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."

Comments

Fellow co-founder

[grahamsz]

Schwartz is not a co-founder of Sun - He joined the company in 1996!

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/ceo/mgt_schwartz .html

Re:Fellow co-founder

[fm6]

If you want to get technical, neither is McNealy. He was one of the first people recruited by Khosla and Bechtolsheim, but he had nothing to do with the initial creation of the company.

Schwartz actually did found a company: Lighthouse Design, a NextStep application developer that Sun bought out in 1996, and turned into the core of their Java Applications Group, which was supposed to develop applications for those Java-based network computers that were going to put Microsoft out of business.

What's always bugged me is that McNealy spent a ton of money to acquire LD and the other companies that got folded into JAG — all of which was wasted, because it soon became obvious that nobody was going to buy network computers, and there was no reason to keep JAG going. JAG wasn't the first, and it wasn't the last ill-conceived attempt by Sun to win the desktop war with Microsoft, and McNealy has never been called to account for all the money he wasted on that war — a war that already a conspicuous victory for Microsoft long before Sun even got involved.

Instead, McNealy is being forced out for failing to sell high-end computers at a time when nobody's buying them. Wall Street is stupid.

Re:Fellow co-founder

[ClosedSource]

"JAG wasn't the first, and it wasn't the last ill-conceived attempt by Sun to win the desktop war with Microsoft, and McNealy has never been called to account for all the money he wasted on that war -- a war that already a conspicuous victory for Microsoft long before Sun even got involved."

You've got that right. I never understood how Sun was going to make any money from the MS war (other than the antitrust settlement).

Consider Java. Has Sun recovered all the money spent on it? By its very nature it couldn't directly help Sun sell workstations since it was intended to be platform-independent. The only thing that makes sense to me is the idea that they hoped it would be so ubiquitous that they could make millions selling proprietary Java acceleration hardware (They did start development of such hardware).

Then there's McNealy's weird approach to competing. At one point he publicly derided the concept of word processors and Powerpoint type applications. He told the press that he forbid his employees from using them and gave them each a white board and markers. It's as if he had wanted to go into the facial tissue business by telling the press that he wasn't going to allow his employees to use Kleenex and gave them all handkerchiefs.

Then a few years later he buys Open Office and suddenly office applications are no longer a waste of time.

Tomorrow's News Flash: Oracle buys Sun

[filesiteguy]

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.

Scott, meanwhile, is rumored to be now working as "technology consultant" for the .NET division of Microsoft as "C# evangelist."

Re:Tomorrow's News Flash: Oracle buys Sun

[__aaclcg7560]

Scott, meanwhile, is rumored to be now working as "technology consultant" for the .NET division of Microsoft as "C# evangelist."

Someone has to teach all those C# programmers the ins and outs of Java.

Hey Scott

[Anonymous Coward]

Good riddance and may the Schwartz be with you (ASAP).

Rumors from a few days ago were true

[kbahey]

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.

That's odd...

[Otter]

Schwartz is a PR genius, and the way he continuously trolls the Linux journalist/zealot community for attention is masterful. But that seems like a strange fit for the CEO position.

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...

Re:That's odd...

[kfg]

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...

In the words of the great Tom Lehrer:

"It's a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age. . .he'd been dead for three years."

KFG

Re:That's odd...

[rco3]

Excellent point. Let's see, what have I been doing with the last 18 years of my life... Ooh! Ooh! I've been NOT becoming a suit! I don't have to fucking TOUCH business or management! I can sit back and do engineering and research without having to do any of the bullshit that McNealy and Schwartz have to do.

Do they make more money? Yes. Do I care? Amazingly enough, not so much. Right now I have a roof over my head, food on the table, health insurance, decent transportation, 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. Next year, when I go full time, it gets better.

So thanks for pointing out what a difference there is between my position and Schwartz's. He does stuff I don't want to do, and gets paid more than he needs for doing it. I do what I love, and get paid more than I need for doing it. Sounds like I chose the right path. That was your point, right?

Re:That's odd...

[Tyr_7BE]

Before you take such a smug tone, consider that the "suits" are the ones dictating what engineering and research you'll be doing. It's a matter of where you want to fit in. Do you want to be at the helm, leading the company, or do you want to back the visionary at the helm in the form of taking orders?

Re:That's odd...

[Homestar Breadmaker]

No, his point was trolling to drag out the insecure people who feel the need to puff up their feathers and show everyone how big they are.

Re:That's odd...

[jcr]

Schwartz is a PR genius

If he were a "PR genius", he'd be attracting positive attention.

-jcr

Re:That's odd...

