Tom Kuni, president of SSI hubcity, a Sun partner in Metuchen, N.J., concurs: “McNealy is being put out of the way because he does not want blood on his hands from personnel cuts.”
Kuni hopes money saved will flow to marketing, where he says Sun has traditionally been weak. “A lot of people wonder why Sun spends so much on R&D and yet gives the stuff away. Maybe it’s good as a long-term strategy, but they can’t do it forever,” he said. “I’ll bet Scott regrets not making some of those cuts earlier. [Hewlett-Packard] has shown that taking the appropriate measures can bring a company back to profitability,” Kuni said.
McNealy’s status change had been rumored so long that Amy Rao, CEO of Integrated Archive Solutions, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based partner, said this news is no surprise. “Hopefully, customers will think it’s good for Sun,” she said.
In the near term, Schwartz said the Santa Clara, Calif.-based vendor will review all growth opportunities. Along with Greg Papadopoulos, now executive vice president of R&D, Schwartz will oversee Sun’s nearly $2 billion R&D budget.
Anil Gadre, Sun’s chief marketing officer, and Don Grantham, Sun’s executive vice president of global sales and service, will examine the company’s marketing, sales, services, systems engineering and operations both at headquarters and in the field to make sure they target the biggest opportunities, Schwartz said.
STEVEN BURKE & STACY COWLEY contributed to this story.
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