Zander Steps Down

"This is a total shocker," said Steve Israel, executive vice president of AMC, a New York-based Sun solution provider. "I hope the shakeup [under way at Sun is what it needs to get going again."

Israel said Zander was a big channel booster who will be missed by solution providers.

John Hitchcock, vice president of marketing and alliances at eForce, a Hayward, Calif.-based solution provider, also said he was unprepared for the news. "I saw [Zander present a few weeks ago at the Sun partner conference in Orlando, [Fla.," he said, adding that Zander was a well-liked and effective leader.

"Zander was always straight up with partners," said James Ivy, CEO of Stonebridge Technologies, Dallas. "He took what was essentially an engineering-workstation company and established a beachhead in the IBM glasshouse of corporate America."

Sun Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy will take over Zander's responsibilities and assume the title of president effective July 1, when Sun's fiscal year begins, according to the company. Sun said it does not intend to name a replacement.

Sun would not comment on Zander's departure beyond a written statement from McNealy, in which he described Zander as "a contributor and cultural icon at Sun," and an executive who is "clearly irreplaceable."

Zander had been with Sun for more than 15 years. His departure comes on the heels of the April resignations of CFO Michael Lehman and John Shoemaker, head of computer services.

The departures follow three successive quarterly losses for Sun, most recently a $26 million loss in its fiscal 2002 third quarter. So far this year, Sun has averaged $3 billion in quarterly revenue, down from an average of $4.2 billion over the previous two years.

Irv Miglietta, executive vice president of Strategic Technologies, a Cary, N.C., solution provider that has been a Sun partner for 16 years, said he is confident McNealy is making the right moves. "McNealy is the biggest channel booster at Sun," he said.

Ed Gogol, director of enterprise systems at Solarcom, a Norcross, Ga., Sun solution provider, said he does not expect Zander's departure to have an impact on the channel. "At the executive level, we deal with Gary Grimes anyway," he said. Grimes is Sun's vice president of partner management and sales operations.

STEVEN BURKE and AMY ROGERS contributed to this story.