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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (19725)	9/17/1999 12:04:00 AM
From: Rusty Johnson	Respond to of 64865

Business Week's e.biz 25: Master's of the Web Universe It was no cinch to pick the 25 ultimate Netheads. We brainstormed and amassed a master list of more than 100 names. Then, over the course of three weeks and with much, er, spirited debate, the best of those rose to the top as the standouts we believe are most profoundly influencing the Internet today. They're the empire builders, the innovators, the bankrollers, the architects, the visionaries, and the pacesetters--daredevils who gladly risk all and leap the chasm between what they know and what they believe. Here's a sign of how much things have changed. The daredevil of the PC generation is not on our list: William H. Gates III. It wasn't so long ago that the honcho of Microsoft Corp. seemed to have the computer industry in a brainlock. But now we're seeing the wholesale redistribution of leadership in the technology industry. Like the Web itself, the Internet industry has no center of gravity. It's creative chaos incarnate. Now, someone at Noname.com is just as likely to create the next great business as is someone at Microsoft. 'The beauty of the Web is that it's open to everybody,' says Scott G. McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc. Everybody gets to stand on the shoulders of everybody else's work. That's why everything's accelerating.' Eventually, things will slow down. Power will coalesce, too. But don't expect the Internet to mimic the PC industry, with only a duo of dominant players. That's because the Net's technology underpinnings are not owned by one company--the way Microsoft owns Windows on PCs. Ron Chernow, author of Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., doubts that anybody will be able to control the Internet the way Rockefeller controlled oil. 'It's a very greasy pole,' he says. 'It's very difficult to maintain a dominant hold because of the speed of change and the competition that can emerge from unexpected areas.' Of course SUNW's Bill Joy made the list: William Joy The technology world's going pretty much according to Bill--but not the Bill you think. While Microsoft Corp.'s William H. Gates III must worry about an antitrust suit and the threat of a post-PC era, the ideas of Bill Joy, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s chief technology officer, couldn't be more in vogue. For 20 years, the bushy-haired Joy, 44, has been the Merlin of the computer industry--peering out 10 years and foreseeing a whole new way of computing. His vision: that computers need to be much simpler to use, and information should be readily available everywhere via the Net on a range of appliances. Now, thanks in good part to Joy's prodding and Sun's Java technology, that vision is becoming reality. Joy's ideas are laying the foundation for making e-business ubiquitous. His latest musings are just as audacious. Joy foresees a world where tiny computers that are embedded in all sorts of devices talk directly to other computers, without need of human intervention. Why, for example, couldn't power plants negotiate with each other to adjust real-time to minimize pollution? 'The big emerging trend is finding ways to get computers to reliably work together--and it's much harder to do than people think,' says Joy. 'It's going to take many years.' Joy seems likely to enjoy the long journey. He works with a team of four in Aspen, Colo., close to the ski slopes and far from the daily grind at Sun's Silicon Valley headquarters. To peer into the future, he endlessly scours books on everything from economics to architecture, looking for any hints on how the Net will develop. Lately, he has been studying groupthink in ant colonies. 'Bill's often so far outside of the box that he's not aware there is a box,' says Java creator James Gosling. Well, why not? It has worked so far. By Peter Burrows Bold type added by Rusty. Subscribe to Business Week Online ... businessweek.com

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (19725)	9/17/1999 12:49:00 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 64865

[A more important development that could change his projections is the potential flood of digital devices that will enter the home in coming years, including controllers for air-conditioning systems,ideo recorders, Web appliances and a variety of other devices that will need operating systems.] Rusty, These devices should be great. I don't understand why the pundits associate Linux with "geeks". When so many people want to download Star Office it is obvious that they want an alternative to Windows. Surely, that doesn't mean that the Press should call them "geeks". Mephisto