Sun Microsystems is on the ropes. The New York Times says so, the hallway conversation starts and ends with “too bad”, and the wagons appear to be circling around, or rather, behind Jonathan Schwartz, leaving him outside the fort as the gates are closed.
Much of this capitulation to a situation Sun has been in for some time could come from the lessons of this long struggle in our country’s political and economic systems, which have become inextricably intertwined to the point where it apparently matters not at all what either candidate does or proposes. Instead, the public intuition is that change in management is less risky then standing pat.
With all this pressure on Schwartz, perhaps the best way to view the situation is to determine a so-called Failsafe deadline, so described as the point in time beyond which nuclear bombers can not turn back from their missions. In Sun’s case, what difference would a change in leadership make, and at what point?
The technology business is in the throes of a transformation to the so-called cloud computing paradigm. Despite what Oracle’s Ellison has said, Microsoft’s Windows Azure guarantees that at some point in time cloud computing will cross over and accumulate more than 50% of enterprise resource allocation. Calibrating that date will either confirm or undermine the strategies of the major platform vendors.
When Jonathan Schwartz took over the company, Sun was perceived as a major platform vendor with challenges in monetizing its resources. His strategy of marshalling the company’s assets and harnessing the viral nature of open source dynamics has maintained Sun’s relationships with developers, but nowhere has there been the kind of disruptive messaging around the cloud computing paradigm that Schwartz employed to such good effect in marketing Sun in the Web 2.0 phase.
By contrast, even Apple jumped aggressively into the conversation with MobileMe; Google, Amazon, Rackspace, even Dell with a URL grab not only had a message but extended it with price cuts, acquisitions, and social media product announcements. Schwartz, who came to the job with a refreshing understanding of the power of blogging, Web services, and open source, projected confidence that these tools and communities could be intertwined with Sun’s leadership in disruptive hardware design and systems synergy.
The Schwartz version of a Jobsian reality distortion field went this way: If you understand the inevitability of small pieces loosely joined, you can build an interactive swarm-like community that will pool community resources to solve problems before other competitors even start to hear about them from top-down IT hierarchy. This must have been the rationale behind supporting community efforts such as Startup and other Camps. And it certainly was at the heart of the MySQL acquisition, which suggested the use of the open source database vendor as a sales channel through the entrepreneurial radar of the startup community and its open source DNA.
The media questioned where the rubber would meet the road, but as Google, Salesforce, and Facebook gathered incredible momentum and mindshare around Web architectures that spoke to the cool-running data center and virtualization innovations led by Sun, the fact that Sun wasn’t reaping concrete rewards didn’t mean they couldn’t over time.
That’s why Sun’s failure to keep the messaging ahead of the economic crisis is so damaging. Schwartz has always had the full support and partnership of his predecessor Scott McNealy, but the rumors that the board is looking for a replacement speak either to scapegoating or a capitulation to the realities of the marketplace. But why now?
Sun has the money to stay in business, and the portfolio to survive in the marketplace for some time to come. Why, then, is Schwartz’ scalp on the line? Perhaps it’s because, as we’ve seen in recent weeks in the McCain campaign, there’s a line forming to jump ship before the water reaches the band. Certainly the billion-plus loss just reported is enough cover, but more likely the lack of a cloud strategy that makes sense for Sun is at the root of the panic.
What then can Schwartz, or more accurately Sun do to change the dynamics of an increasingly dire situation. For starters, Schwartz has to do what few have done with the cloud computing discussion: answer the hard questions around security, compliance, and identity management with a disruptive view that speaks to Sun’s strengths. Sun has dogs in these hunts, and credibility with communities, particularly the beleaguered financial service which threaten Sun’s survival as they collapse and merge.
Schwartz can draw on a strength we’ve seen little of in recent months or perhaps years, the ability to assess where the marketplace and the conversation can go regardless of where the brass ring may end up. Part of the reason he ascended to the throne at Sun was as a Nixon going to China. Where McNealy baked antipathy for Microsoft into his personal and therefore corporate brand, Schwartz could manage rapprochement via CTO Greg Papadopoulos.
Now Schwartz needs to handicap the cloud wars and decide who the winners will be short, medium, and long term. He’s working with Amazon Web Services, but then so is Microsoft. Google and Apple seem unwilling to forge strategic alliances as App Engine builds out and MobileMe stabilizes without a corporate instantiation. That leaves Microsoft as the wild card with either the most or no chance of exploring mutual interests.
