Okay, IMO time. Keep in mind that this is just m,y POV and NOT in any way an official Sun staement.
Got that clear?
I think you do need to be careful in assigning TOO much importance to this event. From where I sit we (a) gto a ncie hunk of cash from MSFT (biggest they’ve ever given anyone I believe) and (b) have basically cleared the impediments to wokring together. How much we DO work together I still think we need to wait and see on.
The differences still remain. We are fundementally different kinds of companies. MSFT runs on money. Sun runs on religion. That fundemental difference can lead to some very differing POVs. I don’t think anyone at Sun is naive enough to think that this suddenly makes MSFT our best buddy, it just clears the for the kind of more-friendly competetion we do with the likes of IBM. But we also know enough (I certainly hope) to watch our backs.
Inre management, you gusy missed the big story entirely. Johnnathon Schwarz has just been made president and COO. This makes him second only to Scott, the same role Zander had before he left. Johnnathon previosuly ran software. This is the man who finally made a home unser his CTO (John Fowler) for the GTG. Thats very promising for us in general. It also says a lot about Sun’s current views on the importance of sofwtare.
lastly, I just have to add that I think you need to give Scott a bit of a break. He’s called on to predict the future all the time and he won’t always be right. Remember it was IBM’s founder, TJ Watson who said:
“I think the world market for computers is about 5.”
Scott has always supported our efforts in the game space as best he could and without him we wouldn’t be anywhere today. I’ve foudn him to be a dynamic and caring leader who really udnerstands the contributions that indviduals make to a company.
Frankly, if Scott formed a new company and asked me tomorrow, I’d galdly go work directly for him.