The Comedy of Scott McNealy 125
Rob writes "News that Sun co-founder and long-serving CEO, Scott McNealy is stepping aside, heaps a
load of pressure on incoming CEO Jonathan Schwartz - he will have to get working on his
anti-Microsoft gags quick-sharp. Aside from Sun's strategy and his execution of it,
McNealy's tenure as CEO will be remembered for his constant Microsoft sniping. CBR
remembers some of his favourite quotes."
The Quotes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Quotes (Score:1)
At least he was right about something!
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
Re:The Quotes (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
Well, I humbly submit that you were not exercising Windows 2000, because I have crashed it in so many ways it doesn't even bear repeating, except perhaps for the sake of humor like in cryptonomicon (yes I am a nerd kthx) where they're talking about poking what's her name, as in I have crashed it in the highlands and the lowlands, at home and abroad, et cetera.
I've run both 2k and XP on all kinds of sketchy and non-sketchy hardware both, and crashed 2k more per time unit than xp, by far, even when using
In which I fail as a geek (Score:1)
I had been relatively anti-XP (it was initially rumoured to scan you for WaReZ, and so forth, which didn't make me too happy) but it really did benchmark a 33% increase over XP in most of my games.
Heck, even the original UT. I never really investigated why this was; I just moved on.
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
Windows 2000 was Windows 2000 wether it was a server flavor or Professional.
XP is a cluster F*K of marketing crap. Home, Pro, MCE, N series, started edition, and they're acknowledging the Pirated edition with the recent nagware.
Yes, there is software that won't run on MCE that will on Home and Pro.
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
Re:The Quotes (Score:1)
"Oh, and Microsoft is evil like Darth Vader" - Huh? Was Darth Vader even evil? More misguided, I'd say. Even if he was evil, a straight simile isn't really all that clever or amusing.
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
I seem to recall him blowing up an entire planet just because he could. I'd have to say that falls into the "evil" category.
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
You can turn in your lightsaber at the door, please.
Re:The Quotes (Score:1)
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
Close enough, then.
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
and now it will ship with half of it's firewall turned off
i have to agree, windows makes me nervous, that's why i keep away from it (and don't waste half of the working day fighting viruses like my colleagues do).
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
they use antivirus scanners, they use the firewall and they use malware removers, but you can't cure the cancer (chuck norris still isn't producing tears).
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
Re:The Quotes (Score:1)
being clueless can be bad, but to be narrow minded
Re:The Quotes (Score:1)
Re:The Quotes (Score:5, Funny)
I was a sales support engineer for a pretty big distributor. When they decided to get into Unix, we got a relationship with Sun to sell the Sun Connect line (mostly into the Fed.)
Scott's best comment came out when MS got ready to ship Win 3.11 -
"Putting Windows on top of DOS is like putting whipped cream on a road apple."
For years my
davel
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This one is hilarious (Score:1)
Re:The Quotes (Score:1)
(insert rolling eyes emoticon here)
Re:The Quotes (Score:2)
So, now that he's gone... (Score:5, Interesting)
While I suspect that Sun will likely make everything run as usual for at least a little while, at least we knew that with Management's full attention on calling Microsoft bad names, it at least insured that they wouldn't get any bright ideas ab't increasing sagging revenue by screwing with Java and/or all versions of OO.
Re:So, now that he's gone... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So, now that he's gone... (Score:2)
Re:So, now that he's gone... (Score:2)
Re:So, now that he's gone... (Score:2)
Most of the standard library is in Java, too. (src.jar if I recall correctly)
I think the only thing that is significantly not Java is the VM and perhaps some native code for optimized library routines.
No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no money in Java and not much future in Sun's other technologies. I posted this elseswere yesterday but it bears repeating. My advice to Schwartz is the following. Don't try to beat either Linux or Microsoft at their games. You will lose. I suggest instead that you do something that will take the rest of the industry completely by surprise. Invest your remaining resources and passion into the next big thing, the one thing that will solve the nastiest problem in the computer industry today: unreliability. Put all your money in non-algorithmic, signal-based, synchronous software. It will revolutionize both the hardware and the software industry and usher in the most dramatic change in computing since the days of Charles Babbage and Lady Lovelace. Don't say you weren't warned. ahahaha...
Why Software Is Bad and What We Can Do to Fix It:
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:1)
But yes, if issues with the reliability of software are eliminated, I think it would be a good sign that software development as a field is becoming much more mature.
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:3)
Cheers.
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:3, Insightful)
It is every bit as easy to write buggy hardware as it is to write buggy software. We don't notice it as much because hardware companies do a better job of testing their products before shipping because (a) it is a lot harder to fix them after the fact and (b) it is far easier to return faulty hardware to the store than buggy software, so they are more
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:1)
Cheers.
