It’s a play that hardly seemed realistic in April 2004, when Green bolted We’re moving from “We build servers and We’re restructuring a lot of the operations, sales force It’s not as if we were doing imprudent things, but I think you’re going to see evidence of that in the coming The stuff that’s in that, the things it can do from The optimizations we’ve done for the x64 platform and the performance In terms of speeds and feeds, it’s the best out there. In terms of features, functions and value, it’s the best out there. The relevant question is: How do we go forward with the We’re engaging the community to Before we see a next Although that’s Most developers like the fact Moreover, the NetBeans program is growing incredibly fast. We’re going to redouble our efforts in Breaking down any barrier out there to ensure that So we announced at JavaOne that we do plan to do it, and that program is under way. The only The As we change our software strategy to be one of an open source model,
He’s been back with Sun Microsystems for only about
three months, so it’s way too early to say whether Rich Green’s
return is a shining example of the prodigal son coming home.
But Sun’s new executive vice president of software, installed in May after Jonathan Schwartz vacated
the position to become Sun’s CEO, returned in time to announce that Sun
would open source Java.
This is a big move for the company that, in the past, claimed it wasn’t what
the public wanted and acted as if the public would have to pry its cold,
dead fingers from around the Java crown jewel before opening it up.
Sun to became executive vice president of products at server virtualization
startup Cassatt.
This was a blow for Sun at the time. But it may have been a blessing in
disguise.
Green learned to manage a business under the tutelage of Cassatt CEO Bill
Coleman, a BEA systems co-founder and a fellow former Sun employee.
It could be that working at Cassatt provided Green with
the chops to help Sun slip gracefully into its new open source software
shoes. But only time will tell.
Green recently chatted about the changes at Sun with
internetnews.com.
Q: How has the climate changed at Sun from 2004, when you worked there last,
to now?
A great deal. I think what Jonathan and the new team have put together, in
terms of a much more balanced view of the business between servers, storage
software and service, is a change.
yes we do some other things” to “We have four businesses that are of
equivalent priority even if their contributions aren’t all the same at any
given point.”
priorities, and channel activities to underscore that.
We’re also really getting a lot more focused. Focus is something that we
really needed at Sun.
some things are more important than others, and that’s where we’re going to
place our bets.
months with new products, new business models, etc. all happening very
quickly.
Q: What are you looking at with regard to Solaris 11? Is it
going to be a rehash of Solaris 10 under OpenSolaris, or something more substantial?
That’s like saying the next version of Linux is going to be as boring as the
last one. I think most people have acknowledged that Solaris 10 is an
enormous step up in terms of technological value, and to some degree, of
technological wonder.
DTrace [diagnostics], to Zones [virtualization], is just quite remarkable.
numbers we’re delivering on AMD chips, as well as the Sun Niagara CMP
[multi-threading] chips, are just amazing.
A year ago we launched the OpenSolaris program and we’ve gotten 5 million
registered licenses.
Solaris program given the energy that is being applied in the community, as
well as the work that’s being done at Sun?
figure what the timing should be for those things.
formal release of Solaris, there are going to be some more big changes in the
platform with regard to other virtualization techniques; changes to be
compatible with almost Linux application out there; and more capabilities on
the Zone cluster performance. We’re working all that out.
Q: There’s been a lot of FUD created around the NetBeans Java platform
because of the success of its biggest rival, Eclipse. Is NetBeans getting a
little long in the tooth compared to Eclipse?
I believe the only people who want to have NetBeans go away are the Eclipse
people. Not the Eclipse users, but the Eclipse people.
charming, that’s a very small percentage of the total community of users.
And, oh well, maybe just a bit biased, too.
that there is choice, and that having NetBeans and Eclipse is a good thing,
not a bad thing.
It’s anything but long in the tooth.
the community to ensure that developers have choice, including the ability
to focus on a toolset that guarantees that generation 100 percent-compatible Java code.
Q: When you left Sun to join Cassatt, you had to deal with questions about
Sun open sourcing Java. You come back and those questions persist. What is
motivating Sun’s open sourcing of the programming language?
Developers rule, right?
developers have access to the best and latest version of Java technology is
the thing that will drive us.
There is a lot of work that has to go on with the community and folks who
have contributed to Java to make sure they are all in alignment and to make
sure that all of the intellectual property has been screened and checked so
that a full open source license can be rendered.
All of the code is now available in open source form. You can go to the Sun
Web site and download all of Mustang, the next release of Java.
thing that is getting finalized is a change to license. It isn’t as if we
have played keep-away with the source code or the intellectual property.
Everybody can get it.
Q: Sun has gotten beaten up by press and analysts for having a hard time
marketing and putting a positive spin on its software. Do you come back to
Sun thinking that you have to change some perceptions?
A lot has changed. The identity software and SeeBeyond integration software
are both in the top-ranked quadrants of the Gartner charts. We have some of
the leading-edge enterprise software out there, as viewed by analysts.
perception of us having good stuff that doesn’t seem to be well received is
well behind us.
The model that we’re going to is going to focus a lot more on the activities
around developers and deployers participating with Sun over the network in
relationships as a result of access to our product versus explicit
standalone marketing.
the numbers continue to grow.
Rich Green, Executive VP of Software, Sun Microsystems
