Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Scott McNealy steps aside as CEO of Sun

Scott McNealy the founder and CEO of Sun Microsystems is to step aside and become Chairman. He handed the reigns over to Jonathan Schwartz, currently the President and COO.

This is a historic move for the once leading Silicon Valley tech giant. McNeally was one of 5 that founded Sun and was reluctantly persuaded to become CEO as they went to raise their seed money (from one of my ex-investors).

And he had one mean task ahead of him given that Sun was the 17th workstation company to launch. But he did it, and led them to victory in the workstation space and then to glory and fame in the Internet server space.

Even though Sun have struggled since the dotcom collapse, McNeally now hands over a solid franchise. And with their recent acquisitions, their new software strategy (centred around open source), Java and their all new Galaxy range of servers, Sun could be on the up again.

I just can't help feeling that if they could pull off a transformative merger then they could get back on top. Maybe McNeally should focus on that while Schwartz runs the shop. And with their share price gains this year (up over 20%) - they almost have the currency as well.

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