Sunsets, revisited
Recently, I wrote a blog entry with my own opinions (reinforced with YEARS of results of psychological testing by others) about why many companies fail, IN GENERAL.
Today, I read a May 1 post in CNET about how Dan Baigent, the Senior Director of Corporate Development at Sun Microsystems, started to blog about Sun’s “Top 10” failures and completed “Reason No. 8” before his posts WERE PULLED DOWN!
(Note added May 3, 2009: Baigent’s Weblog is (was? 
) subtitled, “The ravings of a lunatic.” Don’t worry, Dan! As the Cat said, “…we’re all mad here….”)
Oracle is acquiring Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion. Sun was once valued at $200 billion.
In any case, Google (being the good historian that it is!) has cached the Top 10 blog of Dan Baigent here. Links for Reasons 10 through 8 are in the CNET reference above.
(Note added May 23, 2009: It seems that the links to the Google caches have gone “inoperative.” I hope that everyone found what they needed. The CNET reference remains (at least today) and lists reasons 10-8 as:
Reason No. 10: Failed to understand the x86 market. “We approached the market in the only way we knew how – as an extension of our high-end, low-volume, high-value approach to network computing. And not just in terms of product features and capabilities, but in terms of sales, partnerships, channel programs and supply chain management.”
Reason No. 9: Messing with the Java brand. “(N)umerous attempts by well-meaning marketing folks at Sun to try exploit the value of the Java brand itself and how that ultimately reduced the very value they tried to exploit. To some degree, this is as much about the lack of value in the Sun brand (at least outside our loyal customer base) as it is about Java”.
Reason No. 8: Fumbling Jini. “The real problem was that the engineers had built this technology using the latest Java platform…and had incorporated specific changes into J2SE 1.2 to support the Jini requirements. When launched, Jini could not run in anything smaller than a device with 64MB of memory and a Pentium-class processor…. Meanwhile, Marketing and PR were off describing uses of the technology that were all about small devices (cameras, printers, cell phones, etc.) that were completely unable to run RMI, nonetheless the Jini on which it was built.
Just in case the CNET reference disappears, too.)
(Note added May 10, 2009: I have noticed intense interest in this post from Google searches in India. Those of us in the U.S. who are thinking about American jobs need to remember that large multinational corporations affect the economies of other nations as well, in this global recession. Also, the announced acquistion provides another example of impacts of outsourcing and offshoring! Oh, while I have touched on the subject of offshoring, we should revisit an earlier post of mine about “clueless” academics at Harvard Business School who suggested [actually, they did more than suggest – they PUBLISHED] their estimate that up to 42% of U.S. jobs could be offshored! I would like to invite them to visit the California Central Valley town of Mendota, which had 41.6% unemployment in March [though not from offshoring], to see how everyone is doing and maybe to REVISE THEIR ESTIMATE. They may get an idea of what 42% unemployment actually looks like, although Mendota’s unemployment is likely HIGHER by now.)
As a former Sun employee, I believe that it would inappropriate for me to comment about Sun’s failures. Who knows? Maybe I might have signed some document (at the time that I resigned from Sun to take another job) that said I would not. At the time I worked for Sun, Sun encouraged its employees to blog, but nobody I knew personally would take the “career risk.” (Note added May 4, 2009: Obviously, I know some REALLY SMART people, personally! )
From the articles that I have read by industry and financial analysts over the years, the reasons for Sun’s failure were obvious to just about everyone in the business, except to Sun’s own management.
(Note added May 09, 2009: Maybe the TYPOLOGY of that last sentence should have been “…obvious to just about EVERYONE in the business, except to SUN’s OWN MANAGEMENT!” If you look at the reader responses to the posts above, the same point is made again and again, with specific examples. Perhaps it is better to get beyond a discussion of specific examples [although all of the specific, CONCRETE EXAMPLES are certainly nice!] and to take another look at my GENERAL blog entry about “root cause analysis” of why companies fail, IN GENERAL [backed by years and years of Myers-Briggs Type testing of hundreds of thousands {millions?} of individuals]. The problems are much broader than Sun’s own, across this and other industries. Some personality types are known for arrogance, lack of personal responsibility and accountability, scapegoating, and a general obliviousness to objective reality. Some “NT” personalities (and specifically “NTJ”), of which Sun and others have/had an abundance, prefer the “reality” manufactured in their own heads to an objective look at the reality “outside.” [All of you “NT” and “NTJ” types – don’t take offense. All types have strengths and weaknesses, and each of us needs to look hard at our own strengths and weaknesses. This introspection and “soul searching” is just easier for some types than for others.] Then, of course, there are all of those ESTJ minions, creating and maintaining bureaucracies…. For a HUMOROUS look at descriptions of EXAGGERATED personality types, taken to an extreme, see this reference. Laughter is great medicine, but some of us find it hard to laugh at ourselves.)
So… if you are interested, you can read what Dan Baigent said about Sun’s failures (at least the bottom 3 of the “Top 10”). Enjoy.
To my former colleagues at Sun (that is, the ones who deserve it and especially to my fellow former Netscapers) – Good Luck!
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
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