Sun's Trading Symbol Going From SUNW To JAVA

Mortimer.CA writes "Straight from Jonathan Schwartz's weblog, Sun is changing their ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA: 'JAVA is a technology whose value is near infinite to the internet, and a brand that's inseparably a part of Sun (and our profitability). [...] To be very clear, this isn't about changing the company name or focus — we are Sun, we are a systems company, and we will always be a derivative of the students that created us, Stanford University Network is here to stay. But we are no longer simply a workstation company, nor a company whose products can be limited by one category — and Java does a better job of capturing exactly that sentiment than any other four letter symbol.'"

Comments

Uhm.

[John_Booty]

"we are [not] a company whose products can be limited by one category"

So instead of naming themselves after one product category, they're naming themselves after another. Great! The name change makes some sense (who really wants the outdated "workstation" thing attached to their name?) but marketingspeak is just so silly sometimes.

Can't help but think they'll want to do this gain once Java is no longer their flagship product. If they're still around (and I hope they are!)

Re:Uhm.

[John_Booty]

For customers, maybe, but not for investors - and they're the ones that will see the ticker symbol. The workstation market is near-nonexistent. "Workstations" harken to the days of $10,000 desktop computers like the NeXT Cube and the like. Former workstation companies like SGI have collapsed financially and are scrambling to try and find other ways to make money.

It's only the stock ticker

[stony3k]

While I agree that this sounds silly, do remember that it's just the stock symbol. There are many companies with silly stock symbols (GLW, T, F). I guess they feel that more people will buy their stocks if the name sounds familiar.

Basically, nothing to see here.

Packages

[HaydnH]

As all of the Solaris packages start with the companies ticker, will all future Sun packages now be called JAVAxxxxx? That's going to annoy the hell out of us sys admins =/ Haydn.

Unfathomable.

[MythMoth]

I'm a developer who uses Java almost exclusively these days. I enjoy working with the language, and I think it's the cat's PJs when putting together big enterprise sites. And I think this move is... stupid. BUT I'm a developer, so I know nothing of the mystical ways of marketing. It might all be BS or there might be something in it; I don't really care all that much.

However, I do take substantial issue with one thing that Schwartz said, which I think is pretty badly thought out:

As for working professionals, I had dinner with a financial analyst a few months ago who said he saw the Java launch experience "a few times a day" when accessing intranet applications - as did tens of thousands of his fellow employees. He's basically saying: "We shove a splash screen in users faces every day". This is a Bad Thing! He's making users associate Java with applications that have poor performance - by definition if they're seeing this they're not getting to the application they want to work on as quickly as they should. The poor performance (web server performance) is out of their hands, but it's in their control to prevent the association with their brand!

I have high regards for Sun employees in general. Their management, however, I have my doubts about.

Should APPL become IPOD? Silliness.

[dpbsmith]

GE does a lot of things besides manufacture light bulbs and generators. In fact they do a lot of things besides manufacturing light bulbs, generators, medical equipment, jet engines, finance, plastics, and railroad locomotives. Yet they feel no need to change their trading symbol.

Does anyone think that it would help Apple to change its trading symbol from APPL to IPOD?

Does AT&T worry that people will think telegraphs are old-fashioned?

GE, Apple, and AT&T are just names. For better or worse, people know what these companies are, not because of the names, but because of the companies. And the trading symbol is one step further removed.

SUN is an acronym for Stanford University Network. It should be a proud part of the company's heritage.

Wanting to fiddle with the trading symbol is a sure sign of a company that has no idea of what its identity is or what it is or should be doing. It also indicates an unhealthy focus on the stock, rather than company's business itself.