Click Here to Go Directly to the Story
Register/Subscribe
Home



Current BW Magazine Table of Contents

May 14, 2001 BW Magazine Table of Contents

May 14, 2001 e.Biz Supplement Table of Contents

E.BIZ ONLINE
e.biz Home Page
Recent e.biz Features
Perspective
Company Closeup
Movers & Shakers
Street Wise
Clicks & Misses
Web Site Makeovers
From Le Monde Interactif
e.biz Q&As

SCIENCE
Recent Science Features


TECHNOLOGY
Recent Tech Features
Covers/Special Reports
Microsoft Watch




MAY 14, 2001

The e.biz 25

Scott McNealy

 
  STORY TOOLS
Printer-Friendly Version
E-Mail This Story

BW Magazine

Cover Photograph by David Strick; Digital Imaging by Richard Michiel/BW; Illustration by Chris Buzetti

Related Items BUSINESSWEEK E.BIZ -- COVER STORY

 25 Leaders for a Dangerous Time

Monica Luechtefeld

Stuart Wolff

Meg Whitman

Thomas Middelhoff

Steve Case

Rick Belluzzo

Bill Coleman

Tony Ball

Scott McNealy

Pekka Ala-Pietila

Michael Powell

Lawrence Lessig

Hal Varian

Courtney Love

Ray Ozzie

Paul Bourke

Takeshi Natsuno

Michael Dell

Pradeep Sindhu

Gary Reiner

Jeffrey Skilling

Steve Sanger

Jeff Bezos

Marty Wygod

Masayoshi Son

Online Extra: The Up and Comers

Online Extra: Alloy Online: Finding Strength in Teen Trends

Online Extra: Mobile Commerce Is Coming--Modestly, Eventually

Online Extra: Why Online Grocers Won't All Go Hungry

Online Extra: Speedier, Smarter, More Selective Searches

Online Extra: Commentary: The Top Ten Myths About E-Commerce

Online Extra: The New Buzz in B2B: Power to the Sellers

Scott G. McNealy, Sun Microsystems Inc.

POSITION: Chairman and CEO

CONTRIBUTION: McNealy declared more than a decade ago that ``the network is the computer.'' The Internet proved him right. Sun's servers and Java programming language are the foundation for many top Web sites.

CHALLENGE: No company was ramping up faster than Sun when the slowdown hit. McNealy will have to adjust without sacrificing long-term goals.
Back in 1984, when Scott G. McNealy, then the acting president of Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW ), hired Crawford Beveridge to be the startup's human resources chief, he told him to hire a "real" president. "Thankfully," says Beveridge, "I never got to that task."

It's a good thing for Sun and for the Internet. No other tech executive has done more than McNealy to spot e-business opportunities and turn them into reality. When the Net went bonkers in 1995, McNealy was all over it. Sun developed the Java programming language to make it possible to write software that could run on all computers, and its muscular servers provide the horsepower for most major Web sites.

Now, McNealy is focused on selling more than just servers. Sun is assembling soup-to-nuts offerings that include storage, software, and related technology to help service providers expand their offerings--whether it's shuttling wireless e-mail to consumers or providing powerful back-office applications to corporations via the Web. "We're trying to find as many useful ways as possible to connect everyone, everywhere to the Net," says McNealy.

Making progress toward these grand ambitions won't be easy in this economic slowdown. Sales in the most recent quarter grew just 2%, and Sun will be tested to avoid the layoffs that have plagued others. What's more, Sun's software and storage efforts have so far been uninspired. eBay, which agreed to try new storage devices last year, recently dumped Sun for Hitachi Data Systems.

Everything isn't roses right now. But McNealy and Sun survived worse scares before, and always came out stronger.



Back to Top
 
 
 [an error occurred while processing this directive]


Copyright 2001, Bloomberg L.P.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Media Kit | Special Sections | MarketPlace | Knowledge Centers
Bloomberg L.P.