Feature Story

By Scott McNealy, Chief Executive Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

25.Feb.02--We've come a long way since the days when Sun was just four 27-year-olds with an idea.

Twenty years down the road, much to our own surprise, we have nearly 40,000 employees in offices around the world. In fact, from humble beginnings as builders of engineering workstations, we've become a leading supplier of network servers, data storage systems, system software, network infrastructure applications, and much more.

But with all the changes--all the ways we have reinvented our products and our company over the years--one thing remains the same:

The idea that started it all.

Open network computing is still our passion, still the driving force behind each of our technologies, products, and services.

That passion is what drove us to develop powerful Internet standards such as NFS and XML. It's what drove us to create innovations such as our widely adopted Java technology. And it's why we continue to promote openly published programming interfaces--the heart of our philosophy and the key to creating systems that work together seamlessly no matter who made them.

Sun's vision has been unwavering. "The Network Is The Computer" isn't a slogan; it's a design principle.

When we introduced our first family of computers in 1982, the concept of fully networked, high-performance workstations and servers was not well understood or widely appreciated. Today, we're connecting all kinds of devices--smart cards, mobile phones, handheld computers, desktop systems, in-store kiosks, and even home appliances--so that anyone, anywhere, anytime can tap into the Net.

To be honest, I don't think we fully understood the significance of what we were getting into 20 years ago. What we did understand was this: The real value of any system is how well it connects with others. To that end, every system Sun has ever shipped--from the very first Sun 1 workstation--has shipped with network capabilities.

But it wasn't until the mid 1990s, when the Internet burst out of academia and government into the business world, that the power of network computing really hit home. All of a sudden the network became so much more than a collection of computers within a building or an enterprise. The Net became a way of communicating, collaborating, and transacting business with customers, suppliers, and partners around the world.

The Power of the Internet

Current economic pressures notwithstanding, we believe the Internet is still the biggest value creator on the planet. It has already changed the way we live, work, learn, and communicate--and the benefits to business are really starting to accumulate.

Just take a look at the supply chain. The cost savings and efficiency gains are amazing. For example, the e-procurement program here at Sun saved us $200 million in just one year. Using the Net and a carefully designed dynamic-bidding system, we did more than save money--we streamlined the purchasing process and brought increased clarity to our buying decisions.

Great strides are also being made (by Sun and many others) in demand forecasting, materials planning, design collaboration, and customer service. All using the Net to great advantage.

Some say the Internet hasn't lived up to its hype. I say it's still an under-appreciated phenomenon. It will prove itself to be more important and more influential than the printing press, the steam engine, the railway, or the airplane. But like those things, it will recede into the background. Most people won't know, or care, how the Internet works. They won't give it any more thought than they do electricity today. But its power will change the planet forever.

We believe that every man, woman, and child will eventually be connected to Net. So will virtually everything with a digital heartbeat.

Think about all the appliances in your home that have a microprocessor in them--TVs, stereos, microwaves, refrigerators, thermostats. Think about the millions of cars being built every year, each with about 50 to a 100 microprocessors. Think about all the wireless phones, pagers, smart cards, and other handheld devices out there--several devices per person in some cases.

Connect all that--and more--and you begin to see the Net's true potential.

Smart Web Services

Those connections are going to drive our vision of services on demand. By that I mean there-when-you-need-them services, many of which will interact with each other behind the scenes--without the need for human intervention--to deliver what we want, when we want it, through whatever device is most convenient at the time.

The big opportunity we see is in harnessing the information explosion, transforming information overload into services that do a lot of the work for you.

That's what the Sun Open Net Environment, Sun ONE, is all about.

I'm talking about context-aware services that can anticipate the needs of individuals and whole businesses. Consider this scenario: Say you're running an airline, and a sensor in one of your jets detects a potential fault in midflight. A smart Web service would not only alert the ground crew, it would automatically check inventory to make sure the right replacement parts were on hand. If not, it would initiate the process to get them there by the time the plane lands. The result: Instead of sitting on the tarmac waiting for parts, the plane is quickly repaired and on its way again. Your airline's on-time record remains intact, your customers remain safe and satisfied.

Clearly we're not to that point yet, but less complex services are already emerging and will become more dynamic over time.

While few things ever happen as fast as I'd like them to, here's the bottom line: Simply using the technology that's already available today can make virtually every business more efficient--and more profitable.

Thanks to great thinkers such as Bill Joy, Greg Papadopoulos, John Gage, and James Gosling--to name just a few--Sun has been a relentless innovator, always preparing for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Right now, we're laying the foundation for 20 more years of innovation, efficiency, and bottom-line results. We hope you'll join us.

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