Strange bedfellows, indeed, but what other rabbit does Schwartz have up his sleeve? Either Oracle or IBM would be glad to pick over Sun’s bones and lift Java out of the remains. If Jonathan sits down and ponders Windows Azure, Mesh, and Live Services, does he see the enemy or the emergence of an open cross-platform RIA uber OS that could easily integrate Sun virtualization and middleware to leapfrog enterprise concerns about cloud computing now, as opposed to several years from now when these problems will have been solved through a combination of standards and political restructuring of requirements in the new Washington.
It’s a heady leap, but who better than Schwartz to paint a disruptive picture in a way that takes the pressure off the short term and gives Sun breathing room while other companies have the opportunity to screw up equally well. Schwartz has the opportunity and the bank roll to sell the enterprise on cloud computing across an open landscape not bound by the old political calculations but rather a nonpartisan approach that seems to be driving Obama into the White House. Besides, a decision has to be made before it’s too late to call the bombers home.
Steve. If you were the CTO of a company building a new application would you go with Azure, Salesforce.com or Amazon+OpenStack+MySQL?
Bring back Vinod.
Bring him back to where. The greenhouse?
The use of out of place political metaphors in this article was hilarious!
Especially the following snippet:
“Schwartz has the opportunity and the bank roll to sell the enterprise on cloud computing across an open landscape not bound by the old political calculations but rather a nonpartisan approach that seems to be driving Obama into the White House.”
Huh?
I think that Steve means “change” — However, to say that what is driving the Messiah into the White House is a “non-partisan approach” is intensely stupid!
Liberal socialism and “chaange” TO NOWHERE is actually “driving Obama” in his bid for the White House.
It is like following someone who “looks different” with no track record or experience, coming out of nowhere… to jump off a cliff into “change”
Of course, the “change” this lunatic is proposing is “wealth spreading,” hyper taxation, loss of individual freedom, a disastrous economy, poverty, civil unrest, and much more…
Obama MUST NOT get elected to be the next US president!
@Charlie
““wealth spreading,” hyper taxation, loss of individual freedom, a disastrous economy, poverty, civil unrest” –You just described a socialist country! You are absolutely correct: Obama will “change” our country into an English speaking [not for long] Cuba…
“but rather a nonpartisan approach that seems to be driving Obama into the White House” –MY GOSH… a “nonpartisan approach”???? What is this idiot smoking?
Edwin
I’m talking about Sun’s survival here, not what that choice today would be. To answer your question, 3, 2, and then 1.
Thread Pool
Out of place?
Hahahahaha.
edwin…
why the hell would you ask gilmore how to build anything. as far as i can tell, he’s never architected a live app that scales, or has scaled, in his life.
steve, feel free to correct me if you have!!
as far as sun’s near term/future prospects, sun has enough in the bank to survive in the short term. in the medium/long term, who knows. a number of sun’s clients where/are in the financial industry which is surely going to retrench somewhat. but i don’t see these guys simply going to the “cloud”!!
in fact, the “cloud” is simply another spin on the whole hosting/outsourcing of hardware resources that has been going on for awhile.. as a critical business, you’re not going to reply solely on a single point of failure (ie, some single contact with a single outside data center). which isn’t to say that a business can’t/won’t offload non-critical systems in the short term, and maybe look to run more critical apps/systems over time.
this kind of view would possibly put a pinch on sun, but who knows…
botttom line, i wouldn’t buy stock in sun anytime soon.. but i also wouldn’t buy goog/msoft either….
peace
Sun will get acquired… it has cash equal to its market cap… and no debt.
Sun is fucking toast. Asian manufacturers are rolling over Sun like a ten ton bulldozer. Java is way past it’s prime. Sun will be bought by HP within 18 months.
Sun just needs to weather this storm. Cloud computing won’t be as attractive once people realize they are infecting their business processes with the reliability and latency of the Internet.
if one-fifth the enterprise systems I’ve used – and developed – had the “reliability and latency of the internet,” I’d thank my stars. As it is, I’ve had more issues accessing less-redundant resources on a LAN or Metro Area Network than I have on “the Internet.”
A single point of failure database server (even clustered) or impinged local pipe are things with which I’ve had direct experience on multiple occasions. Amazon or Google misbehaving sporadically has happened with far less frequency.
The massive-redundancy seems only to be improving with time.
It seems there’s only one real issue at stake here, at least as I read Schwartz’s last blog. He has a really big mainframe business architected by the prior administration, and it’s declining. Recognizing the inevitability of that decent, he’s seeding the world with his new platforms so he’s got something to sell the new generation – and that business is growing reasonably well.
