Sun’s McNealy: I LOVE Microsoft! (startups too)
By DONNA BOGATIN • Apr 17th, 2008 • Category: CONFERENCE CIRCUIT
Who needs the desktop? “The network IS the computer,” Sun co-founder and chairman Scott McNealy reminded last evening from the heart of the technology business capital of the world: The NASDAQ Marketsite.
On the heels of Sun’s Big Apple product launch of its new SPARC Enterprise servers, Sun is on a road show to share the firm’s “big bets” with its big financial services clients and partners on Wall Street.
First off though, McNealey shared his “sure signs we are not out of the economic woods yet,” such as:
CEOs are taking the subway,
Google guys forced to share a private jet,
Governors are using coupons at bordellos,
.NET programmers will now work for food….
EVERYONE is now finally interested in free and open source software!
Sun is in to win, McNealy conveyed repeatedly. With $5 billion cash in the bank and a $2 billion yearly R & D commitment, “don’t worry about us,” the Sun chairman assured from the get go:
We are gaining share in a lot of strong franchises in the marketplace. We invented open source “sharing.” The downloadable free model works, Sun is 19 years cash flow positive.
“Come in, we’re open,” McNealy invited New York‘s technology buyers, offering:
Lower barriers to entry
Increased interoperability,
Lower R & D costs,
More security,
Lower barriers to exit.
“Technology has the shelf life of a banana,” McNealy warned: With proprietary code, once you check in, it is hard to leave, he underscored. Also, because there are “no secrets” in open source, the risk of surprise breaches are dramatically reduced, McNealy asserted.
“Make sure you have a good support agreement,” though, the Sun chairman advised, including indemnification, offered in Sun’s premium support contract.
Why did Sun make a billion dollar bet on MySQL? The large, worldwide installed base of the free, open source software is growing exponentially: 60,000 downloads daily, according to McNealy.
How Sun monetizes “free”: “Sell support to manage it, servers to run it, and storage to maintain it,” McNealy said. For example, once a corporation has downloaded MySQL for “free,” a Sun $4999 per server per year Enterprise Platinum support plan, is a lucrative upsell.
An open world, multi-vendor environment is a “messed up one,” though, McNealy joked: “HP is the number one platform for our software!, We are a Windows OEM!”
“There is not anyone who is not a partner,” McNealy noted: “I LOVE MICROSOFT,” he proclaimed.
He loves Sun Microsystems most of all, of course: McNealy remains the company’s largest single shareholder. While he “wishes the stock was higher,” McNealy is confident Sun is on the right long term track, the only feasible track, in a modern software world where “freedom” rules, and ultimately pays.
It also ultimately pays to be a startup, McNealy confirmed to me. ”I love startups, I started as one,” McNealy enthused when I mentioned to him my newly launched startup for startups: StartupAlpha.com.
Here at StartupAlpha.com, I also champion free and open entrepreneurship: ALL startups are invited to post their elevator pitches for free at the free and open Startup Alpha Pitch Network.
PLUS, Pitch your startup, for free, at the open Startup Alpha Pitch Community.
DONNA BOGATIN is the Founder & CEO of STARTUP ALPHA
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