Schwartz Shines His Blog Light

6:00 PM -- Are business blogs about to gain greater prominence and legitimacy? They will if Sun Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz has anything to say about it.

We noted about a year ago the rising prominence of storage execs blogging their hearts out. (See Have Title, Will Blog.) But the Sun CEO said this week he wants to expand the content options in his regular blog, and in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (linked in his blog), he says he wants to be able to use his online podium to break news about the company, announce financial results, or issue other "material news."

He goes on to characterize press releases and conference calls for such events "anachronistic."

It's an interesting idea, and certainly an appropriate use of a business blog. My two cents -- It should supplement, not replace, these other formats. Full disclosure: I'm not carrying water here for PR Newswire, which is run by the same company that owns CMP Technology and the Light Reading titles, including Byte and Switch.

But before Schwartz launches headlong into the headline business, he ought to know it's not as easy as it looks sometimes. There are the inevitable slow news days. There's those painful writeups of backup and archiving deployments at Podunk Community College, calls for greater interoperability, or some poor soul claiming to have made the business case for virtualization.As we know from experience around here, sometimes when you're trying to break news you just end up breaking, well, wind. To keep Schwartz and Sun from that unhappy fate, we offer up these pitches to keep "Jonathan's Blog" a fresh read:

That should at least get him through the first week, in the unlikely event the SEC approves his request. And on further reflection, the thought of business blogs breaking actual news could be the best thing to happen to storage and the news industry since the slo-mo replay.

Terry Sweeney, Editor in Chief, Byte and Switch