The only question is if the curves cross in time for him to keep his scalp and his BBJ.
but for all the skewering and ridiculing of the guy, I gotta admit, if I were in his shoes, even with a snappy cloud offering, I’m not sure I could do any better. Other than cut the place to ribbons to buy more time for the growth businesses to eclipse the corroding ones, and writing off anything that isn’t a part of the future.
You guys can buy some JAVA shares… you are basically paying cash, and getting the business for free…
Think of all those billions of dollas destroyed, but now you can own a piece.
And yes, cloud computing is “bogus”
Except that that they have $1.26 billion in debt.
Sun is great at starting new projects but sucks at completing them. Maybe they should be acquired by a company that is better at creating products than creating technology solutions. Or maybe spin off a startup or two to run with some of their most promising ideas. For example, in the cloud computing space I think they should go with platform as a service approach using their J2EE portal and NetBeans as a hosted IDE. They could provide all of their cloud services within the context of OpenSocial developer communities built on scriptable (JavaScript, JPython, JRuby, etc.) portlets (JSR286/WSRP2.0).
Sun is so freaking hot!
have you heard about Project Caroline from Sun – http://www.projectcaroline.net
Sun could be revitalized if it truly decentralized decision making, risk and reward to those with the knowledge needed to properly address their market opportunities.
Imagine an organization where each employee puts part of his salary at risk in every project he works on, with the rewards based on real world measures like sales and profits associated with the project’s deliverables.
Imagine each project having shares that employees get as they work on the project, shares they can buy and sell in an internal marketplace. The share prices would tell everybody in the company what people really think about each projects potential.
If each employee were free to decide which projects to work on in such an environment, the more promising projects would find it easier to get human and financial capital. And the most competent employees would have the easiest time finding a promising project.
Bad ideas and employees would both have a hard time getting investment in such an environment. And that’s the way it should be. Both would have to get better to survive.
A revitalized Sun might look more like a collection of startups than the typical enterprise under such an arrangement. And maybe that’s a good thing.
After all, the real strength of a capitalist society over a centralized economy like the old Soviet Union is its decentralized decision making, with most information reduced to prices and people acting in their own self interest, but in such a way as to benefit the whole overall.
Most companies are like the old Soviet Union. Apple is, but it has a very strong, high bandwidth dictator. Sun and IBM are more like really soft versions and that’s why they are drifting.
Every time I read your entries I wished I could have double of what you were on, Gillmor.
Oh, a bug at Feedburner, only 4012 readers for TC1
I just can’t get over how funny the on-drugs meme is. I’m leaving most of them in as an idiot meter.
That’s probably the smartest I’ve read in 6 months (dunno, just a wild guess) Gillmor @ TC.
Trying to understand your entries, even throwing them trough a screenreader considered how awesome you are when it comes to podcasts, but in written text, ooh boy you jump all over the place.
Also too bad you ignore above comments which actually try to stimulate a conversation. Stick to the non-written word, Steve, fits you much better. :)
Steve,, make an effort and *think* about it: it is better [for you] that TC readers believe that you are either on meds or something more “flavorful” than to be convinced that you are a genuine retard…
Again, stop and *t-h-i-n-k* about it.
C’mon guys.. Leave Steve alone –he was probably enjoying his Saturday spliff…. Right on old buddy!
PS the “non-partisan” thing about Obama is really hilarious!
Is this “cloud” thing something about smoking weed?
Hey this cloud computing thing is something we are making up on the fly…Sun is still a good bet for shorthaul.
Sun ought to be able to offer THE killer java cloud computing platform. And, with glassfish, do the same for ruby n rails.
I disagree Steve. Surely you not going to defedn the assumption that Sun perfromed well in getting its Web 2.0 message out revenue wise, a joke surely right?
Revenue wise Sun had to modify its web 2.0 message with such moves as scripting in the JVm and etc to get back in the pot light enterprise wise because enterprise and startups wee refusing to use enterprise java for web 2.0 in large amounts.
Even than the revenue impact was somewhat disappointing. In a transparent world lacking lock-in direct moves do nto correlate to direct revenue. its the indirect moves that often lay the ground work for direct revenue increasing in size impacts.
If Sun were on drugs, what drug would they be? Peyote, chasing dog soldiers that howl in the hot winds.
What?
