CRN Interview: Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems

CRN: Sun's first quarterly product release was in February. Have you been able to reserve all product announcements for the quarterly releases, or have you had to sneak in a couple?

McNEALY: We're doing pretty good. It won't be perfect through this year because this is the first year we're doing it. . . . You know, it's a pretty big thing to get all our suppliers, customers, partners, engineers, marketing folks, field organizations and everybody to start moving to this cadence, to this rhythm, this quarterly release cycle. But already we're seeing immense improvements in quality, reliability, messaging, partnering and all the rest of it. So I'm very excited about this and wish we had done it eight years ago when I wanted to go do it. I just wasn't tough enough to drive it. I am now. I'm a tough ol' pain in the butt now.

CRN: Sun is talking about a couple of different integration projects, such as Orion and Mad Hatter, in terms going after the Microsoft space. How far along is Sun in those efforts?

McNEALY: Today, we already integrate, just not that well. It's a journey; it's not a release. And each time we'll have better-integrated fault management. We'll use a common directory, and we'll have one JVM [Java Virtual Machine] engine plant to go run all the Java code. We'll have one setup, administration and management Web page with one instead of 50 [user interfaces]. We'll have one remote-monitoring and customer network platform environment for upgrading, patching and telemetry.

There are lots of things. We've got a road map that goes out over a couple of years. Orion kind of melts seamlessly into the Solaris operating environment. But at all times, we'll provide "integratibility," and what I mean by that is "deletability." So you can hit delete on our app server and put BEA [Systems'] in there if you want, or hit delete on our directory and put Novell in if you want. They'll all be built around open interfaces. . . . So I think our partners will be able to be much more effective than say the Hewlett-Packard or IBM partners, where complexity is their friend.

CRN: How far do you think you'll be by the end of the year? What are the things you can expect to see by the end of the year?

McNEALY: We have a road map of what we're going to be doing going forward with each of the key elements: availability, scalability, reliability, manageability, price, performance--you know, all of the key features and characteristics of a NC. We'll try and road-map all of those. ... You're trying to see if the CEO will slip and spill the beans on the next-generation products.

CRN: No, I wouldn't do that.

McNEALY: That's all right.

CRN: So are you going to spill any beans?

McNEALY: No. I'm well-trained. I've got the scars on my back to prove it.

CRN: The other Sun integration effort people are talking about is Mad Hatter. We saw demonstrations late last year and have been talking about Sun's integration of the software pack to target the Microsoft space ...

McNEALY: We're not aiming at the Microsoft space. We're trying to give people an opportunity to have a consistent environment with the Sun SPARC Solaris technical and high-performance workstation marketplace, with the thin-client Sun Ray marketplace and with the disconnected or the "disconnectible" marketplace, if you will, where you need what I call a "fit client." We've got the fat client with SPARC Solaris, a "fit client" with Mad Hatter and a thin client with Sun Ray. Same [user interface], same GNOME user interface, Mozilla browser, StarOffice environment, Java Virtual Machine. It's got the same desktop mail and calendaring environment, and all the rest of it. ... We're targeting not the general-purpose power Office user. We're targeting somebody who wants reduced complexity and lower cost. There'll be some very interesting enterprise folks looking at value much more aggressively.

CRN: Is there a typical use you see for that?

McNEALY: You know what? If we predict it, we'll get it wrong. That's part of the problem. I've got some guesses. But you know, if you go write them up. ... It's people who want value on the desktop, people who want mobility with security.

CRN: This is your guess or your prediction?

McNEALY: I don't think that's a guess. It's just who's going to value that the most. Who's going to value saving money the most? Who's going to value mobility with security the most? Who's going to value compatibility with a fat-client and a thin-client environment?

CRN: How do channel partners play in that space?

McNEALY: They'd better play. We are not out buying PwC. We are not out buying DEC's services organizations. We are not growing our field-coverage strategy. We are absolutely leaning on our partners more and more, every day and every year. . . . [Partners] are going to be the ones that have to put these blueprints together and go do the installation and support and process re-engineering and all those other things for the customer, doing the ASPing and the hosting and the utility model and the rest of it. We'll give them as many tools as we can to make that as easy as possible for them. But we ultimately and eventually want our partner to be the person who has front-line client control and responsibility.

CRN: Do you expect to have any programs aimed specifically at smaller partners? Your typical partner is now focused on the enterprise, or maybe the midrange space.

McNEALY: As you see us continue to broaden out the x86 product line, [customers here] tend to be more comfortable with it from a brand perspective. We run Solaris and the entire Orion stack on x86 and then Mad Hatter on that x86 hardware. I think the partners that are in the small- to medium-sized enterprise tend to be x86 customers already. They can just take the Solaris Orion stack on the x86-based servers and the Mad Hatter stack on the desktop with StarOffice and, boom, away they go. Now they've got a much more compelling and cost-effective model with the same hardware and the hardware training and installation that they've had. I think you'll see that with the x86 product line.

CRN: In terms of the overall server and desktop market, are you aiming any programs specifically at taking business away from Dell [Computer], [Hewlett-Packard] or IBM?

McNEALY: Probably more from IBM. You know, I think Dell and HP ought to be reselling Solaris x86 and Mad Hatter because they have nothing in their portfolio like Solaris running on their x86 servers, and they have nothing in their portfolio like our Mad Hatter stack. So I would say we're more interested in selling through them.

CRN: A lot of people have the perception that Sun invests in software as a way to push its hardware side. Is that the case?

McNEALY: You know, Siemens has over a million lines of code in this [McNealy points to his cell phone], and they didn't charge me a penny for any of it. I think they're just writing software to move the hardware. You know, there are a hundred microprocessors in my new car, and I didn't have to pay anything for that software. I think those car companies are just writing software to get me to buy the iron.

CRN: The car companies don't have software-only partners.

McNEALY: No, they don't. And you know what? You don't want the realtime, breaking software coming from a third party. And you don't want the electronic ignition company being open-sourced, downloaded off the Internet. And when you step on the gas, you don't want it to just shut down. That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. We're the only industry in the world that ships hardware separate from software. Show me one appliance [McNealy points around room] where you get the hardware separate from the software. . . . Is there software separate for any of the devices in here? There are none. Only in our industry are we nuts enough to separate hardware from software and destroy the "systemsness" of the platform.

CRN: But isn't that where interoperability comes from?

McNEALY: Do you really, really, really, really wish you could put a Chrysler transmission in your Ford?

CRN: But we're not talking about cars. You may want to put a BEA app server on your. ...

McNEALY: That's the point. But why? Do you really want to put a Veritas file system in your telephone switch?

CRN: I don't. Somebody else may.

McNEALY: Bingo. Somebody may want to put a Ford transmission in their Chevy. But you know what?

CRN: That just won't work.

McNEALY: It could. If you had 10,000 people and IBM Global Services contracted to help assemble your car in your data center in realtime while you assemble the sucker. But we're the only industry in the world that does it that way, and it's wrong.

CRN: Why did Sun drop its own Linux distribution?

McNEALY: The world is having a hard enough time trying to figure out whether they want to have a new [operating system]. All the different Linuxes are different. It's just complicated out there. I'm not sure what value we add because Linus [Torvalds] dictates what it is anyhow. And so, let's just take off-the-shelf strategies out there. . . . IBM doesn't even do their own distribution. Everyone seems surprised that we don't do our own distribution. Even IBM isn't. You know, they're giving up on their Unix. They're dropping AIX and going Linux. So if they won't do their own distribution, and they're dropping AIX, it doesn't seem to make sense for us to go do it.