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By Don Grantham
I'm delighted to have the opportunity to create an ongoing dialogue with you through this newsletter. The proliferation of social networking outlets such as blogs (just look at our CEO!), YouTube, Facebook, Ning, Second Life, and Twitter make it apparent that people want to connect with each another, now more than ever. It's my hope that you will take advantage of this two-way communication forum to tell me what you need from Sun so we can provide greater value to you going forward.
In my first 18 months managing Sun's Global Sales and Services organization, I have spent a great deal of time on the road visiting our 16 global sales offices and speaking with customers, partners, and employees. During my time with Sun's various partners, I met with systems integrators, channel distribution partners, many alliance partners (Microsoft, IBM, AMD, and Intel included), and value-added resellers.
When I met with you, our customers, you told me about the need for a trusted partner — someone to help you solve the business problems you face, address changing market dynamics, and improve your competitive advantage at a global level. In essence, you want a partner to work with you to be more productive, for less, and be more competitive by using IT as a competitive differentiator in your value proposition.
No Adversaries, Only Opportunities
What matters to me is that we provide our customers with optimal business solutions and genuine choice. With our new alliance partnerships we have no adversaries, only opportunities. By working together we can serve a broader set of customer needs. It's no surprise that customer demand for more storage capacity, more interoperability, more services, and more support is growing. Consumers are increasingly dictating IT decisions, even in the enterprise. Eco responsibility and ability to scale are also important priorities.
At Sun, we've made it our mission to bring the value of the network (and the opportunities within it) to everyone on the planet. The concept is simple: the more people with access to the network, the more opportunities for developers and businesses deploying applications to create value.
We are seeing a market shift, driven by network services application development, that's generating a new class of Sun customers and noticeable change in the needs of our existing customers. Demand for scale and efficiency are ever increasing. The conversations around energy efficiency and eco responsibility are growing exponentially, in addition to increasing demand for network infrastructures.
I recently met with a large financial services customer who asked Sun to provide them with an eco/green datacenter solution to drive down TCO on equipment and datacenter costs. In addition to leveraging Sun innovations for cost control and virtualization/consolidation initiatives, they are also looking to Sun and our partners to provide them with applications that will help them with their global online and mobile banking growth.
That's just one example of the evolving needs of even our most traditional enterprise customers, not to mention the opportunity we see within the developer community and the new generation of Web 2.0 businesses. These challenges are being addressed in all segments of the market.
In future issues of the Sun Executive Boardroom newsletter, I'll continue to highlight some of the business trends impacting directions in computing and technology, with tips on how to stay ahead of the curve. We have a pipeline of innovation to meet these changing customer needs.
This is a two-way dialogue, and I'd like to know what's on your mind. Feel free to drop me a line.
Regards,
Don Grantham
Executive Vice President
Global Sales and Services
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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Beginning this issue, Don Grantham will be sharing his insights on customer challenges and opportunities with Executive Boardroom readers. Read Don's bio. |
