writes itself
Yeah, i got to say, this whole Jonathan Schwartz contribution on blogs.sun.com does make my blog a lot easier, i mean there is no way i could even make some of this stuff up, even through deductive reasoning based on press releases and product announcements, so it is with great satisfaction that the current CEO proves my point every time he engages his community, especially when he publishes internal missives to his executive team, which go a long way to explaining why they are all completely paralyzed trying to anticipate what to do, as in the face of all irrefutable evidence that a change is needed, PTB basically says Sun couldn't be better:I must admit i have never managed a single employee, particularly when your credibility is severely tested (nor been in a urban warfare environment, which seems to be somewhat comparable), so i don't know exactly what i would be telling Schwartz if i was his therapist or whoever he consults for advice that is not directly relying on him for their livelihood, and maybe i over-looked this responsibility if i truly do care about Sun's survival, but i think i have thrown enough ignored suggestions to convince myself that i am not merely a flame-thrower...but to save the mentally strained at Sun some time that they should be spent looking for other jobs as a back-up plan, i will provide some analysis on what the CEO is trying to communicate in his diatribe on politics, economics, and Sun's business model via the e-mail published above, which i can only presume is his only mass distribution statement on the current state of affairs:
(this is my take on his thinking, so the conclusions are based on my understanding of this analysis of the current conditions)
1. Congress is responsible for the current crisis, since it has not passed a "bail-out" package, as of this writing, though that has since been recitifed, so placing blame on politicians, and the political system in general for the decisions of the financial community is not necessarily a tactic that Jonathan will be able to rely on, depending on a whole confluence of factors, such as stock market stability, loan market liquidity, and number of businesses that exist at the end of 2008...essentially when a CEO starts playing political analyst to describe the market opportunity for his company, you better hope you are either in Russia or else run for the hills, because it is going to get ugly...
2. I know i am going out of order, relative to the points i want to make as they relate to the e-mail in question, but i got to respond to the question that Jonathan poses, and so toward the end he says: "which OS will we pick" in terms of a customer buying decision...hahahaha...i mean if i was on Sun's Board's compensation committee, i would immediately introduce a clause that says that if at anytime, Jonathan makes such a public statement again, that his bonus is deducted 25% for complete incompetence and lack of understanding for the market that he is supposedly competing in...for one, the decision on an OS is entirely predicated on the skills of the customer's IT department, so that if the IT minions are experts in SQL Server database technology or develop using Visual Studio, then yes, of course, they go with Windows for their x86 server line-up...if a customer has been savvy and over-spent on open source experts, then they have the flexibility to choose Linux...under no scenario, other than if the customer has an existing locked-in contract for Sun servers previously, would they ever choose openSolaris, that, in fact, would be grounds for being fired as an IT manager...so, this question that Jonathan poses, though i understand he has bet his career on its validity, is completely a false positive, it is not a true question that anyone, and i mean anyone, makes relative to Sun's OS...let's move on, just wanted to make sure we were still completely clear on why Jonathan Schwartz has no business being in this business...
3. O.k., so we got a cursory mention of Glassfish, so at least Jonathan could reference this e-mail in the future, when it finally becomes obvious even to him and his executive team that they have no competitive advantage outside of Glassfish, that they were aware of the asset they must utilize in these market conditions, but it is admittedly sindwiched in between the virtualization product-line and openSolaris nonsense (hahaha), so there is really no way for a Sun "leader" to pick-up this e-mail and say to themself: 'wow, i guess we finally are de-emphasizing WebLogic, and going to go after the Enterprise Java market opportunity', even though that is the only defensible market that Sun competes in...therefore, this e-mail, though it contains some of the basic premises of how Sun will survive, has absolutely no focus, is truly just a lingo-laden emptying of the brain of all things Sun-related, with no actual direction, and no clear instructions of how these "leaders" should take their orders in compete in these dire market conditions...one last time, well actually, i will continue to hammer it, until Mark replaces him: Glassfish is the only way forward...
