Chief executive Scott McNealy talks to Karlin Lillington about his confidence in the computer giant's product line-up, which he says is the best in the company's history
Q: In a keynote last autumn you spoke about several "iPod moments" for Sun. Would you still list the same items?
A:I'd definitely say that Sun has the same big bets. The "iPod moments" were a reference to market-leading products that define or redefine a company. I believe that we have several possible iPod moments. We never wavered on our commitment to R&D [ research and development] and the fruits of that continued innovation are paying off now.
The six solutions I named then - SunFire x64 Servers, SunFire CoolThreads, Solaris 10, StorageTek, UltraSPARC IV+, thin clients and Java Enterprise System - have reset the bar on price/performance in the enterprise space.
It's hard to single any one of these out. I love all my children. One that is really exciting right now is the UltraSPARC T1 CoolThread servers.
The UltraSPARC T1 was built from the ground up for the massive scale-out needs enterprises are facing.
Customers which are benchmarking the T1-based servers are seeing a two to four-times improvement over competitive systems.
For an industry that gets excited about incremental improvements, this is a big deal. And it saves on your energy bill while doing right by the environment.
Q: If I am a new business customer, or a former customer returning for a fresh look, what makes Sun relevant to me?
A: Simply put, we've completely revamped our product line in the last 18 months. We've probably got the best product line-up in the company's history.
We've also gotten back to our roots of open standards and open interfaces.
We've open sourced Solaris 10, the most advanced OS on the planet; Java Enterprise System, the best middleware suite on the market; and even opened our new UltraSPARC T1 processor.
Being "open" does two things for customers: it lowers the barrier to exit when they need to move to a new technology, and gives customers more choice.
Q: You have said that Sun and Microsoft are like two boxers who might touch gloves before the fight but will still pound each other in the ring. On a practical level, how do you balance business partnership with rivalry?
A: Ultimately this comes down to customer choice. Sun and Microsoft have a long history together.
Most of the attention has admittedly been on our public disagreements, but we both know that just about every customer out there depends on both of us to run their businesses.
As much as we know our strategy is the right one, we also know that for our customers' sake, we need to be working with Microsoft when appropriate to make sure our customers have the interoperability they need to be successful.
Q: What has been most personally challenging in running Sun since 2000? What has been most rewarding?
A: The challenges and rewards go almost hand in hand. What's important to me is that we have really stuck to our guns not only since 2000, but since we went into business back in 1982.
We were founded on the ideals of open source and sharing and we are committed to that today. We have always said "the network is the computer" and it's more true today than ever.
I have received a lot of unsolicited advice over the years about cutting R&D and following the competitors. But I've never heard a customer tell me they "wanted that old stuff".
Innovation matters in this industry and that's what Sun is all about. Right now our commitment to R&D and innovation is paying off.
All of those iPod moments I talked about, and some future things that would get me into trouble if I told you about - all of these came from our heritage of R&D.
Going against the conventional wisdom was challenging, but it feels good now that those same talking heads are saying how great our new products are and that they're making Sun a top choice again for new customers. That's rewarding.
Q: Finally, any good top 10 lists lately? (McNealy is famous for offering humorous top 10 lists during speeches)
A: I recently delivered a keynote presentation at our worldwide education and research conference, highlighting the importance of technology and education working together.Of course this is an important issue, but with four kids at home, I couldn't resist talking about the new excuses kids today have for not turning in their homework on time (see below).
McNealy's top 10...
Homework excuses:
1. The dog chewed-up my laptop.
2. Too busy writing "I love you, too" virus.
3. Plan on "open sourcing" from kid next to me.
4. "Cut and paste" keys were worn out.
5. T%k t% ing 2 qwerty - txt 2 U instead? Took too long to type on regular keyboard, can I text it to you instead?
6. Couldn't afford HP ink cartridge.
7. I e-mailed it, didn't you get it?
8. Still handwriting it, productivity-suite licence too expensive.
9. Had to delete it to make room for iTunes.
10. Tech support for my PC was offshore.
