Thomas J. Gordon

Sun Microsystems: Burnout or Takeover Target?

Here are my comments on Sun. I used to work there.

- I don't know how they ever made any money off Java. They tried to compete with Websphere by cobbling together some internal IT projects and didn't win. Without creating a robust middleware you can sell to corporate customers, I don't know what money java makes for Sun.

- As of early 2000 everyone at Sun was overpaid on average. I remember as a manager competing with all the startups with huge salaries. Then the tech bubble music stopped and all these highly paid people were still there staring at each other. If they've had huge turnover since early 2000 this isn't a problem anymore but if not they should just cut everyones' salary 10 or 20%.

- Unix sold to heavy techies is their sweet spot but I bet they spend 10% of their time trying to make Unix Systems Administrators/Develop... happy and give them neat new things. In the past their box's were always very good. With all these cutbacks you have to wonder if they cut into the magic development group that built the highly capable servers.

- The thing that really killed Sun was McNealy's insistence on Unix as a client platform for too long. We spent a lot of time inside Sun working with vendors to support a Unix client platform. Windows won as a client, get over it, something different will happen in the next lifetime. You didn't see IBM tell customers they weren't cutting edge if they were using Windows client. I work for a big financial institution now and they have a very cost effective infrastructure with windows desktops and Unix servers (a lot of them Sun).

- I think Raduchel (CFO/CIO, went to AOL as CTO) was the brains of Sun. An economists' sense of business tradeoffs overlaid on a good understanding and love of technology. He did see the tech bubble bursting (he told me to short netscape) and would have prepared the company much better for the tech bubble burst when it came.

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