4. No mention of how MySQL is to replace current database accounts, so the general assumption is that you take MySQL in to greenfield accounts, like where a customer has not yet selected a database: ummm, o.k., that is exactly like 3 customer worldwide outside of a brand-new start-up, every customer on the planet must begin their operation with the exact plan of what their database strategy will be, and here MySQL could be relevant, but the much more salient opportunity that Jonathan completely fails to grasp, and has failed to grasp ever since he spent $1B on MySQL is how to convert existing Oracle customers to the open source platform, that is actually viable, but somehow Sun, with all its infinite open source wisdom, has not understood, has not articulated, and therefore, has not executed on, which means that there is no way the Sun GSO sales force will have any idea how to present a migration strategy, simply because there is none...i don't 100% fault Jonathan for this, directly, but his inability to grasp software, fundamentally, means that he has not invested in a migration plan across Sun to replace Oracle account control on their hardware, and it basically means he is allowing Ellison, Phillips, Catz, and Co. to live for free on his dime...amateur hour reigns at Sun Microsystems, still...
5. Finally, there is plenty of additional fluff that i am not going to single out, as the above are the major points, and basically i will conclude this post with the argument that this e-mail essentially represents a massive missed opportunity, again, for Jonathan to demonstrate that he has any grasp of the compamny that he gets paid $10M+/year to lead...so, as i take a glance at finance.google.com and look up JAVA news and share price, we can see that they are supporting a market value of approximately $1B, with cash removed, so for all the status of the Java programming language and platform, for the installed base that is hard-won, and relatively difficult to lose, and the Silicon Valley real estate assets, the market essentially expects Sun to fail...
ahh, yes, and yet there is no movement to check this guy? i mean he sends out this e-mail in a tone that some psychologists would quickly dismiss as representative of a man in a state-of-denial, and there is nothing that anyone on Sun's Board does? we are all, Sun shareholders included, expected to just ride this out, and trust a guy who personally claims in this e-mail that he is well-positioned to lead the company because he apparently survived the dot-com fall-out, i means is that not his main argument in this e-mail, that only he is positioned to lead this company because of the job he did following 2001?...hahahaha...c'mon guys, vacation is over, the kids are back in school, you have business to attend to, and i don't want to see most of you go to jail for failing your fiduciary duty as a Board member, do something about this...
i guess paralysis is comprehensive when it comes to fighting him, i remember looking in the eyes of a lot of people at Sun who were paralyzed by his implicit threats, but those days are gone, the record, including this e-mail, speaks for itself, there is no longer any denying that he has failed, and more importatly, has no specific plan to get out of the mess he created...so, what are you going to do? wait for the Feds to clean-up? or are you going to just call a meeting and figure it out?...i don't know, maybe i am not seeing something, but it really doesn't look to be that difficult of a choice...i honestly don't know why you would risk your own livelihood for his, i mean, i just don't get that...i know there are some people, like McNealy, who i would consider sacrificing for, maybe not anymore, but there is no way, you could get me to hail a cab for Jonathan Schwartz, let alone stake my career on his turn-around prowess...
its going to get really ugly before it gets better...
posted by douglas dooley @ 10:42 AM
5 Comments:
Hey PTB,
I know you made some comment in the FY08 call that Sun (or at least you) does not view IBM as a competitor, but maybe you could take some time out of your busy schedule dreaming up new ways to package openSolaris as an actual factor in the IT industry, to, i don't know, maybe understand the industry in which you compete...start by getting some idea of why IBM was able to deliver this announcement, today:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iD0H5S_7bIwoIXT-fO4M8RWpo3_AD93MJS980
and:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/25380.wss
I know, i know, Global Services is not a market in which you want to compete, and i guess that makes some sense, i mean there is no way you could get the resources to scale to compete at the Systems Integrator level with IBM, but it might be worth looking in to understanding how they actually market their actual products, and ultimately close deals...
i guess i will hold-off on claiming that your strategy is dead until the FY09Q1 call in a couple of weeks, but i don't know if you have noticed, but surely someone must have mentioned that your take-it-or-leave-it approach is not selling much in the way of new server environments...
IBM is not beating you because they are more diversified, particularly geographically, which will be your and Lehman's only excuse on 10/30/8, rather it is the fact that they have long understood, that outside of Silicon Valley, businesses make IT decisions on metrics other than price-performance, and instead want the IT vendor to demonstrate ROI...
IBM has mastered this value proposition, even though their TCO is higher than Sun, so they can just remove you and most other competitors from the discussions because they simply prove to a customer, time and time again, that no matter what the cost of a WebSphere on Power w/ Linux environment, it still works out to be a good investment...