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:2)
A small demo would not prove the main claim made on the site, IMO. The only way to prove something like this to a doubting Thomas would be to implement a full OS or a virtual machine with a visual dev environment. Send some money my way and I'll be glad to do it.
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:1)
When I've come up with novel coding ideas in the past the first thing I do is post a proof of concept. That burden is really on the aut
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Your points are valid and would carry a lot more weight if you didn't start out with a stupendously dumb statement like, "There is no money in Java".
speaking of stupendously dumb (Score:1)
Re:speaking of stupendously dumb (Score:2)
and that is a COMPLETELY different statement than the generalized, "there is no money in Java".
Problems with Analysis on Silver Bullet Page (Score:2, Insightful)
Hardware is typically more reliable than software for the following reasons:
1) Patching hardware is very difficult and expensive, so they get it right the first time. Patching software is cheap and easy, so they don't worry as much.
2) Harwdare does have errors, have you ever looked at the errata sheets for CPU's?
3) Hardware typically has a more limited set o
Re:Problems with Analysis on Silver Bullet Page (Score:2)
Believe me, I have seen your arguments many times before. You are mistaken. I will post a news item to the site soon to address the points that you make.
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:1)
Do you mean like Labview [ni.com]?
Re:No Future in Java and Sun's Technology (Score:2)
No. Labview does not go far enough (elementary instruction level) and does not have what I consider to be the two most essential innovations found in the COSA model: 1) Effector-sensor associations (eliminates blind code due to data and event dependencies) and 2) design consistency (eliminates logical contradictions).
/.'ed. Text of article is . . . (Score:3, Informative)
Schwartz replaces McNealy: A tough comedy act to follow?
April 25, 2006
News that Sun co-founder and long-serving CEO, Scott McNealy is stepping aside, heaps a load of pressure on incoming CEO Jonathan Schwartz - he will have to get working on his anti-Microsoft gags quick-sharp.
Aside from Sun's strategy and his execution of it, McNealy's tenure as CEO will be remembered for his constant Microsoft sniping. Anyone who saw him speak knows he always had a quiver of anti-Microsoft jokes up his sleeve. "I don't want my kids growing up in a world of control-alt-delete," was one of my favourites, or, "The bear is pretty strong in the computer business ... but we are outrunning the other hikers."
As we reported in our full coverage of McNealy's decision to hand over to Schwartz here, McNealy said that, "When you start a company, you always wonder who you are going to hand it off to. You can't run it forever."
"I wasn't going to hand it off when we were growing too fast," he continued, "I wasn't going to hand if off after the bubble burst. The time is right to do it now. All the demand indicators are strong. For 22 years, I have been running this joint, and I have had a lot of fun with it." He certainly has.
McNealy has been a constant source of amusement in what might otherwise have been a far less interesting sector. He, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, have taken it upon themselves to poke constant fun at Microsoft, and in so doing have helped in their own ways to ensure that consumers have retained that little bit of cynicism about the world's most powerful software company.
In his capacity as CEO McNealy was bright, witty, straight talking, and often with us hacks, more than a little belligerent. Perhaps that's unsurprising - McNealy once said in an interview with CBR that if he had not ended up running an IT company, he would have chosen instead to pass his time thwacking pucks and heads on an ice rink instead. I hear ice hockey is something of a contact sport. At times McNealy got pretty close to turning being a tech firm CEO into a contact sport, too.
I remember one press roundtable in London a couple of years ago, where a journalist from the Financial Times found himself on the wrong end of McNealy's ire. When the journalist asked a question about comments that Sun's channel had made to him about the soundness of Sun's business model, McNealy retorted sharply: "I'm not going to comment on made-up quotes."
Though the journalist insisted the quotes came straight from Sun's own resellers, McNealy snapped, "Like I say, I will not comment on made-up quotes." As us press began to leave the room McNealy again accosted the FT journalist, saying he was furious with his paper's editor for stories that had apparently said that McNealy's remuneration had been the cause of a board-room argument. "We haven't even discussed that - it's just been made up," McNealy said furiously.
Anyway like I say if you want the low-down on McNealy's departure and his replacement, Jonathan Schwartz, simply visit our coverage of the news here. I chose instead to assemble a few of the best Scott McNealy quotes from over the years. I warn you though - he could never have given up his day job to become a comedian. Ice hockey, perhaps.
A selection of the best Scott McNealy quotes:
"When Steve Ballmer calls me wacko, I consider that a compliment."
"The only thing that I'd rather own than Windows is English, because then I could charge you two hundred and forty-nine dollars for the right to speak it."
"Shut down some of the bullshit the government is spending money on and use it to buy all the Microsoft stock. Then put all their intellectual property in the public domain. Free Windows for everyone! Then we could just bronze Gates, turn him into a statue and stick him in front of the Commerce Department."
