McNealy consultory

Day after day I receive hundreds, thousands of e-mails (remember my address: fakescottgmcnealy@gmail.com), telling me how marvelous I am, how well would Sun go if I was the CEO again, and in some occasions I also receive questions and worries. Today I selected one of those e-mails and I'll try to answer to the questions it poses. So, thanks dear 'forangel' for your kind e-mail (although you forgot to add you SunID). The mail said the following:

"Scott,

Help!! All the investments in R&D are finally coming to fruition and the only people

that know are our loyal customers and geeks. We need air coverage fast.

I was at a meeting last month and asked Anil Gadre about advertising while our

products are still ahead of the competition and he said that the better return is through

Google ad words, blogs and article links....even Chevron is running ads. It would have

been great to have just one ad run during the biggest election in a lifetime...another missed

opportunity.

As Chairman, can you please force these guys to work on brand awareness in a

big way? We are the best kept secret in the industry.

Respectfully,

A Loyal Employee"

Dear Forangel,

I really wanted to answer your letter before, but after reading it I've been crying a whole week. You are so right... but although I'm the Chairman, Jonathan doesn't count on my opinions. I tried to influence about the advertising campaign during the election (Go Hillary!), but when I managed to talk to Ponytail, he had already made the order to purchase the phones for the SunRise, so the marketing budget was used at once in the second quarter of the fiscal year...

I understand your frustration. Last week I was playing golf with the GM CEO, and I told him if he was happy with our new line of products. He didn't even know we are a software maker, AND HE IS ONE OF OUR CUSTOMERS! So imagine what happens when I go to a non-Sun customer and start talking about the new storage, the software and the open-source: they start looking at me like if was from Mars and mumble 'Do you have software, really?'
I know you are not asking too much, like those 'Run on SAP' or ORACLE campaigns you can see in every media along the country and other countries too... but just a few well done, well focused advertisements to create some more awareness than the one we can create with Gaagle ADs and just the voice of the geek community.
I long for the day when you tell your mother, your wife or any of your significant other that you work for Sun, and they understand it without further questioning (like Ballmer does with his mother).

Keep pushing my friend, I'll do the same in the next board meeting and every time I see Jonathan in the lobby! (And next time don't forget to add your SunID...)