McNealy Hits Europe, Showcases Sun Innovation

The Active Chairman's travels took him to Scandinavia and the UK this time, where Scott met with top customers and partners. In one of the most networked parts of the world, Scott pushed Sun's open strategy and promoted Sun's continued leadership in innovation.

The tour started in Stockholm where Scott met with customers, partners and government officials and also took some time to talk about Sun's leadership in eco-responsible computing.

The Chairman left rainy Stockholm, arriving in Oslo where he promoted Sun's open standards and open source strategy. He sat down with Aftenposten to talk about the advantages of Open Document Format (ODF) a file format that enables governments around the world to archive and store documents so that any citizen can access them from any device. If you want to practice your Norwegian, read more.

Scott then hopped one time zone forward to Helsinki for more customer meetings and a chance to talk with Helsingin Sanomat to talk about why the Network is Still the Computer. Read more.

Next stop: Copenhagen. The Scandinavian leg of the tour ended with an audience with some members of the Danish government to talk about open standards, open source and the Open Document Format. Scott highlighted the advantages of moving Denmark to completely open standards, explained why Sun is "the greenest company under the Sun," and introduced the government to Curriki, a non profit that is delivering universal access to an education. Learn more. Before departing, Scott managed to sneak in a 15 minute sightseeing tour.

Later that same evening, The Chairman arrived in Oxford, England for British Telecom's 21st Century Summit which was held at Blenheim Palace, the home of the 11th Duke of Marlborough and the birthplace of Winston Churchill.

Scott delivered the keynote address, sharing his thoughts on the changing industry landscape and how the telcos can compete by embracing open standards and open source technologies. Following his keynote, Scott met with Sam Sethi, leader of Blognation, for a taping of The McNealy Minute. Stay tuned for the podcast.

The Chairman's travels ended in London with several more meetings, including one with Betfair, one of the world's leading betting exchanges. CEO David Yu, presented Scott with the Betfair Supplier of the Year award in recognition of Sun's outstanding technology, service and support in 2007. Read more about the award.

Upon landing in San Francisco, the customs agent stopped what he was doing, looked up and said, "five countries in four days, are you insane?".

Stay tuned for the next installment of Follow the Chairman from Korea and New York.