I mean you have Glassfish at 1/10 the overall cost of WebSphere, and better hardware, but you can't make a d*mn sale because you have not invested in the analysis to prove to your potential customers that the investment of the T2 hardware pays for itself in less than 3 years, outside of this green environmentalism nonsense...
You are not pricing yourself out of the market, actually if you really understood that the $100M/yr. payment to Red Hat would give you the flexibility to charge more for systems than it would ever cost you to run Linux, you could compete with IBM again, like we used to do, when people at Sun were not running scared...
and, i like that opportunity to go head-head with IBM on middleware and systems, with Linux as the marker, but as long as you think you have something to prove with openSolaris, as long as you keep your head in the sand and pretend that you don't have any actual competitors, and the longer you keep smiling, while your business implodes, the worse it is going to get...
i hope i have made myself clear, that i have no concern for you as an individual, i think it will be kind of funny when i hear stories about you in 5 years as a mid-40's has-been executive who can't get a VP job, anywhere, but right now i am speaking to the CEO of Sun, and that is all, as soon as you are finally pushed out, we will all move on, but in case you have not noticed, there are other people at stake in this endeavor to save Sun,
i am just trying to yell long enough and loud enough to wake you up to the reality that maybe you can consider the employees at Sun, more than your own $10M/yr. life...
I don't know, it just doesn't seem like this is the right move, but then again, i have become so inherently negative about everything they are doing on the hardware-side of the business, that maybe i am no longer a legitimate analyst:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9116998&intsrc=news_ts_head
I think there are many problems in the U.S. financial system right now, but to me, as a minion or just a potential cog, i guess my number one grief is the incestuous nature of the so-called financial community, to the extent that there is nothing in the way of independent analysis, so potential stock market investors don't have any way to know whether some analyst is actually objective and neutral or whether they have some vested interest in their coverage...
my case in point, related to Sun, is why there isn't some perspective on what comes next, and it leaves it up to amateurs like myself to speculate on why the management team feels like they can basically rely on a single blog post from Jonathan to wash away all questions about Sun's ongoing viability as their market cap. is nearing cash on hand value...
so, i understand, to a certain extent, the argument of carrying on with business and let the stock price sort itself out, but releasing basically a non-event hardware line on the day that the stock market might finally implode this morning, seems really callous...
i don't how far up your own a*s you have to be to think that anyone on Planet Earth will give one sh*t about this announcement, when it essentially only further embeds the company in a losing-proposition that the T2 line is Solaris-only, and is a niche market, even considering all the b.s. about this being the supposed "fastest growing business ever at Sun" or whatever Jonathan tried to claim in the above article...
if i were actually to subscribe to a diagnosis that i am a paranoid schizophrenic, i would almost come to the conclusion that PTB is essentially either f*cking with me or trying to arrange a cheap deal for KKR, because the unbelievable arrogance seems to me to be unprecedented in the IT industry and only rivaled by Wall Street circa 2006...
i really don't what else to say, i mean do i continue to ask the questions that seem obvious to me?...or do i just accept defeat on this issue of Sun Microsystems?...i got to believe something will change, that there is actually a light at the end of this long tunnel, that we call the Jonathan Schwartz era...
re-cap of 10/13/8 "announcement":
- Sun was serious, they released this product without any joking, so for anyone who thought it incredulous to make such a big deal out of a "mid-range" system today, have no fear Sun management is pushing forward...
- no Red Hat support
- no Q&A
- stiff, stiff, stiff performances by Fowler and McHugh...
- that accompanying video is brutal and pure fluff, i feel bad for the Fujitsu guy...
almost unbelievable, but truly nothing is too bad for this team...i'll take any suggestions on their next product roll-out, i mean feel free to come with the most inane ideas, that would even be counter-productive to Sun, and i would imagine that its a fair bet they are on the table for consideration...
am i hallucinating or did i read this press release and their datapoint for the SpecJ benchmark is WebLogic:
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-10/sunflash.20081013.2.xml
reference above post to understand that Sun marketing is capable of anything right now,
u r the latest to get the title of incompetent, Anil Gadre, u might be 2nd only to Jonathan himself, in terms of identifying a core problem at that company...
have you even thought beyond 1999 to come up with a single idea for pushing Sun forward?...
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