to today's Apple users, more's the pity. Apple's Mac OS X is a cosmetically enhanced update of the old NeXT system...
"Little chance," he told us. "We're not really trying to promote Objective-C anymore, much though I loved the products we built. We think this Java thing has some legs to it."
The Lighthouse's memorial site http://lighthouse.ithinksw.com/index.php referenced in the article and on this gnustep page http://cbbrowne.com/info/gnustep.html does not seem to work anymore.
save the date, August 26th 2006, for he McNeally-Fiorina wedding.
And may the Schwartz be with you!
May the schwartz be with him, in his new position.
"We're seeing a dramatic increase in developer productivity with NEXTSTEP on SPARC," said Jonathan Schwartz, president of Lighthouse Design, Ltd., a leading independent software vendor for NeXT. "In delivering our entire family of developer and end-user products to the SPARC platform, we're confident SPARC system users now have the ideal environment to begin making their transition to objects."f lash.950523.3868.xml
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1995-05/sun
http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/08/12 17229
Wonder if it'll keep going.
So, do you live in and around Oxford, or are you just a fan of their internet music broadcast?
Sun's shareholders have finally found the courage to use the Schwartz within them.
http://outcampaign.org/
[skip early history of Jobs and Apple]
- Stve Jobs Starts NeXT and releases NeXTstep on NeXT computers
- Jonathan Schwartz starts Lighthouse Design to develop NeXTstep applications
- Lighthouse Design is very successful and Jonathan Schwartz and Steve Jobs frequently share a stage at NeXTWorld convention.
- NeXT can't figure out a buisiness model for selling expensive workstations with great object oriented development tools (NeXTstep)
- Sun and Apple collaborate on Openstep (the successor to NeXTstep)
- Lighthouse Design ships all of their (very cool) applications for Openstep 68K, Openstep Intel, - -Openstep SPARC, HPUX PA-RISC, Solaris-SunOS/SPARC, and Openstep Enterprise for Windows NT.
- NexT can't figure out a business model for selling object ware and developer tools (Openstep)
- Sun forgets about Openstep to pursue Java
- Sun Buys Lighthouse Design and makes Jonathan Schwartz head of Java Applications Group
- Apple Buys NeXT and makes Steve Jobs a consultant
- Apple ships Openstep 4.2 for INTEL and not PPC/Mac!
- Sun Java Applications Group is unable or unwilling to do anything with Lighthouse Design's applications
- Steve Jobs takes over Apple from the inside becomming iCEO and then CEO of Apple
- Jonathan Schwartz is promoted several times
- Apple renames Openstep Cocoa, removing a lot of features in the process.
- Jonathan Schwartz is promoted to COO of Sun
- Apple slowly restores features to Cocoa and adds new things that were never there before
- Sun can't figure out a business model for selling object ware and developer tools (Java)
- Sun can't figure out a business model for selling expensive workstations
- Jonathan Schwartz is promoted to CEO of Sun
Anyone notice similarities in the career arc for these two individuals?
Anyone notice that Apple and Sun both make integrated hardware and software and provide object oriented development platforms ?
CEOs who lead a cult of personality ultimately end up leading the cult to suicide. Sun had an opportunity to catch and pass IBM. They almost did it, then the idiot who was in charge thought HE got them there (instead of all the good engineers) and started believing his own press. He made about 15 stupid "big moves" in a row pulling the "visionary" card. Mistake after mistake went down with nary a word from his inner circle. For years top people at Sun knew the faults and the BS he was spewing. Unfortunately the egomaniac punished those who disagreed with him and Sun just kept sinking and sinking.
Now he's leaving a ship he punched the holes in, still believing his shit doesn't stink and he's not at fault.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
You have no job. Get over it!
...because you never know who you're dealing with.
What else did he do that didn't make any sense?
Sun, everything else, is just the harbinger. Believe me, I'm facing the same thing. Don't be so complacent - this is a nasty world out there we have.
