CRN: Sun also recently acquired Kealia, a company founded by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the original Sun co-founders. Bechtolsheim was also founder of Granite Systems, a company that pioneered Fast Ethernet technology that was acquired by Cisco. Why is Bechtolsheim return to Sun significant?
McNealy: Kealia was building media server products and some interesting storage and server products. Andy is the greatest single-board computer designer I have ever seen. There was never anything like him before Sun got started. And there was never anything like him since. It's nice to have him back in the computer industry and out of the switching industry.
CRN: Sun has been preaching the value of Linux and Java on the desktop for a while now. Do you think people are responding to your message here?
McNealy: Sometimes I wonder if I'm wacko. We're not making as much progress as I think we could. Why are we still having viruses attack our systems? There has not been one Java virus and we have the perfect authentication service. Our thinking is that that the only thing you need on your desktop is an authentication system.
CRN: In your opinion, what will define competition in the future?
McNealy: The consolidation in the industry is over. HP is practically completely done. IBM, Sun, Intel and Microsoft are the players. Name me one thing that HP has invented in the computer business for the enterprise. HP is a channel, an integrator and a printer company. IBM, Sun, Intel and Microsoft are the major competitors in terms of real research and development.
Article appears courtesy of CRN.
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