Time For A Sunset
Speaking of dinosaurs, as I was in my last post, it is time for Sun Microsystems to "explore strategic alternatives." That's MBA-speak for "figure out how to sell the sucker."
Sun's heyday has long since passed. It has no strategy. Developing cool software like Java and giving it away is not a strategy. Doing a 4-for-1 reverse-split of the stock like it did a year ago isn't a strategy. Making most of your sales in high-end servers in an era of commodity servers is not a strategy. Buying other dinosaurs like StorageTek is not a strategy (see my last post about mating dinos). And the list goes on...
The stock market has certainly spoken. A company with a run rate of around $12 billion and a market cap of $4 billion has been rejected by the stock market, the general economic downturn notwithstanding. The breakup value of the company now far exceeds any other hope of maximizing shareholder value.
Sun has for a long time been unfocused, with a penchant for sponsoring all sorts of internal science projects it cannot afford and which contribute to its internal confusion. Scott McNealy was a hoot with his Microsoft-bashing quips, but his low profile as board chair means we don't even have him for entertainment anymore. Besides, he was tilting at the wrong windmill for a workstation-turned-server company. Sun could have had a next act as a Linux platform but it missed that boat.
Time to sail into the sunset.
Sun's heyday has long since passed. It has no strategy. Developing cool software like Java and giving it away is not a strategy. Doing a 4-for-1 reverse-split of the stock like it did a year ago isn't a strategy. Making most of your sales in high-end servers in an era of commodity servers is not a strategy. Buying other dinosaurs like StorageTek is not a strategy (see my last post about mating dinos). And the list goes on...
The stock market has certainly spoken. A company with a run rate of around $12 billion and a market cap of $4 billion has been rejected by the stock market, the general economic downturn notwithstanding. The breakup value of the company now far exceeds any other hope of maximizing shareholder value.
Sun has for a long time been unfocused, with a penchant for sponsoring all sorts of internal science projects it cannot afford and which contribute to its internal confusion. Scott McNealy was a hoot with his Microsoft-bashing quips, but his low profile as board chair means we don't even have him for entertainment anymore. Besides, he was tilting at the wrong windmill for a workstation-turned-server company. Sun could have had a next act as a Linux platform but it missed that boat.
Time to sail into the sunset.
posted by Phil Bookman at 5:04 PM
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