ShadowRAM: July 10, 2006

But we wanted to give him a nod for his role in helping shape at least part of today's IT industry. Lay served on the board of Compaq Computer from 1987 until just before its merger with Hewlett-Packard (he stepped aside as the Enron scandal blew up). While at Compaq, Lay was part of the board that ousted then-CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer in a weekend sacking, hired his replacement, Mike Capellas, and, eventually, voted "yea" on the buyout by HP.

Sun Microsystems is among the most liberal companies about letting employees write their own blogs—even CEO Jonathan Schwartz updates regularly. Now, one Sun employee, staff engineer Rich Burridge, has blogged his thoughts about when his company officially will have rebounded.

He wrote last week: "I quite often get asked, 'When is Sun going to be really successful again?' I can think of several answers:

"When we are consistently showing a profit again, quarter after quarter.

"When we aren't laying off about 12 percent of our workforce.

"When most of the analysts are giving SUNW a 'buy' recommendation.

"When most of the press are writing rave reviews on most of our products.

"When we're actively hiring again.

"All of the above."

Burridge adds: "Some people think it'll be when there are doughnuts and bagels again in each of the breakrooms every week. Personally, I think we'll be 'over the hump' when Sun no longer requires you to take the week of the Fourth of July off as either paid or unpaid vacation here in the U.S. in order to save money. During these hard times, it does make sense, so I fully understand why it's required."

Attendees of Microsoft's big ol' partner confab in Boston this week shouldn't miss the video. This year they're riffing on "The X-Men," with high-profile channel and MBS execs acting out critical roles such as Storm and Wolverine. If you send me dough, I'll tell you who's who.

For those plan-ahead travelers, Tech Ed 2007 is slated (tentatively anyway) for New Orleans again. And the next partner conference is on for Denver, sources say.

Speaking of true-blue partners: Microsoft Axapta (oops, that would be Dynamics AX now) solution provider Simon Chan of Iteration2 got so caught up in the MBS naming conventions for the various employee roles, he named his newborn son Rocco, after Microsoft's prototypical field technician.