"Microsoft is now talking about the digital nervous system... I guess I would be nervous if my system
Re:/.'ed. Text of article is . . . (Score:2)
Dang, if he owned the rights to English, just imagine how much money he could get by suing the people who abuse it daily for damages!
(Sorry, this is probably about as funny as the quotes themselves.)
Re:/.'ed. Text of article is . . . (Score:2, Funny)
Honestly, I think I'm putting way too much thought into this, but... assuming you did own English, think about marketing it like software!
You could have upgrades for every new generation of people... "Get all the new slang you hear from the young'uns! Only $149.95 with proof of purchase of a previous English Language Pack(tm)! (Upgrading from Olde English does not qualify)"
Or you might have it based on a subscription model. "$49.99 per year entitles you to unlimited upgrades, so you can learn the new tech
Re:/.'ed. Text of article is . . . (Score:1)
Re:Real Comedy: Sun's Joke of a Processor (Score:5, Informative)
1ghz ultrasparc III is rather fast and didn't get beaten by amd or intel by a mile when it came out. it's pretty close, and for it's platform design along with the cpu, it's pretty ok.
secondly, if you run 128 threads at the same time, amd and intel will be d.e.a.d. while niagara still kicks around. amd's or intel's dual cores on this will still mean 64 context switches per core while for niagara it would be 4 context switches per core.
smart money votes for the cpu that does the job. if you have a machine that has to handle lots and lots of stuff at the same time, niagara will win while intel and amd are still switching contexts.
ps. you seem to be forgetting about the fact that the memory limitation on regular x86_64's that you can "just buy" is still enormously low compared to the regular sun workstations.
you can't throw your lowmemory applications at the systems and say that damn ultrasparc is slow and x86 is fast, if you run linux on x86_64 with highram enabled, it aint that fast either anymore.
Re:Real Comedy: Sun's Joke of a Processor (Score:2)
Sure you can, and for real-world desktop/workstation price/performance both AMD and Intel smoke Niagara.
The ONLY reason to buy them is if you have a datacenter with many web servers and space/heat problems and want to pay a little extra up front. But you got to admit, at even 2x the cost of AMD boxes it would take many years to make your money back. Its an investment that must be weighed carefull
May the Schwartz be with them ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:/.'ed. Text of article is . . . (Score:1)
What's Mirrordot? (Score:2)
Interview at The Register (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/25/mcnealy_e
Among other things, he talks about how he tried to avoid being CEO of Sun in the first place. His first attempt at a replacement (Ed Zander) failed too.
Re:Interview at The Register (Score:1)
wrong priorities (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:wrong priorities (Score:2)
Re:wrong priorities (Score:2)
I always thought Sun spent way too much time bitching about microsoft instead of actually doing anything about it. McNealy's jokes always came across as a "we don't like them, but we don't have the balls or ideas to compete with them."
So instead they've spend the last five years shedding money and employees, without coming up with any decent new ideas.
Speaking of bad priorities... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget that in the wake of September 11th, both him and Ellison were ponying up to offer their company's services in helping to create a national ID. He even calls lining up at airport security an "efficiency tax" that biometric IDs would somehow maaaaagically fix.
I say good riddance.
But he's right (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of bad priorities... (Score:1)
Not only did I find it distasteful but who are 'they' may I ask?
Re:wrong priorities (Score:1)
It worked against him, not for him. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do I get more rich and more happy just because I hate MSFT? No. I get more rich and more happy by making better choices that ingore (or include) MSFT as warrented.
Red Hat gets this. McNealy should have sent the message "Buy Sun to solve problems X and Y and Z. That will put more money in your pocket and make you happier." Unless the Schwartz gets this, Sun will continue it's relative decline.
Re:It worked against him, not for him. (Score:1)
Re:It worked against him, not for him. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It worked against him, not for him. (Score:2)
IBM get it too, to a certain extent.
HP and SGI instead got screwed in the opposite direction (possibly due to R. Belluzzo).
Bottom line, let your competition define you and you become predictable and easily manipulated.
"Unless the Schwartz gets this"
Judging from Schwartz' various diatribes (whose lack of contact with reality sometimes leaves one embarrased on Sun's behalf), that, unfortunately, seems unlikely.
Re:It worked against him, not for him. (Score:1)
I agree with what you're saying; whilst he was ranting about Microsoft, and making smart ass comments, customers were going, "oh, thats nice, Microsoft isn't your best friend - so where is the beef"?
Before the nose dive in pofitability and revenue, an analyst came out and warned that
The real meaning of the penguin suit (Score:3, Interesting)
It was pretty clear then that he really hadn't come to terms with Linux yet, almost as awkard as his famous "Mo-Mo-(slap)-Motif" moment years earlier.
Re:The real meaning of the penguin suit (Score:1)
Re:The real meaning of the penguin suit (Score:1)
If SUN really wish for people to adopt the SUN Ray in droves, they would have to drop it to *atleast* $100-$150 (the screen AIO models), and drop even further to encourage large enterprise customers to adopt it.
