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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."
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.
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.