Sunday, November 30, 2008

So,What Will Happen to Sun?

Well, only heaven knows indeed...
I have to say we have a bright future (the same was said about Brazil by General De Gaulle: Brazil will always be the country of the future...). I expect Sun will not incur in De Gaulle's damnation, and we'll reach sooner or later (better sooner), our bright future again.
I wanted to add a link to an article in The Register about us, and a couple of comments about it:

-I'm eager to show we are the best and am not seeking retirement (and I'm sure I can say the same about my real me, that it is not me pretending not to be while being me, nor being mini-me. Is that clear?).

-As the article said, once I was able to take the company from less than 5 dollars to more than 80: My time has come (again) to take the reigns of Sun.

P.S.: (Fake) Jonathan, the PBS title of the documentary fits you quite well. If you want to dedicate it all of your time and effort I'll understand it (and with the $11 M of your salary I'll save some useful jobs at Sun).


UPDATE:
After seeing the results of the poll, I'm insistently calling the Nestle people, but they don't really understand what is Sun's business (they still think I want to sell them just a few desktops and laptops, as if we had any!). I'll keep you informed about this. About Fujistsu, I don't quite understand them, they are all the time saying "McNealy Sun, wait a moment, yes McNealy Sun", they always end their phrases with 'Sun', but it is the only thing I understand (Ashok doesn't speak a word of Korean!).

UPDATE 2: Ashok told me Fujitsu is a Japanese company, not Korean, so I'll stop calling Kim Jon-Il and the department of Commerce to solve the commercial issues of doing business with North Korea. Ashok doesn't speak Japanese either, so Fujitsu is not so clear candidate now. After all I'm not seeking retirement so soon... (and a buyer is unlikely too...)

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

What happens in Hawaii stays in Hawaii

Well, I know this is not the real saying, but is quite meaningful.
A few weeks from now (that's why I've been so busy, I've been traveling all around the World!), I had to go to Hawaii for the SunRise 2008 event, where we give a reward to our sales team after they met their objectives. Many people was intrigued why Jonathan didn't show up to the SunRise event, and only was 'present' via video conference. Well, there were two major reasons: somebody had to stay at the Sun's Headquarters to announce the Q1 disastrous results, and I was first at the airport to grab the corporate jet (and you don't know how much does Jonathan hate to travel in regular airlines!!). No, now talking seriously, the reason why Jonathan didn't come to the SunRise event was because he didn't fulfill his objectives for the FY'08, so he didn't deserve to go. As I said before, the SunRise is for sales reps that have met or overachieved their objectives, and Jonathan was not the case this year. So,while he was at home announcing the bad results and thinking in firing about 6,000 people, I was in Hawaii with my gorgeous wife, delivering $400 Nokia phones to the 2,000 sales reps attending the event, and bearing the absurd rumour that I'm back to take the reigns of the company (well, I have cash enough to buy the whole company today, so maybe it is not so absurd; anyway, I won't be back while Sun is firing people, so I'll wait at least a few months until the dirty job is done).

I wonder how many people are we letting go to pay the Nokias... Well, it is a problem for Jonathan.

So, after the Hawaii event I went to Las Vegas (you know the saying, what happens in Vegas... this time I didn't bring my wife with me ;-) ), to the Customers Engineering Conference, and again Jonathan only showed up by video conf (yes, again I grabbed the corporate jet before, and besides, he was about to announce the firings, and was a little afraid to be assaulted by the engineers present at the event). Well, to be honest, I only stood at the Paris/Bally's swimming pool and went to the Tom Jones show, so I sent Ashok to mix with the engineers and write an accurate report of the state of the morale and so on. The problem is that Jonathan included Ashok in the list of the 6,000 'riffed' people, so now I have to write the posts in the blog by myself and so on (well, not really, because I'm hiring Ashok again, but this time as a contractor so he'll do the same job, earning a 20% less but costing Sun a 15% more because we have to hire him via a third company, but now is not included in the headcount, so Jonathan and the shareholders are happier).
Well, I'll probably talk about that later, Ashok now works less hours for me, so I can't write as often as I did in the past... now I'm sharing him with another two vicepresidents...