Reorganisation aims to put new face on Sun
Sun Microsystems, a leading maker of Unix workstation and server hardware and software, is reorganising and focusing the company as well as fine tuning its business model.
Gone are several Sun 'companies' and names, including SunSoft and JavaSoft, although no staff have been sacked.
The change comes as new chief operating officer Ed Zander begins to make an impact.
'The time is right for Sun to position itself for a new era of growth and success,' he said.
'Our focus and strategy have not changed. Our goal is to align the organisation more tightly and streamline internal processes so that we achieve greater operational efficiency and provide a unified face to the customer.' There will now be seven divisional presidents as well as new chief technology officer Greg Papadopoulos, who replaces Eric Schmidt who left last year to become chief executive at Novell.
In other divisional leadership changes, Masood Jabbar takes over at Sun's computer systems division, Mel Friedman in the microelectronics division, John McFarlane at Solaris software, Alan Baratz in the Java software division, Lawrence Hambly in customer services, Janpieter Scheerder in the new networked storage division, and Mark Tolliver at the new consumer/embedded markets division.
The networked storage division will focus on providing a full suite of integrated hardware and software solutions for the mass-storage market, which some analysts say could hit US$36 billion by 2001.
'Apart from the significant competitive advantage this market brings, enterprise servers and networked storage also present a huge revenue opportunity for Sun,' Mr Zander said.
One immediate change Sun hopes for is a unification of purpose within it. In the past, for example, almost every division and company had its own Java development team, creating confusion both within Sun and outside it about who was in charge of Java.
'In the end, I think it is less confusing to the customer to have one face, one voice,' said George Paolini, former head of corporate relations at JavaSoft whose new title is not yet known.
'I'm very charged by the work Ed Zander is doing in reorganising the company. I think it is going to be far more effective. It also gives Scott [McNealy, Sun's chief executive] more time to spend on strategy.' Among those who see the new order as a good thing is Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt. 'I think the restructuring is long overdue. It will allow the company to be extremely focused on its core initiatives and will eliminate a bunch of overheads,' he said.
The official word from Sun was that it is not a restructuring. Sun's deputy managing director in Hong Kong, Paul Li, said the company preferred less dramatic terms and saw it more as 'streamlining'.
He admitted there was some confusion within Sun about who was responsible for what. SunSoft did Java development, as did JavaSoft and many other divisions. Who was in control? 'We want to make sure that Java is clearly understood,' he said.
Most observers feel the reorganisation can only further strengthen Sun's position.
Sun recently has seen companies such as Fujitsu and Siemens select its Solaris operating system as their system of choice.
Last year, it also was given stewardship of its Java programming language by the International Standards Committee, something some companies such as Microsoft were opposed to.