Sun (Microsystems) posts $217M loss, McNealy resigns as CEO

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Sun posts $217M loss, McNealy resigns as CEO
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal - 2:24 PM PDT Monday

http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2006/04/24/daily15.html?jst=b_ln_hl

Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Scott McNealy said on Monday he will give up that title, after the world's fourth-largest maker of server computers reported a third-quarter loss of $217 million, or 6 cents a share. The Santa Clara-based company (NASDAQ:SUNW) posted a loss of $28 million, or 1 cent per share, in the same period a year ago. Net revenue rose 21 percent to $3.18 billion over the year before.

Sun's loss matched the average projection of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, but fell short of the $3.21 billion in sales that they projected.

Sun President Jonathan Schwartz has been promoted to chief executive, but McNealy will continue serving as chairman of the board and a full time employee.

McNealy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982. He was named Sun's chief executive officer and elected chairman of the board of directors in 1984.

[DS1]

1. The shareholders have been waiting for this for YEARS!

It's up 40 cents ( 8.43% ) in aftermarket trades.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. It's about time.

McNealy passed his "use-by" date ages ago. Makes a lot of noises that are very buzzword-compliant, but really is devoid o' clue.

I am not entirely optomistic that Sun can survive. What do they really have that sets them apart from, oh say, IBM, who eats their lunch every day of the week and twice on Sundays?

[DS1]

3. Well

In the long term, their ultra-low power CPUs should be getting more and more attractive to data centers and ISPs as the price of energy skyrockets. Still, that loss is enormous for a quarter, it was supposed to have been much less than that, or even (gasp) a profit.

[shireen]

5. long term? They're running out of time!

here, at work (major NASA contractor for a science mission), for scientific computing, we're phasing out suns in favor of Macs and PCs. It's about cost. I can do serious number-crunching on my gorgeous G5 dual, cheaper and as good/better than top end Suns. If they want to survive on their energy advantage, power prices will have to skyrocket real fast.

[DS1]

12. It's a different market they're after with the Niagra servers

Number crunching they're leaving to the AMD systems, and Ultra-Sparcs, running 64-bit solaris and they've got some damn good results with them.

The Niagra chip is all about handling shitloads of simple requests at once, and doing it under 80 watts.

They might be running out of time, that's true, there's also rumour of a buyout in progress.

[Retrograde]

7. I was there in the good old days

Way back when, when it was a Silicon Valley upstart making so much money that the large amounts it left on the table didn't seem to matter. Cashed out at just about the stock high point.


I put the start of the decline c. 1996 or 7, when Sun essentially gave up the desktop market.

[Divernan]

4. Rescinding management's & board members' stock options would fix the loss

Just guessing here, but I'll bet the stock options and bonuses for the year would more than cover the losses.

[AndyTiedye]

11. Stock Options Aren't Worth Diddly When The Stock's Tankin'

[gulliver]

6. Thank Scott for Java.

He saved us all from Microsoft. At least for a while.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. But he wouldn't let go of it

It probably would be better if he (or Sun, anyway) had done so.

[Lithos]

10. Agreed

Sun has hindered Java on many fronts, most of the pushes into XML and the like came from outside and only later incorporated into Java.

L-

[ramapo]

9. Another one bites the dust

Digital Equipment
Compaq
Tandem
DG

Sun soon

[sweetheart]

16. Synapse

Kaypro
Symbolics
Burroughs
Sperry
Atari
SGI
Cray computer
Thinking Machines
Mattel Intellivision 3

Informix
Ingres
Wordperfect
MultiMate
Lotus123

[physioex]

18. My person fav....

Wang Computers..... :rofl:

Oh Yea DEC which was bought by that turd Compaq now owned by the screwed up by that turd Carly, HP...

[Miss Chybil]

13. Did he get a $217 million parachute? nt

[bemildred]

14. Ten years too late. nt

[Shine]

15. My husband worked there for 10 yrs in middle mngmt, then he got laid off

can't say I'm much surprised by this news....:eyes:

[Auntie Bush]

17. I wonder how many millions he'll make when he

retires?

[Renew Deal]

19. It's about time in a sense

Sun has been trying a lot of new things, but they seem to not have any specialty. They used to believe that SW had to come with HW. They changed that. Then they released Solaris for x86. Java is a kludgy programming language. Sun does a lot of things and I don't think they're that good at anything.

[Blue_Tires]

20. as opposed to the auto industry

where you can post a $1 billion loss for the quarter, keep your job, and blame everything on the UAW!

[Roland99]

21. How big will his exit pkg be?