[Frogbert]

I know you didn't ask for my advice but I'll give it anyway. Don't bother going full time, you can't put a price on free time. Especially if you have kids.

Re:That's odd...

[blair1q]

But when you're as old as Mozart is now, he'll still be very much alive, and you'll just be dead.

Uh oh, poor Jonathan

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

"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."

Re:Rumors from a few days ago were true

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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...

Future of Java without Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Future of Java without Sun?

[hrvatska]

How would Java evolve without Sun to "guide" it. What would Sun certifications mean without Sun there to back it up?

IBM and a passel of other organizations who have based their application strategies on Java would put together an open source consortium that would support and guide Java. Something along the lines of the Eclipse or Apache foundations.

Re:Future of Java without Sun?

[Hyram Graff]

Hell, if M$ bought Java from SUN, we'd probably end up with better APIs.

M$ doesn't need to buy Java. C# is pretty much their answer to Java.

Re:Future of Java without Sun?

[Ekhymosis]

Could this have any future implications on opening up Java to the OSS community, or would that be wishful thinking?

Re:Future of Java without Sun?

[winkydink]

uh... Stanford University Network?

Re:Future of Java without Sun?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Hell, if M$ bought Java from SUN, we'd probably end up with better APIs.
I doubt it. Microsoft has had a couple of bold attempts to kill java, why would it better it?
It shipped JVM 1.1 with extensions, so that it really wasn't a compliant JVM. That left sun with the choice of either 1) accepting the changes, and having it controlled by MS, or 2) fighting them, leaving the Windows platform with an older JVM, and Bill G a "look we tried but Sun is so unreasonable" mood. They chose #2. Sucks for the people who are still saddled with a 1.1 JVM, most people wouldn't know to upgrade, and think that any suckitude is due to Java, not MS's hacking of it. I for one am saddled with not one but two apps that require JVM 1.1 and are they ever slow.

Even that wasn't enough, MS created C# as a Java killer. Think of it as Java as if the initial version was 1.4, already had learned the failures of the previous editions. They were able to learn from Sun's early mistakes. And you can also bust out of the VM when you want to, to tie you to Windows more tightly.

MS wants to destroy anything that it feels can destroy Windows. ANything that can be a platform that doesn't force you to use Windows is a threat. If it were possible to "buy" Java (and i'm not sure of the status of the JCP) they'd tightly tie it to windows, and make things not quite work right elsewhere.

And the M$ thing is old. Microsoft is a for-profit corporation. It is not the only for-profit company. Unless you feel the need to add $ to every company (do i hear $un anyone, Ci$co? $u$e?) it seems kind of pointless. Yes they have been convicted in a court of law for dirty tricks, but they are not the only one. There may be more use in targetting companies that actively kill people or foster repressive regimes ($hell Oil?)

Re:Future of Java without Sun?

[Decaff]

No! That would kill Java.

Not necessarily. What matters is that distributions pass the compatibility tests. There is nothing to stop open source versions passing these tests.

Re:Future of Java without Sun?

[javacowboy]

How did we go from McNealy leaving Sun to Sun going out of business and Java being "abandoned". Do I sense wishful thinking on your part? And you get moded "insightful"?

How did you infer that Sun was going out of business? They're not consistently profitable, but they're not bleeding red ink either. The company also has healthy cash reserves.

As for Java, the spec is wide open for anybody to implement, which the Apache Harmony project is in the process of doing. Sun may head the JCP, but other companies like IBM, Oracle, and BAE would pick up the slack, as they have too much invested in Java to abandon it.

Re:That was fast

[YU Nicks NE Way]

Too bad he said just recently that he was "still chugging" and not planning to resign. Kind of makes him loose some credibility.

Not exactly: the thing which made him "loose some credibility" was a $217M quarterly loss immediately after telling investors that the Sun turnaround was going well.

He should have said "going into the well".

Massive layoff forthcoming

[winkydink]

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

Re:Massive layoff forthcoming

[retiarius]

ask a "sun sigma black belt" what the metrics say should be forthcoming,
unless this GE-inspired scientology is going the way of the CEO ...

Re:Massive layoff forthcoming

[winkydink]

From the San Jose Mercury News article a few days back:

Monday's earnings call ``will provide investors the first opportunity to press both McNealy and Lehman at the same time to see if they are on the same page in terms of the magnitude of any restructuring,'' Sacconaghi wrote. ``A major restructuring move appears to require a shift in CEO McNealy's traditional sentiment regarding head count, which may be difficult to effect or cause a leadership struggle within the company.''

