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The Comedy of Scott McNealy
Rob writes "News that Sun co-founder and long-serving CEO, Scott McNealy is stepping aside, heaps a
load of pressure on incoming CEO Jonathan Schwartz - he will have to get working on his
anti-Microsoft gags quick-sharp. Aside from Sun's strategy and his execution of it,
McNealy's tenure as CEO will be remembered for his constant Microsoft sniping. CBR
remembers some of his favourite quotes."
A selection of the best Scott McNealy quotes: "When Steve Ballmer calls me wacko, I consider that a compliment." "The only thing that I'd rather own than Windows is English, because then I could charge you two hundred and forty-nine dollars for the right to speak it." "Shut down some of the bullshit the government is spending money on and use it to buy all the Microsoft stock. Then put all their intellectual property in the public domain. Free Windows for everyone! Then we could just bronze Gates, turn him into a statue and stick him in front of the Commerce Department." "Microsoft is now talking about the digital nervous system... I guess I would be nervous if my system was built on their technology too." "It's the good guys versus the bad guys, and the good guys are winning." "W2K (Windows 2000) will be a bigger disaster than Y2K." "A giant hairball." [About Windows NT] "The Evil Empire." [guess who] "The beast from Redmond." [yup] "Anyone heard any good monopolist jokes lately?" "Ballmer and Butthead" [Ballmer and you-know-who] ".Not, .Not Yet and .Nut" [Microsoft's .Net strategy]
While I suspect that Sun will likely make everything run as usual for at least a little while, at least we knew that with Management's full attention on calling Microsoft bad names, it at least insured that they wouldn't get any bright ideas ab't increasing sagging revenue by screwing with Java and/or all versions of OO.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Or, if you'd like some freshly minted Scott:x it_interview/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/25/mcnealy_e
Among other things, he talks about how he tried to avoid being CEO of Sun in the first place. His first attempt at a replacement (Ed Zander) failed too.
While the constant MS bashing was interesting, I think it worked against Sun, and not for it. It sent the message "Buy Sun if you hate Microsoft." Like it or not, hating MSFT isn't a great way to run a billion dollar business.
Do I get more rich and more happy just because I hate MSFT? No. I get more rich and more happy by making better choices that ingore (or include) MSFT as warrented.
Red Hat gets this. McNealy should have sent the message "Buy Sun to solve problems X and Y and Z. That will put more money in your pocket and make you happier." Unless the Schwartz gets this, Sun will continue it's relative decline.
Sun that is ... there someone had to say it, sorry
Scott McNealy is a White Dwarf.
--Why did you say that?
Because he was totally burnt out at SUN.
--You cannot B-Sirius!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
boy are you lucky that i don't have modpoints on my hands right now.
1ghz ultrasparc III is rather fast and didn't get beaten by amd or intel by a mile when it came out. it's pretty close, and for it's platform design along with the cpu, it's pretty ok.
secondly, if you run 128 threads at the same time, amd and intel will be d.e.a.d. while niagara still kicks around. amd's or intel's dual cores on this will still mean 64 context switches per core while for niagara it would be 4 context switches per core.
smart money votes for the cpu that does the job. if you have a machine that has to handle lots and lots of stuff at the same time, niagara will win while intel and amd are still switching contexts.
ps. you seem to be forgetting about the fact that the memory limitation on regular x86_64's that you can "just buy" is still enormously low compared to the regular sun workstations.
you can't throw your lowmemory applications at the systems and say that damn ultrasparc is slow and x86 is fast, if you run linux on x86_64 with highram enabled, it aint that fast either anymore.
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
Why exactly are we fondly remembering this guy? Everyone seems to be forgetting that one of his more notorious quotes was, "Privacy is dead; get over it." Rather than try to fix privacy problems, McNealy argued that we should just accept it, move on, and embrace the new privacy-less future (especially if it involves systems powered by Sun hardware).
Don't forget that in the wake of September 11th, both him and Ellison were ponying up to offer their company's services in helping to create a national ID. He even calls lining up at airport security an "efficiency tax" that biometric IDs would somehow maaaaagically fix.
I say good riddance.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
McNealy's funniest quote is probably the following one from a 1996 Red Herring article. His letter to the editor is even funnier.
NORTHWEST PASSAGE: Microsoft's plans to navigate the Java waters. August 1, 1996
"Microsoft is on the offensive again because its hegemony is threatened by Java's potential to obsolete Windows and Microsoft Office. This is not only financially threatening, but seen as a personal insult. Sun CEO Scott McNealy ceaselessly goads developers to adopt Java and overthrow what he bluntly calls Redmond's mediocre standards of quality--'Windows 95 is just dogshit with whipped cream on top.'"
LETTER TO THE EDITOR. December 1, 1996
McNealy euphemizes
I enjoyed Jonathan Burke's article "Northwest Passage." Mr. Burke did a fine job of laying out the reasons that software developers are pushing for a multiplatform Internet and how this poses a threat to Microsoft.
However, I was shocked, puzzled, and offended when I came to a passage in the story that seriously misquoted me referring to Windows 95 as "[expletive] with whipped cream on top." As chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, a $7 billion publicly held company, I am very aware that my shareholders and the public take a dim view of crude, unprofessional language from executives. I make it a rule never to curse in public. I don't do it. I would never do it. I didn't do it with Mr. Burke or anyone else. In fact, in a carefully worded and deliberately inoffensive manner, I called Win 95 "whipped cream on a road apple."
Scott G. McNealy
President and CEO
Sun Microsystems
The Herring Responds
Ah, "a road apple"--that's much more genteel.