The answer is easy, Schwartz is an idiot. You can’t make money on software giving it away for free. Any half wit could tell you that. Schwartz needs to be fired and replaced by someone who’ll chop Sun up. Java is dead, Solaris is dead, MySQL never left the launch pad. There’s no asset left, shut the place down, send them all home. Move on, stop writing about this crap.
Quote: “Java is dead, Solaris is dead, MySQL never left the launch pad. ”
===> I just can not let this silly sentence. I will just go to facts.
–> In france (I live there) java counts for 33 of all hiring developpers. java has had manay problems on the client side (applets) but not on the server side.
–> Solaris is Dead: Ok, I do not know about this one. I pass.
–> “MySQL never left the launch pad”. Is it? Comment we all know that perhaps 95 if not 99 pourcent of all web projets are made with Sql.
Please be reasonnable in your comments Ellis Indo.
This idea could be revolutionary: build things that people would be wiiling to pay for. One can open source software and even buy more open source (and free to use) software, burn a lot of money at it and not make a dime in the process. Schwartz should remember that without revenue the whole thing is just a hobby.
incidentally, the political analogies in the post are just laughable. I know, Gilmour is trying to sound smart but—leaving drugs aside—it read contrived and idiotic.
as an ex Sun employee, I would’ve enjoyed this article had it been readable. Once again, Gillmor is delivering tangential writing with absolutely no coherency. I will continue reading TC but now skip all Gillmor-authored pieced.
I’m about to get really mean here.
LookingGlass = fail
JDesktop = fail
buying MySQL = fail
Thin clients = fail
Embracing open source as a last resort = fail
LOM = fail
pricey UltraSPARCs in 500 lb cases = fail ( even the government is wising up to this )
Pony Tail, yes, Pony Tail == FAIL
Sun at this point is just a cloud (without the computing – just fluff in the sky). Guess what, it’s raining now, and stock holders are drowning. They act as if they’re VCs investing in startups, but instead of giving companies money with terms attached to it, they’re giving them a free database with no strings attached!
I’ve been saying this for years. Most importantly, by liquidating Sun and paying off the shareholders, you release an admittedly very talented engineering pool to companies ran by grown-ups…
The BoD should fire McNealy, Schwartz and all the top management. Sun repeatedly has taken away values from the companies they acquired. If you follow what Sun has done since 2000, they are not an open-source company. First, every open-source project they touched they have taken values away from the people who involved in the project. Second, if they are really open source, they should support Eclipse (why create another NetBean) or JBoss (why create GlassFish).
Worst of all, they are now recruiting San Jose State students developing their products. Would you want to run your applications on servers developed by students who consisted of 99% foreign students from India.
Everyone who is successful in Java has nothing to do with the company – like Android now.
I agree, Sun is not an open source company, and they don’t have to be an open source company. I do not agree, open source must support eclipse and jboss.
Sun has great product like Solaris, I hope they will find their way, and they should.
Jonathan you failed. You really did. The whole ebay your machines or try to sell farms by the cpu-hour (missing cloud computing by a hair) and embracing giving stuff away for free to try to sound like the good guy.
Missing the boat on coming up with an incredibly marketable Java cloud solution was a crime. You had all the pieces. You had the engineers to build it and could have even used the “best” (i.e. Sun) hardware for the farms.
Please don’t spend anymore of Sun’s money on stuff that you plan on then giving away. At least the shareholders still have the bank account.
I have to agree with many of the comments, you seem to be “all over the place”.
Bottom line is.. “cloud computing” is todays buzzword.
Most “cloud computing” platforms are traditional hosting solutions. They are jumping on the cloud computing marketing bandwagon. *Real* cloud computing involves distributed computing/data and is very difficult to accomplish. Professional tech authors should distinguish between the two.
People sitting on the side-lines and listening to the hype think they know an industry. You don’t, you’re missing the details and the big picture.
Cloud computing is in general, a load of horseshit.
Schwartz has had time to redefine Sun. But his strategy and tactics have failed so far. Sun has lost it’s place as a company that matters – if it wasn’t for it’s stake in Java and it’s recent MySQL acquisition. Neither Java nor MySQL will pay the bills. Although an accomplished technologist, Schwartz has yet to prove that he can be a great CEO.
Here are a few observations while I was at Sun.
- I respect Jonathan for his openness and free spirit.
- Sun is an ethical company and I have respect for Scott McNEally, Jonathan and many great people at Sun.