Sacconaghi estimated Sun would need to cut 10,350 to 12,150 jobs -- or 27 percent to 31 percent of its worldwide workforce of about 39,000 -- to reach an acceptable operating margin. But he added, that magnitude ``would be difficult to execute without potentially undermining the business.''

You can find several other articles that say essentially the same thing if you want to hunt for them.

Re:Massive layoff forthcoming

[jadavis]

It's sad that Sun is looking at so much financial trouble right now (assuming they actually are, and it might not actually be that bad). Solaris 10 is really quite amazing software, and their chip designs look very promising. I think it would take Linux/FreeBSD a long time to catch up to some of the things in Solaris 10 like ZFS and DTrace.

I'm really pretty new to Solaris, however as soon as I started using it I could tell that they did real research on the kernel. I was very impressed after using Linux/FreeBSD for a long time. I can't think of any other companies actually doing that kind of research still. IBM does a lot of Linux development, but I sometimes get the feeling it's more to just make Linux into an AIX replacement (not that I know much about AIX).

Re:Massive layoff forthcoming

[Kadin2048]

Unless, of course, they fire the wrong people.

I've worked for a few big companies, and I can tell you with certainty that at any given time, AT LEAST 10% of the people working there were dead weight and could be eliminated.

But that's like saying, 3% of people in society are criminals. Okay, fine; but knowing that doesn't make picking the right ones any easier. You can't just decide to go out on Tuesday and round them all up.

You can spend the rest of your life (and a whole lot of people have) trying to find ways of figuring out which 10% or whatever are the unproductive ones. Occasionally, it's obvious. But more often, it's quite subtle; someone who looks unproductive on the surface might be just the person you need occasionally -- like some of the old-guard guys in my office: they don't do much but sit around and eat donuts 90% of the time, but when you need a piece of information, you know where to go to. And in that other 10% of the time, they make well up for their donut-munching. Likewise, there are interns and brand new hires who slave away constantly from 7:30AM to 6:30PM in some cases, but what they're working on is often not the most useful stuff around. (Of course, they're cheap, so they stay hired regardless.)

Firing people is like playing a game of russian roulette, but instead of just playing for your own brains, you're playing for a whole lot of people's jobs, futures, careers, and fortunes. I'd much rather keep around a few extra people than pull the trigger on someone that turns out, in some subtle and unforseen way, to be crucial to daily operations. Human social networks are a complex thing, and that's what you're really dealing with in "management." (Of course, only a few percentage of managers--usually the best ones in my experience--realize this.)

Re:Massive layoff forthcoming

[wwwillem]

If analists know so well how to run a company, how come they are still analists and not CEO of either a startup or a mature company? So, better take their words with a a grain of salt.

Re:Massive layoff forthcoming

[GregAndreou]

It's a business methodology (or philosophy as they call it) used at Sun.

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/sunsigma/

Check out the FAQ section.

Didn't see that coming.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Didn't see that coming.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, the SunRay server also runs on Linux (SuSE and RHAT): http://www.sun.com/software/sunray/

Re:Didn't see that coming.

[aphaenogaster]

And I personally set up and have used sunrays running on fedora with crossover office for endnote, office, and dreamweaver. With the SGD bit, now it appears that the windows barrier no longer exists. Of course now I just use vi, perl, and have a dual processor sparc box under my desk running solaris 10 with windows 2000 running on a sunpci card. The only reason I wouldnt want solaris closer to my desktop is the fan noise.

Re:Didn't see that coming.

[ch-chuck]

his job before Sun... at a dog food company

I wonder if they ate their own dog food?

Re:Didn't see that coming.

[An dochasac]

* 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.

Sun Ray isn't tied to Solaris. It has been available for linux since 2004. Customers have been running Windows via RDP client, tarantella or citrix for much longer than that. It just takes a while for new technologies to trickle down to joe user and replace cheap, but inefficient technologies. My only complaint is that there is no Sun Ray server version for OSX yet (AFAIK).

Re:Didn't see that coming.

[jaxent]

McNealy was Director of Operations at Onyx Systems in San Jose before Sun. Onyx was the first company to port Unix onto a machine that would sit on a desktop, Zilog Z8000 based, AT&T version 7, then AT&T System III. The machines could support 16 users on TTYs. You could put in upto 1 MegaByte of RAM, and 2 40 MegaByte hard disks (8"). All for less than $75,000. Those were the days. If he worked at a dog food company it may have been while he was in school. He tends to make up crap during his speeches, although some of his top 10 lists were funny.

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.
More than true. I give him 6 month before the Board replaces him.

Re:Didn't see that coming.

[Doctor Memory]

Solaris, which nobody wants to use so much as within 50 feet of a desktop machine.