Fantastic News
.. This should mean that Schwartz can now FINALLY afford a hair cut and cut off that damn pony Tail, That's soooo pre "The Network is the computer." Although since they now offer all their software for Free, (although you definitely need to pay for maintenance/support) perhaps he'll have to settle for a mullet..
Someone should update the Wikipedia article! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_microsystems
i was waiting for that one
thanx to McNealy's poor leadership my 10 years of Solaris experience is basically worthless today. Outside of the Armed Forces i have never been to a place where they used Solaris or wanted a Admin w/ Solaris experience.
good thing i started doing skunk projects w/ linux back in '98 so at least i am employable today.
I'll miss Sun and Solaris. So long and thanx for all the fish!
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
Mainframes have detailed error detection and transaction rollback at the hardware level. AS400's are rock solid, no virus, no buffer overflows, very secure, etc. etc. I'm sure some Unix systems are very good also. The unreliability you speak of is Windows and PC hardware, primarily due to the fact they are inexpensive. You get what you pay for.
Both McNeally and Schwartz spend way too much time bad-mouthing the competition. Every time they do that I think "Hmm, Sun must be worried about something otherwise they wouldn't be bad-mouthing those guys."
I've been part of business deals where this exact type of behavior is why the client chose not to do business with our competition.
Sun's results were in line with the Street's expectations, so the only anomalous news coming out on SUNW today was his retirement. That alone was enough to send it up 8% in after hours. I think it would have been seen as really irresponsible for him to make this announcement a couple days before earnings. Not to mention ethically questionable since he's in the process of selling large blocks of shares right now.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I think Schwartz will drive the company into the ground even faster than McNealy could: McNealy failed through inaction, but Schwartz actively antagonizes potential partners and allies.
He looks liks a geek boy with pony tail sitting in a big chair. Reminds me on the Tom Hanks movie "Big".
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
In Malta I Saw a big billboard ad for SunSystems. it was some software company.
is it connected to Sun?
- Apple renames Openstep Cocoa, removing a lot of features in the process.
...
- Apple slowly restores features to Cocoa and adds new things that were never there before
Not to say I don't believe you, I just have never heard this before, and I've developed apps for both Openstep and Cocoa. Can you provide any details or linkage to a site with details? I'm particularly interested in which features were removed and then re-added, and those that were removed and have not been re-added.
Thanks...
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
The Economist had a damning article on Scott McNealy just a couple of weeks ago.
rmathew.com
I love java. I code java web apps for living.
But I cannot help thinking the parent poster is right.
Sun FAILED to make java a viable desktop app platform. They also failed to make java a Free (in a GNU way) platform, and in doing this alienated a whole lot of would be users/developers. Also, this made java less platform independent than it could be if it was open-source, and less advanced.
Java is a good platform and a good programming language. But it could have been so much more... And it's Sun's fault for not making it much more.
--Coder
McNealy is being dumped becuase he deserves it. In 1991 I made the comment in a meeting with some Integraph founder relatives that anybody that made hardware and software except IBM would eventually go out of business, because only IBM has made that combo work. They all laughed, I must be an idiot. Let's look at the list: Data General, Motorola, Prime, DEC, Apollo, Next, On life support, but terminal: Silicon Graphics, Sun Purists might argue Integraph is still in business, but not in hardware and a lot smaller. The others were bought for market share or components, not their business models. McNealy is making dinosaurs in the age of small more intelligent (and wealthier mammals, ie x86). His business model has sucked for a decade. Unfortunately he is not paying the financial price for his failures, your 401K's did. Java was never about free computing and making the world better, it was about beating the Microsoft desktop and is a dismal failure. The hardware is laughable, the SPARC was a leader in 1989. Today no one cares. Sun joins Apple on the list of serious competitors that Gates beat like a rented mule.
Been years since I bumped into JS, as part of the NeXT community. He is a powerful and admirable person in how he does business. Technologically he is bright, and will help lead the business as he did with LD. Congrads JS, you have deserved this climb, now make good on your words of wisdom and promises.