Either that or with the $100 per employee per year packages, they give a free SUN Ray appliance for each employee
Open sourcing of Java (somewhat OT) (Score:3, Insightful)
New definition of 'open source', accidental leak, or does the person not have a clue what they are talking about?
Re:Open sourcing of Java (somewhat OT) (Score:2)
None of the above. It was a simple typo, the PR folks missed out the "EE" from "Java EE", it was referring to Glassfish [java.net], and becuase of the confidential nature of the release it did not get the usual proof-reading by geeks. I'e asked for it to be fixed.
My favourite quote: (Score:2)
Slashdotted... (Score:2, Informative)
http://mirrordot.org/stories/f7bd9bd6bc4fe74eada0
Re:Slashdotted... (Score:1)
Scott McNealy is a White Dwarf (Score:4, Funny)
--Why did you say that?
Because he was totally burnt out at SUN.
--You cannot B-Sirius!
Wait a minute! (Score:1)
My personal favorite... (Score:2)
At least he asked.
Given that Schwartz was head of a tiny startup.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to question some of Sun's spending (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I have to question some of Sun's spending (Score:2)
Maybe cost 5 grand to do and got coverage in most of the tech press. You'd struggle to get that kind of exposure with a press release.
Re:I have to question some of ... (the Sun banner) (Score:2)
I feel like I did when Apple switched to Intel. (Score:2)
Weird.
Good Business? (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't see Burger King announce a new burger and tell you that it is ok and the best feature it didn't come from McDonalds...
Maybe if he would have had the same obsession for this company that he did Microsoft, Sun might be stronger on the desktop and not losing server marketshare.
the devil hisself? (Score:1)
Re:the devil hisself? (Score:2)
True, but none have long term or stable success. People eventually figure things out, even if it takes a while.
His funniest quote (Score:5, Funny)
McNealy's funniest quote is probably the following one from a 1996 Red Herring article. His letter to the editor is even funnier.
NORTHWEST PASSAGE: Microsoft's plans to navigate the Java waters. August 1, 1996
"Microsoft is on the offensive again because its hegemony is threatened by Java's potential to obsolete Windows and Microsoft Office. This is not only financially threatening, but seen as a personal insult. Sun CEO Scott McNealy ceaselessly goads developers to adopt Java and overthrow what he bluntly calls Redmond's mediocre standards of quality--'Windows 95 is just dogshit with whipped cream on top.'"
LETTER TO THE EDITOR. December 1, 1996
McNealy euphemizes
I enjoyed Jonathan Burke's article "Northwest Passage." Mr. Burke did a fine job of laying out the reasons that software developers are pushing for a multiplatform Internet and how this poses a threat to Microsoft.
However, I was shocked, puzzled, and offended when I came to a passage in the story that seriously misquoted me referring to Windows 95 as "[expletive] with whipped cream on top." As chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, a $7 billion publicly held company, I am very aware that my shareholders and the public take a dim view of crude, unprofessional language from executives. I make it a rule never to curse in public. I don't do it. I would never do it. I didn't do it with Mr. Burke or anyone else. In fact, in a carefully worded and deliberately inoffensive manner, I called Win 95 "whipped cream on a road apple."
Scott G. McNealy
President and CEO
Sun Microsystems
The Herring Responds
Ah, "a road apple"--that's much more genteel.
Sun must kill all stagnant projects (Score:1)
In my view, Sun is a very dysfunctional company. They make good servers, yes, but so does the competition (primarily IBM and HP). What is the product strategy, th
Re:Sun must kill all stagnant projects (Score:2)
Re:Sun must kill all stagnant projects (Score:1)
The value of slashdot comments (Score:2)
AND YES I AM BITTER.
One of my all time favorites (Score:2, Funny)
"It's a slow motion collision between two garbage trucks."
And regarding HP's decision to pull out of some market or other (can't quite remember which one, sadly):
"All that's left is us, Big Blue, and the Convicts".
strategy (Score:2)
That's because it worked so well for McNealy, right?
Will Gates' Addiction Knock Him Off Too? (Score:2)
The only thing I wish is that they'd outsource rather than pulling in all those developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS [ntk.net] since once Microsoft implodes under their weight they'll still run around doing to other companies what they've done to HP, Sun and now MS.
In any case McNealy's comedic impact is no
Sun and DEC Parallel Evolution (Score:1)
1. Both started out with major presence in educational and R&D segments. The early adopters of their systems were in these segments. Both benefited from a large pool of "shared" software that were developed on their systems within these segments.
2. DEC stuck closely with VMS (earlier RSX-11) even though the "geek" had Unix on VAXes and PDP-11s.
Sun did the same with Solaris.
3. Both decided to move to more lucrative banking,