• Tim the IT Guy

    Microsoft does a victory dance on Sun's head

    Redmond's biz-dev gorillas have strong-armed Sun Microsystems into bundling the MSN toolbar as an optional add-on to Sun's Java downloads in the US. What does the Silverlight-powered toolbar have to do with Java? Nothing! That's the genius of it. More »
    11/11/08
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    Comment by ShrikumariKollenda: Yup, to be a little more accurate - the only success Sun has had in generating significant new revenue for... more » | Other threads

  • acquisitions

    Sun, Novell, Cray could go private

    Being a public company isn't all it's cracked up to be. Granting stock options is more expensive than it was before accounting rules changed. Sarbanes-Oxley regulations make reporting financials a miserably bureaucratic process. And investors are afraid of all kinds of risk. Computer makers Cray and Sun and software maker Novell have nearly enough cash on hand to take themselves private, The Register observes. KKR, a buyout firm, got a seat on Sun's board after investing $700 million. Debt markets may be frozen, but these tech stocks are so depressed that private takeovers might not even require the issuance of debt. Forget the stock options: Employees would welcome a deal that keeps some of their jobs.
    10/15/08
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    Comment by pepelicious: I prefer takeo'er myself. more » | Other threads

  • wantrepreneurs

    Hubert Chang, not Al Gore, invented the Internet

    When NYU Ph.D. student Hubert (Hung-Hsien) Chang wasn't busy inventing Google or visiting Disneyland and signing up for Google-related groups on Facebook, he was coming up with lots of crazy ideas. Cross-platform programming language Java? Chang. Open-source office productivity software OpenOffice? Chang. The semantic Web? DHTML? Tim Berners-Lee Chang. All this and more he tossed away to finish his Ph.D. at NYU, which he finally accomplished in late 2002, as he explained in the video. Or 2003, as he explained on his archived homepage, below. More »
    09/24/08
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    Comment by Goose Spruce: I know I already said this before, but I would like to repeat myself. LOOSER!!!! no seriously. LOOSER!!! 2 Responses | Other threads

  • stocks

    10 tech stocks to watch as Lehman disappears and AIG totters

    When it became obvious over the weekend that investment bank Lehman Brothers would finally fail and that no one was going to rescue it, Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain realized the market's reaction today would tank his company as well. So Thain met with Kenneth Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, and the pair reached a deal to sell Merrill Lynch to Bank of America for $44 billion. Which is, you might recall, around the price Microsoft wanted to pay for Yahoo. Of course, that kind of offer won't be coming for Yahoo again any time soon. While not so severely or directly, Lehman Brothers' collapse and insurance giant AIG's tottering on the brink will affect your tech portfolio today. Before this morning's open the company's stock was already down 3.83 percent on premarket trading. Watch Yahoo and nine other tech stock's continuing destruction or — dare you hope? — miraculous resilience on live stock charts below. More »
    09/15/08
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    Comment by ResearchZilla: these are negligible changes, excluding aig - but loading this many charts is a huge browser burden.... 3 Responses | Other threads

  • Monty Widenius

    Was MySQL creator's resignation rumor just a negotiating tactic?

    We'd heard, on good authority, that Monty Widenius, creator of the popular open-source database MySQL, the foundation of most modern Web apps, had quit Sun, not long after the server maker's $1 billion purchase of his company. MySQL's designated community panderer, Kaj Arnö, muddied the waters with a maybe-he-will-maybe-he-won't blog post. Now, at last, via Infoworld, an explanation: Widenius is negotiating with Sun for a new role at MySQL. Which raises the question: Was he ever really planning to leave, or was he just telling people that to see how his corporate overseers would react?
    09/12/08
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    Comment by BobbyMelbourne: In my experience that trick only works once... more » | Other threads