Say what you say, but sun will set. Net loss of first quarter (first three monts of this year) was 217 million dollars. Sun's been making losses ever since the dot com boom was over.
The Network is the CEO!!!
I don't know about other 30-somethings, but I've been stuck working for various baby-boomers who don't understand the technologies they are trying to manage or overly aggressive gen-Xers who don't know how to manage.
"22 astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" Stephen Colbert
God I'm wet.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
A list of McNealy zingers. I have to say, I'm gonna miss reading absurd quotes from this guy.
akad0nric0
This sentence no verb.
Sun has a strong base of loyal customers -- especially telecoms, the federal government, service providers, and very large enterprises. But, with the possible exception of the government, these are cyclical purchasers and when they achieve over-capacity or have to tighten their belts, as they have in the last few years, you have a perfect storm of diminished demand. Moreover, Sun has never achieved credibility in the small business market despite a push in recent years to develop more penetration among retailers and other resellers; the potential Sun customers who graduate from Microsoft wind up on Linux with hardware from Dell or IBM.
Ironically, under Scott McNealy, the volatile non-techie businessman, Sun has made dramatic improvements in the technical quality of its product offerings since the dot-com meltdown but hasn't been able to restore profitability, while under the more methodical Jonathan Schwartz, who has unimpeachable technical credentials, the company may finally be able to capitalize on the techical quality of its products and restore the bottom line.
I give Sun 3 years, max, before it's no longer a going concern.
:)
I don't know if McNealy is the guy who could have saved Sun at this point, given his history at the helm, but I'm pretty sure that Jonathan Swartz is not the guy who can save Sun now.
I'm guessing the massive layoffs (cutting 10% to 30% of the workforce) will start no more than 1 or 2 quarters from now, probably within the next 6 weeks. And then will come a slow, awkward process of "realignment" and "improving core business processes" that will result in the following:
* No more UltraSPARC machines. Sun will switch to selling all x86-64 machines on the hardware side, and will piss off its existing SPARC partners + customers in the process. It will probably waffle back and forth a few times in a vain attempt to both (a) keep investors and Wall Street happy and (b) keep customers and partners happy, but it won't work. They'll end up dumping the architecture sooner rather than later. Maybe Hitachi or some other big partner will end up keeping the architecture alive.
* Solaris will become this decade's Netscape code - open-sourced, yes, and perhaps even maturing into a really cool and usable code base some years down the line - but Sun will botch up the relationship between its paid programmers, company management and the open-source coders working on the project during its unquiet slide into Chapter 11 or a takeover / buyout. Some bitter coder will write the equivalent of jwz's rant before it's all said and done.
* Java will continue (it can't help but keep going, regardless of what happens to Sun), and might lose some favor in the eyes of suits, but ultimately, will do just fine without the company there. Most likely the Java codebase/IP/standards will get bought by some other interested party who wants to make themselves The Java King (IBM? BEA? Oracle?), and won't do any worse than what Sun has done with the language.
Sun in 2006 = SGI in 1997 = DEC in 1992. The writing's on the wall, I'm just impressed that they've lasted this long.
Ah well, more boxes to add to my pile of dying + extinct architectures.
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - Major Mike Shearer, UK
You're very unlikely to still feel the same way in another 18 years.
Ten years ago, I felt much like you do. Now, however, I'm much happier to have made the transition to management.
They key difference? Instead of just working at a cool place, I'm able to help make it even cooler for a whole lot of people.
That's great, they're such capitalists at BSD!
Damn, I already moderated this topic. Now I'll have to log in with my sock puppet to comment.
X terminals provided swift action on the screen for graphical apps.
.... that you book's facts were acturately checked?
With Wikipedia at least all the discussions that lead to the current form of an article are in the open for all to see.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not everybody can or want to be CEO of a company.
You make it appear like life is an unidimensional trip towards a CEO position somewhere.
Gldaly, you would be wrong.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The mouse is controlled by terminal. Where the mouse is and the mouse curser never goes back and forth. You probably weren't using X but rather some other much less network transparent system (like remote windows)