Rich Green is headed home to Sun Microsystems, a place where prodigal sons
come and the company dances the executive shuffle.
Green, who left Sun in
April 2004 to help virtualization software start-up Cassatt get on its feet,
will take over as executive vice president of software, a Sun spokesperson
confirmed in an e-mail today.
He will take the reins from Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, who had been manning
the software chief spot since John Loiacono left in March
to run Adobe’s creative software group.
As a Java tools executive, Green was a key cog in helping Sun and Microsoft
settle
antitrust and patent lawsuits, a deal in which Microsoft paid Sun $1.95
billion.
The appointment of Green comes as Sun is open sourcing crown jewels, such as
Solaris and other technologies at a fast clip.
The news, coming during the company’s quarterly news event in
Washington, D.C., marks the latest in the executive comings, goings and
shuffling at Sun.
Just last week, long-time CEO Scott McNealy handed
his job to Schwartz and became chairman.
Before Loiacono jumped to Adobe, Peder Ulander, once the top marketing
executive for Sun’s desktop solutions group, rejoined Sun after a stint at
MontaVista Software.
In February, Michael Lehman rejoined Sun as CFO, replacing Steve McGowan,
who retired. Lehman had been CFO at Sun from 1998 to 2002.
Two years ago, Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsteim rejoined Sun when the
company acquired his startup, Kealia. The engineer went on to develop the
company’s Opteron-based Galaxy servers.
Greens’ departure won’t exactly leave the company hurting, according to
Cassatt executives.
Steve Wilson, vice president of product marketing at Cassatt, told
internetnews.com that Cassatt CTO Rob Gingell, who joined Green to
blaze a trail at Cassatt, will tack on Green’s role of executive vice
president of products.
Wilson said Cassatt, which partners with Sun, has no ill feelings about the
move.
“With all the changes at Sun and Rich’s long history there, he’s got the
opportunity to influence events at one of the biggest, most important
companies in the Valley, and we wish him nothing but the best there,” Wilson
said.
