Scott G. McNealy: Java's Percolator
Even before he emerged as the linchpin of America Online Inc.'s blockbuster deal in November to buy Netscape Communications Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. CEO SCOTT G. McNEALY had already led the maker of big commercial computers to a boffo 1998. Shrugging off the Asian crisis, he outpaced much larger rivals such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM, and established Sun as a key player in the emerging Internet economy.
McNealy, once dismissed as a brash, trash-talking kid who got lucky, now has some big new friends on his side. The AOL-Netscape deal commits AOL to buying huge amounts of Sun computers--worth a whopping $500 million--and allows Sun to resell Netscape's electronic-commerce software. If McNealy, 44, can capitalize on Netscape's blue-chip customer list, Sun may well become the primary hardware and software provider for Internet commerce.
A charismatic speaker, McNealy has always been superb at firing up the troops. And that's just what the outspoken executive spent 1998 doing. He rallied the entire company toward pushing Sun's Java software as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. More than that, he aims to make Java the lingua franca of the entire Internet age--the chief way to write and run a new and simpler generation of programs.
He is getting big results: Use of Java is surging. But that's just the beginning. McNealy is offering Java for a myriad of consumer devices--from cellular phones to smart cards. These days, no one's dismissing McNealy anymore.
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