- I noticed 2 acquisitions lead by Jonathan and with support from everyone else in the management team, namely Cobalt (a joke for $2B) and a dead weed company called Storageteck (a tape company for $3B+!). This never made sense to the people working at Sun or the market place.
2- There are still a lot of smart people and great ideas at Sun suffocating under bureaucratic management ranks. It is near impossible to promote innovation and good ideas at Sun, the management just kills new ideas which have proven to produce outstanding results.
I suggest Jonathan weeds out his bureaucratic management ranks.
I wish Jonathan, Sun and its people the best.
Don’t know enough about Sun to be intelligent about its future, but do I detect some confidence that Obama will win the White House? And do I detect in the commenters the same rudeness that has characterized many social media discussions about the election? Too bad smart people don’t think it’s necessary to be civil. How do you expect to persuade?
> How do you expect to persuade?
They don’t. They’re entitled to win and when they do, they’ll punish the opposition.
Sun’s problem is really quite simple. They have outlived their arrogance.
Many companies, but somehow especially computer hardware companies, are filled with arrogant assholes. Sun fucked up in many ways, because it thought the only people who know anything are some University educated pricks. So for example, they waste two years screwing up their original Japan operations, sending some dopes there with no practical experience.
Really. Scott McNeely would have had a job whittling hockey sticks except for the fact that his old man was somebody. That’s the way it was with this crowd. A bunch of self important, entitled dicks. I will toast the day Sun Microsystems ends up cemetery of hardware companies alongside Wang, DEC and Apollo. Bye Sun. You flaming egomaniacs.
Sun is always ahead of the curve in technology, the problem is sun defines new technology when market is not yet ready, fails to follow through consistently and leaves projects (of course lot of internal politics around this), and companies who do perfect timing take advantage of sun technology to reap benefits
As ex-sun employee, I can list hundreds of projects which are started by sun, but others reaped benefits. Even taking advantage of sun’s good spirits, for example google created android based on sun’s java technology to avoid paying royalties to sun
Sun is too good to be true in tech industry, some one at sun (or hire outsider) should figure out making money out of huge portfolio of technologies
Gimme a break. Michael Dell crushed SUN and is still crushing SUN. The blowhard SUN has nowhere to go but down. They are not deserving people. They are self-important puds.
The only reason SUN still exists is because the government in the US and Japan bought so much of their shit. Otherwise it would have been gameover a long time ago. Am I the only one who noticed that Schwartz doesn’t run SUN Federal? Gee. I wonder why. Maybe because the US Government employees would probably grab him by his ponytail and whirl him around the room for amusement.
@Volunariti Reduckshun,
Don’t forget: Data General, Prime, Cray, CDC, etc.
The B-58 is my favorite bomber.
Loved seeing the pic of a B-58 Hustler. You don’t run into those much these days.
Dell crushed Sun? Are you nuts? The only thing Michael Dell crushed were his shareholders.
IBM rules the roost, we’re the only company safe enough to buy from in these turbulent times. Us and Microsoft.
I work at IBM and you’re clueless. What, you work at Lenovo now?
@Bala Arrogance, indeed. Everytime I talk to a Sun employee, they keep saying their are a head of the curve. J2ME was ahead of the curve, Sun screw it up. Now, Android is a head of the curve. MySQL was ahead of the curve, Sun is going to screw it up.
Lately I heard from employee how top management keep telling their employees how they want to keep the family and no layoff. Please don’t waste the $2B cash. Give it back to the shareholders.
With J2ME and what is happening in Java, Sun could be in the driving seat of mobile Java. Rather Android is not the Java OS for mobile. MySQL was huge and have a lot of room to growth. Now, MySQL people are not happy. Oracle and Microsoft benefited here. With Solaris Zone, Sun could have taken the lead on cloud virtualization.
I predict, Sun will get around to acquire a cloud company in two years when we are at the tail-end of cloud computer (see similarity here??), and their will screw it up, when the industry is going into something else.
Please give the $2B back to the shareholders.
this is some painfully bad writing.
The board of directors should be ashamed of the fact that they have not
held management accountable for the last 8+ years. I thought the board of directors was supposed to do what is best for us shareholders.
Robert Greene
http://www.greenesearch.com
for a non native english speaking person this text is almost impossible to understand in a reasonable amount of time.
I want some. I’ll smoke anything that lets me see a Sun/Microsoft future. Keep Schwartz but lose the moronic ponytail (it’s way too wanna be xfiles hacker meets over sensitive whale saver. Besides, it has already been done by E Hughes. Just get to work ponytail guy.)