  • earnings

    Sun squeaks by in Q2 earnings

    Sun Microsystems earned a piddly $88 million on $3.78 billion in sales for the second quarter. The company is still trying to recover from a $5 billion loss after the dot-com bust killed the market for its servers. Massive layoffs and restructuring have run up additional charges. But there's an upside: Analysts had expected worse. The Valley's former destination of choice for overachieving young engineers may yet save itself.
    08/01/08
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    Comment by masterofmonkeys: @masterofmonkeys: okay, but i see your point, they did beat expectations. fucking a, these sun people are so sorry i... more » | Other threads

  • exits

    Sun dims, loses chief researcher to Kleiner Perkins

    Sun Microsystems chief researcher John Gage will leave the company and join venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Gage, who joined Sun in 1982, will focus on "green" investments. Meanwhile, Sun wilts. After corporate clients slowed their tech infrastructure investments, Sun reported second quarter losses and Gage is the second top executive to leave the company in the last two weeks. Rival Hewlett-Packard poached Sun's top salesman Don Grantham. Sun says as many as another 2,500 could follow the pair out the door, though executive suites HP and Kleiner Perkins do not await them all.
    06/10/08
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    Comment by BobDope: Sun is still in business? Thanks for Java, Sun. Good night. more » | Other threads

  • conferences

    I went to San Francisco for JavaOne, and all I got was this Norovirus

    Giving every junketeer who might have over-imbibed a good excuse to blow off chores and work once they get home, conference organizers at Sun's JavaOne developer fest at the Moscone Center are now warning attendees that the City has released a public health warning about a virus on the loose.
    Testing is still underway to identify the specific virus in question, but they believe it to be the Norovirus, a common cause of the "stomach flu", which can cause temporary flu-like symptoms for up to 48 hours.
    Full alert after the jump so you can study up on symptoms if called on to fake them for getting a spouse or boss off your back. More »
    05/09/08
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    Comment by BobDope: I guess I'll wash my hands. Thanks, news you can use. more » | Other threads

  • marketing

    Neil Young versus the bloggers at JavaOne

    As part of Neil Young's appearance at Sun's JavaOne conference, groups of hacks were herded into a conference room to ask questions of the aging rock legend, presumably about how awesome Java is, but I think the plan is that Java is just awesome because Young says so, and he trotted out an expansive interactive discography powered by the Java functionality built into Sony's Blu-ray hardware and a clean car project with telemetrics powered by Sun-sponsored software. Because I doubt there's anything baby boomer executives and the formerly flannel-shirted Gen-X set they spawned like more than getting the most out of their cars and home theater systems. Except maybe hearing Young pontificate on the virtues of an all-analog recording process. More »
    05/06/08
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    Comment by Randolf: The only Xers with Boomer parents are on the very cusps. My parents are squarely Silent/Eisenhower generation, and think... more » | Other threads

  • javaone

    Sun has great friends, but business plan still a mystery

    At the JavaOne keynote this held at the Moscone Center this morning, EVP of software Rich Green took the stage and told the assembled crowd, mostly developers, "Welcome to the revolution. Businesses used to drive technology adoption, but now it's all about consumers." Which suggests the company, known historically as an enterprise hardware and software provider, is changing focus to enable more consumer-focused applications. Not mentioned? Last week's announcement of a $34 million quarterly loss and a stock price that has hardly improved since plummeting 20 percent. But look everybody, Neil Young! More »
    05/06/08
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    Comment by nessence: afaik, javafx is actually going to be free to phone manufacturers as well. the real issue is sun needs to... more » | Other threads

  • holiday cheer

    Forget your Document Freedom Day gift? No nookie for you!

    Once a year, I have trouble falling asleep, I'm just so excited. I say my prayers to the developers of OpenOffice, slide under the covers and just lay there thinking about all the documents I'll get to open in the morning. There'll be text documents, and spreadsheets — maybe even presentation slides! Only after a few hours of listening for the pitter-patter of comma-separated reindeer do I finally fall asleep. Well, that day is here again this year — Document Freedom Day! Google's Zaheda Bhorat can hardly contain her glee:
    So wherever you are, join the fun and support your freedom to access your information.
    Seriously, though, shouldn't this just be called "Screw You, Microsoft! Day" or something?
    03/26/08
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    Comment by random_play: On Document Freedom Day I always take a moment to remember all the brave documents who sacrificed their lives so... more » | Other threads

