Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Lynn who wrote (31550)	5/5/2000 10:33:00 AM
From: JDN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Dear Lynn: That's OK, you can cuddle me!! JDN

To: Lynn who wrote (31550)	5/5/2000 10:45:00 AM
From: JDN	Respond to of 64865

Dear Lynn and all: Now THIS is the sort of thing I like to read about SUNW. JDN Ed Zander Vision has always been Sun Microsystems Inc.'s strong suit. CEO Scott G. McNealy was saying ``the network is the computer'' long before there was any e-anything. But only after Edward J. Zander became Sun's day-to-day chief in 1997 did it become more than a scrappy industry rebel. Now, under his operational and marketing guidance, Sun is far and away the world's hottest computer maker. Its servers are de rigueur with e-businesses. And the 35% sales growth logged in its most recent quarter dwarfed that of top competitors IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co. Yet Zander, a frenetic Brooklynite, is hardly standing still. He's now tackling Sun's biggest challenge yet: to take Internet computing far beyond today's crash-prone standards, and make it as reliable as the phone network. He has already tied 30% of managers' compensation to customer satisfaction and is making sweeping changes to inject time-tested quality processes into all aspects of Sun's business. Rather than just book orders as fast as possible, now every configuration must be tested by Sun techies before the customer can take delivery. And he and other executives are being trained in General Electric Co.'s ``Six Sigma'' quality doctrine, to find other ways to improve. Says Zander: ``We're going to be a great company--capable of keeping up with whatever customers want to do with technology in this New Economy.'' Clearly, Zander could have the pick of many CEO jobs. But don't look for him to leave before Sun has accomplished its goal of making the Web as reliable as the phone. ``It would be a kick to run a 100-person dot-com, but it's also a kick doing something this significant,'' he says. Especially when times are so good. ``Five years ago, we were supposed to be roadkill for Intel and Microsoft--and here we are outgrowing them. So if they didn't like us before, now they really don't like us!'' True enough. But keeping Sun on top against those odds is just the sort of challenge Zander relishes. By Peter Burrow