Sun's Trading Symbol Going From SUNW To JAVA

Mortimer.CA writes "Straight from Jonathan Schwartz's weblog, Sun is changing their ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA: 'JAVA is a technology whose value is near infinite to the internet, and a brand that's inseparably a part of Sun (and our profitability). [...] To be very clear, this isn't about changing the company name or focus — we are Sun, we are a systems company, and we will always be a derivative of the students that created us, Stanford University Network is here to stay. But we are no longer simply a workstation company, nor a company whose products can be limited by one category — and Java does a better job of capturing exactly that sentiment than any other four letter symbol.'"

Not sure if this is a good idea

Hmm... while many programmers are powered by java, all life on Earth is powered at least indirectly by the Sun.

Re:Not sure if this is a good idea

Yeah, what next? Microsoft changes their ticker to SUCK?

Re:Not sure if this is a good idea

They may not have a product _named_ SUCK, but they do have the ZUNE. That's got four letters and describes Microsoft almost as well as JAVA describes Sun.

Re:Not sure if this is a good idea

But if you turn it upsidedown, swap the letters round... [bdmonkeys.net]

Re:Not sure if this is a good idea

No, BSOD.

Linux

I humbly suggest 'RTFM' for any of the big Linux vendors. :)

Re:Not sure if this is a good idea

And then they could go from SUCK to BLOW.

Re:Not sure if this is a good idea

Interestingly, the New York Stock Exchange has reserved the stock symbol M for Microsoft, if they ever jump ship from Nasdaq.

http://invest-faq.com/articles/triv-one-letter-tic k.html [invest-faq.com]

Uhm.

"we are [not] a company whose products can be limited by one category"

So instead of naming themselves after one product category, they're naming themselves after another. Great! The name change makes some sense (who really wants the outdated "workstation" thing attached to their name?) but marketingspeak is just so silly sometimes.

Can't help but think they'll want to do this gain once Java is no longer their flagship product. If they're still around (and I hope they are!)

Re:Uhm.

Actually, I was under the impression that SUNW was a more respectable name. Workstation gives the suggestion of serious computer power.

Re:Uhm.

Actually it stands for Standford University NetWorks... :)

Re:Uhm.

For customers, maybe, but not for investors - and they're the ones that will see the ticker symbol. The workstation market is near-nonexistent. "Workstations" harken to the days of $10,000 desktop computers like the NeXT Cube and the like. Former workstation companies like SGI have collapsed financially and are scrambling to try and find other ways to make money.

It's only the stock ticker

While I agree that this sounds silly, do remember that it's just the stock symbol. There are many companies with silly stock symbols (GLW, T, F). I guess they feel that more people will buy their stocks if the name sounds familiar.

Basically, nothing to see here.

Packages

As all of the Solaris packages start with the companies ticker, will all future Sun packages now be called JAVAxxxxx? That's going to annoy the hell out of us sys admins =/ Haydn.

Microsoft is changing their's too...

Look out for BSOD on a stock ticker near you. Unless you are running a real operating system, that is.

The full quote regarding Sun's symbol change

The quote was truncated. Here it is in its totality:

"But we are no longer simply a workstation company, nor a company whose products can be limited by one category -- and Java does a better job of capturing exactly that sentiment than any other four letter symbol.

Our first choice was the even more accurate DEAD, but that symbol was already taken by Emerson Burial Caskets."

Perhaps they're trying to increase share price...

...because in my experience, Java increases the size of things by at least 25%.

Unfathomable.

I'm a developer who uses Java almost exclusively these days. I enjoy working with the language, and I think it's the cat's PJs when putting together big enterprise sites. And I think this move is... stupid. BUT I'm a developer, so I know nothing of the mystical ways of marketing. It might all be BS or there might be something in it; I don't really care all that much.

However, I do take substantial issue with one thing that Schwartz said, which I think is pretty badly thought out:

As for working professionals, I had dinner with a financial analyst a few months ago who said he saw the Java launch experience "a few times a day" when accessing intranet applications - as did tens of thousands of his fellow employees.

He's basically saying: "We shove a splash screen in users faces every day". This is a Bad Thing! He's making users associate Java with applications that have poor performance - by definition if they're seeing this they're not getting to the application they want to work on as quickly as they should. The poor performance (web server performance) is out of their hands, but it's in their control to prevent the association with their brand!

I have high regards for Sun employees in general. Their management, however, I have my doubts about.

Should APPL become IPOD? Silliness.

GE does a lot of things besides manufacture light bulbs and generators. In fact they do a lot of things besides manufacturing light bulbs, generators, medical equipment, jet engines, finance, plastics, and railroad locomotives. Yet they feel no need to change their trading symbol.

Does anyone think that it would help Apple to change its trading symbol from APPL to IPOD?

Does AT&T worry that people will think telegraphs are old-fashioned?

GE, Apple, and AT&T are just names. For better or worse, people know what these companies are, not because of the names, but because of the companies. And the trading symbol is one step further removed.

SUN is an acronym for Stanford University Network. It should be a proud part of the company's heritage.

Wanting to fiddle with the trading symbol is a sure sign of a company that has no idea of what its identity is or what it is or should be doing. It also indicates an unhealthy focus on the stock, rather than company's business itself.

Wait a sec....

So they don't want to just be associated with workstations, so they change their symbol to the name of one particular software product they produce. I boggle at this.

Why not change the symbol to something like SunS (Sun Systems, oops taken), or SunT (...technologies) , or Sunn (...networking, but also taken...)

You get the idea. Keep the identity they have as Sun, because that does carry recognition. Far more than I think they think Java does. It would be like MS changing their ticker to WNDZ or the federal government getting the ticker symbol DCMA...

Can SCO change theirs?

If so, I have some suggestions:

TOAST
KAPUT
DEAD
MLTDN
NOCSE
PWNED <---- I hated to put that last one in there, but after the way the judge ruled against them and given their current situation, I think it applies nicely.

Well JAVA did make a pile of money ...

... only trouble is it made it for IBM not sun!

IBM seem to be the only company capable of actually selling java based product.
But then again they persuaded people to part with ready cash for Lotus Notes
so it doesnt really say much about Java.

I think SUN is desperate not to be seen a a hardware manufacturer becuase
of its associantion with commodity products and declining profitability.

However the only way to become a succesful software business is to SELL
software to customers, which, SUN does not do at all well.
 

New Slogan?

Java: Brand Once, Market Everywhere.

Re:The horse is dead, quit beating it.

Java was doomed, from the first time anyone ever had to ask the question "which Java?"

The most popular programming language [tiobe.com] on the planet is doomed?

It failed on the "write-once, run anywhere" promise

You mean, the Java programs I write that run on Linux, BSD, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Windows, and AS/400 aren't actually working? You should have told me sooner! Maybe you can tell me how, exactly, they're not working, because they seem to be working fine!

it failed on the security promise

Because we hear about buffer overflow exploits in Java programs leaving your machine vulnerable all the time? Oh, wait. We almost never hear about those.

and it failed on the "finally, you'll be free of win32" promise

That's funny, it freed me from the Win32 API, and dozens upon dozens upon dozens of other developers I know.

The ways that Sun screwed this pooch will be the subject of thousands of business-school term papers for years to come.

Yeah, right. We'll look back and see how badly Java failed, because it only retained the #1 crown for a few decades (or more).

You need a reality check.