  • earnings

    Sun Microsystems made money too! "Revenues for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 were $3.615 billion, an increase of approximately 1.4 percent as compared with $3.566 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2007. Total gross margin as a percent of revenues was 48.5, an increase of 3.5 percentage points, as compared with the second quarter of fiscal 2007. Net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 on a GAAP basis was $260 million, or $0.31 per share, as compared with a net income of $133 million, or $0.15 per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2007." [Sun Press Room]
    01/24/08
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  • benchmark capital

    Kevin Harvey gloats about "insane" MySQL investment

    With its 15 percent share, Balderton Capital cashed out big on Sun's $1 billion MySQL acquisition yesterday. But Benchmark, from which Balderton was spun off, took an even bigger risk on open source back when doing so seemed more than a little crazy."When we first invested in Red Hat it was thought to be totally insane. When we funded MySQL it was only partly insane," Benchmark Capital's Kevin Harvey told the FT after Sun announced its buy. Benchmark owned 26 percent of MySQL before yesterday's sale, providing the firm a much-needed big hit, the likes of which the firm hasn't seen since eBay.
    01/17/08
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    Comment by rasputin45: They have filled some gaps there. Remember Jamdat? more » | Other threads

  • acquisitions

    Oracle and Sun attack the stack

    Oracle has acquired BEA for $8.5 billion. Sun has acquired MySQL for $1 billion. These events are not coincidence. Oracle, which already makes a database, wants to add BEA's software on top of that database. Sun, which makes application servers and other software which connects to databases, wants to slip MySQL in underneath that layer. It all adds up to what geeks and software salesmen call a "stack," or a complete package of interconnecting programs. More »
    Feature Feature
    01/16/08
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  • earnings

    Sun Microsystems reported $89 million in income on $3.2 billion in revenue — a 1 percent increase year-over-year. "What we need to see is if this company can ever grow again, and the jury is still out on that question," noted one analyst. Forget that. With all the growth in online advertising, Sun should ditch the server business and figure out how to monetize CEO Jonathan Schwartz's blog. Or maybe launch a social network for Java programmers. [WSJ]
    11/06/07
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  • confonz

    ConFonz hits the Web 2.0 party circuit

    CONFONZ AT THE WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — While the rest of the world prepares for Halloween, there was a significantly scarier sight on display yesterday at the Palace Hotel. You truly know the web 2.0 "revolution" is over when the suits outnumber the geeks. Granted, the Palace isn't exactly a geek haven. And the pricing of badges for the conference is certainly out of the range of most of your average Web coders. But it's easily within the grasp of venture capitalists, marketing weenies, and CEOs. And that's just who attended this, the second Web 2.0 conference of the year. More »
    10/18/07
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    By confonz
  • advice

    At Fortune's iMeme conference, Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz repeats a tired old quote about how he likes to drink wine from a bottle while his predecessor, Scott McNealy, drinks wine out of a box. Quips a News.com reporter: "Maybe they should hire someone who likes to drink wine out of a glass and see where that takes them." [News.com]
    07/12/07
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  • nerdfight

    Linux creator Linus Torvalds vs. lush-locked Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. "What I'm trying to do here is wake people up who seem to be living in some dream-world where Sun wants to help people." [crn.com]
    06/13/07
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    Comment by Automatt: Does Sun still charge money for the C compiler when you buy Solaris? more » | Other threads

  • googleplex

    Ancient acrobat statues puzzle Googlers

    As a (perhaps) final coda to the Googleplex map errata, lots of readers phoned in with declarations or speculations regarding the acrobat statues outside Building 45. Were they in fact leftovers from when Adobe lived there, and did they have some nominal relationship to Adobe's Acrobat products? Or did early explorers find these statues in the Spanish colonial days and decide this would be an excellent place for an office park? More »
    02/08/07
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    Comment by rheiser: OK, you asked for it :) When Adobe moved to Mt. View (~1987 -- I started there in 1989)... more » | Other threads

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