Actually, it's no different from any other Unix, for the most part. You can run Gnome or KDE for your desktop (or AfterStep or fvwm or any other X window manager), it supports OpenOffice, Firefox, MySQL/PostgreSQL/Oracle and other commonly-requested programs[1]. Plus, it's got the oft-cited ZFS and DTrace, which are pretty nice (if you need that sort of thing). And, it's free-as-in-beer, so you're not paying a "Sun tax". And it's an industrial-quality OS with lots of development time and R&D dollars spent on it.

Now if we could just get Apple to drop Darwin and their fifty-interrupts-to-do-a-context-switch microkernel and adopt Solaris, we'd really have something...

[1] Actually, the reason I stopped using Linux was the plethora of "w1z4rd c0d3zzz" that passed for applications. If I wanted an app server that just ate CPU for ten minutes and then puked all over its shoes, I could write it myself...

Re:Didn't see that coming.

[Usquebaugh]

Hold that thought. Solaris + OSX.

That micro kernel guru at apple quit recently. It might be that apple is lining up a new kernel :-) I was hoping for Linux but I'll take Solaris.

Now back to reality, no way would Apple and Sun ever be able to co-own something. Apple would have to buy Sun or something.

Re:Wow talk about timing -

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Shares were up nearly 9% in after hours trading. Not quite a pat on the back for Mr. McNealy.

What does Sun need to do to succeed?

[vinn]

I offer this topic so all threads on it can be put below:

• What does Sun need to do to succeed?

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.

Re:What does Sun need to do to succeed?

[Decaff]

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.

Eh? Have you any idea of the size of the Java development community?

Re:What does Sun need to do to succeed?

[MichaelSmith]

Most sys admins would still rather use Linux and all the cool toys it comes with compared to Solaris.

Java started out as a loss leader for solaris, which is why I can compile python up on NetBSD, but not java.

Now that their OS business is a lost cause sun should release the java sources under a license which lets people port it to different platforms. The user base will increase and they may be able to compete with C#

Re:What does Sun need to do to succeed?

[Iaughter]

Schwartz seems to backpeddle and tends to alienate communities that genuinely want to help the company succeed.


Hey Brian, substantiate this.

Re:What does Sun need to do to succeed?

[killjoe]

Do you know why people are writing AJAX applications? It's because Sun failed the promise of java. Do you know why there are so few java gui apps? Because Sun failed java. Do you know why Ruby on Rails exist? Because Sun failed Java.

Java was all full of promise. Cross platform, run from the browser, free yourself from the drudgery of writing stateless apps using http and and that abortion known as javascript, no more learning 15 different gui toolkits, etc.

Sun failed misreably in fulfilling the promise of java. They took forever to get swing to perform at 70% of native applications, they still don't have VM sharing, java web start is still the ugliest and worst behaving application ever put out by a fortune 500 company.

So yes there are a billion java programmers all writing web apps but it's become a ghetto. Java was destined for bigger things.

Re:What does Sun need to do to succeed?

[MemoryDragon]

Actually Java is one of Suns biggest successes, if it wasnt for java they probably would have gone the way of SGI. Face it Java is one of the most successful languages currently in existence and has replaced Cobol and C++ in the Enterprise application area. If you are just a guy who runs a few BSD boxen at home or small companies you never get the picture on how much impact java has had in the enterprise area.

Re:What does Sun need to do to succeed?

[Decaff]

Do you know why people are writing AJAX applications? It's because Sun failed the promise of java.

No, because Microsoft sabotaged having a quality JVM bundled on the client.

Do you know why there are so few java gui apps? Because Sun failed java.

There aren't few Java GUI apps. This is a common myth. Swing is used by a very large number of developers for internal client-side GUI apps within organisations. One of the most rapidly growing areas of Java is Rich Client development using the built-in resources of IDEs such as Eclipse and NetBeans.

Do you know why Ruby on Rails exist? Because Sun failed Java.

No, it is because many developers prefer open source development with languages like Ruby. Good for them. It a nice language. However, in terms of commercial impact, Ruby on Rails barely exists.

Java was all full of promise. Cross platform, run from the browser, free yourself from the drudgery of writing stateless apps using http and and that abortion known as javascript, no more learning 15 different gui toolkits, etc.

Well, that works for me. I don't use Javascript. I use Java-based tools like JSF to render it transparently for me.

So yes there are a billion java programmers all writing web apps but it's become a ghetto. Java was destined for bigger things.

Like what? Client side development? It is there. Numerical work? There. Real-time and embedded use? There. Mobile devices? There.

Jonathan Schwartz's previous company was awsome

[EMB Numbers]

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.

Executives and Engineers

[kbahey]

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...

Re:Need big change?

[georgewilliamherbert]

Not really, you still need big honking multi-processor machines to run big honking databases. A quad-proc dual-core opteron still isn't there yet in being able to match a fully loaded E25K for chewing on a big database.

More importantly, a rack full of quad-proc dual-core opterons still isn't there yet in being able to match a fully loaded E25K for chewing on a big database. Ten racks full of them, and a room full of them, either, unless you can partition the database efficiently.

It is still far easier to do Oracle RAC wrong, and end up with a flat performance curve as you add nodes past 8 or so, than to do it right. It's possible to do RAC for some databases right and get reasonably, monotonically increasing performance out to many many nodes, but it's not common yet, or practical if you look at it statistically in terms of how many projects end up having to back it out and go back to large monolithic SMP servers.

Some databases are partitionable and easily splittable among systems without clustering them. Those, it's already cost effecitve to move to large stacks of small servers. But those aren't the typical data models for large commercial databases.

Re:heh

[Kadin2048]

Actually that's a really good way to answer the question. He never actually denied anything, but he definitely made it seem like it was a denial, right up until the truth broke, when in reconsideration it was everything but.

I wonder if a lawyer advised him to say that or if he decided on it himself. I guess it's not stunningly creative or anything, but it's not bad. You got to give him a little bit of credit.

He had me fooled for a few days. (Not that I really follow Sun that closely, so I'm not tough to fool. I just sort of shrugged and said "sure...rumor...whatever.")

Disappointed...

[loony]

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.

So, like here's a comment

[swpod]

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.

Re:Need big change?

[ces]

You almost seem to be contradicting yourself.

The magic of something like an E25K has little to do with the speed of each processor and much to do with the overall system design. Things like the sheer number of processors, memory fabric, I/O fabric, hot-swap hardware, hardware level partitioning, etc.

Even 4-way (8 if you assume dual-core) Opteron boxes are limited by a PC-centric architecture.

What Sun should be doing is putting it's enterprise class systems (read: to include mainboard fabric design) experience to work at making Opteron solutions. With Sun's memory fabric experience and so forth, Opteron could really fly.

Indeed that is what I had in mind.

"Sun's 'MacOS X' suite to remain in Sun morgue"

[EMB Numbers]

Here is an article about Schwartz and the Lighthouse applications: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/22/suns_macos _x_suite/

"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... .. Jonathan - Schwartz, told us that the source would in all likelihood remain in Sun's morgue."

"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.

And in other news...

[Ingolfke]

save the date, August 26th 2006, for he McNeally-Fiorina wedding.

Steve Jobs and Jonathan Schwartz comparison

[EMB Numbers]

[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 ?

Re:how to make money

[Vengeful weenie]

Absolutly. It should also be understood that what made PCs (of any kind) a break away success was the ability to avoid the IT guys always telling you what you need, and never giving you what you want. Until and unless a thin client give application flexibility to the organization as a whole instead of just handing power back to the IT shops, it ain't gonna happen.

The Economist on Scott McNealy

[rmathew]

The Economist had a damning article on Scott McNealy just a couple of weeks ago.

Re:Day Late and a few Billion Dollars Short

[otis wildflower]

McNealy is making dinosaurs in the age of small more intelligent (and wealthier mammals, ie x86).

Actually, between the opensourcing of Solaris, the incorporation of AMD64 as a first-tier platform, and the Niagara chipset, along with the stuff in Solaris 10 that Sun should have had years ago, I'm more interested in Sun now than I've been in at least 5 years. I have a feeling McNealy was dragged kicking and screaming into the recent changes (I mean the man let Sun coast on UltraSPARC II for how long? Long enough for IBM to come from behind from the relatively anemic POWER1 to the POWER4 and clean Sun's price/perfomance clock), and if Sun's getting traction it's due to Mr. Schwartz's initiatives and this is the legitimate result.

If Sun doesn't haemorrage money and people during this transition, I've got more confidence in them now than I did when you could buy all the SPARC you needed off dotcom eBay auctions.

Re:Day Late and a few Billion Dollars Short

[Alioth]

If Apple is also a failure and being beat upon by Gates like a rented mule...then give me some of that failure! It must be wonderful to be beat like a mule and to be an utter failure, after all, your stock price quadruples over the period of a couple of years. I think more of us can do with failure like that!

Some entertainment, compliments of C|Net

[akad0nric0]

A list of McNealy zingers. I have to say, I'm gonna miss reading absurd quotes from this guy.