Who would have ever imagined it?   The boss is blogging!

Diann is the fearless leader of a big organisation responsible for developing & maintaining revenue producing software products at Sun.   Not a techy type herself, she's a strong motivating leader who keeps her org focussed on both customer delight and product quality.

Diann recently coined a phrase which I personally really like.   I think it really helps describe some of what our organisation does:

        We Deliver The Promise of Solaris 10

Diann's blog is simply called diann.   Take a peek...   and stay tuned as she gets to grips with Blogging At Sun.

When I worked in the United Kingdom as part of our EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) organisation, I felt we were well situated between our colleagues in California and our Asian Pacific colleagues in India.

The work day in the UK would be focussed on the local and India issues until about 3pm when the Californians would start rubbing their sleepy eyes and catching up with our day.   At 3pm, email really got going.   By 5pm UK time, it was at full steam.

It always felt like the UK was the bridge connecting the USA with APAC (Asia Pacific).   But now, I've got a new and different perspective...

Being based on the East Coast, I'm finding that we still have time to talk on the telephone & electronically with colleagues in India.   Part of this is because so many of them work longer & later hours & make a conscious effort to overlap at least a little bit with California.   The point is, the East Coast is not disconnected from Bangalore, India.

The East Coast is only 5 & 6 hours away from our European colleagues and 9.5 hours from Bangalore.   So, we have some working hours overlap while California is still snoozing.   The difference here is that California comes on line relatively sooner than it did when we were in England, and accordingly, I feel more connected to California than before.

In this timezone, we don't have the day long delay problems that so many Europeans & Asians suffer from when trying to get information out of California.   We don't have to send off a request in the evening and hope that an answer will be waiting for us when we get up the next morning.   We are close enough to interactively work with California.

It feels like the East Coast timezone is actually a really good bridge between California and much of the rest of the world...   We are more connected here.   (Connecting with peers in Beijing is still a challenge.)   And, if one considers California to be its own country, that makes this timezone rather international in my eyes.    

I mentioned quite a few blogs ago, that I had transfered with Sun in from the Los Angeles Sales & Service office to the UK Solution Centre.   Working in the LA office was great fun as I got to visit some really interesting customer sites and meet interesting people doing cool things with Sun kit.

Of my many customer visits, visiting the Jet Propulsion Labs, aka JPL, during the Voyager Neptune Flyby in August 1989 was certainly one I remember well.   As Voyager 2 sent back pictures of Neptune, we encountered a technical glitch with one of the many data feeds.   Our boys quickly noted that a comms cable was on its last legs.   Another could be built in the onsite Sun workshop, but in the meantime, we had to hold this one steady to keep a good connection.   As a meer software engineer, I was given the task of holding the cable while the hardware guys went off to make a new cable.

So there I stood with Voyager data passing through my hands.   At long last, I was actively involved in the space program.   And to beat all, I even got to meet the late, great Carl Sagan!   Very cool.

Somehow, it made the press when we lost our doughnuts at Sun.   Well, they are back making a special appearance, even in the UK!   Forget the diets!   Worry not about the 30p per employee costs.   Today, we eat doughuts!

Thanks, Scott!   And thanks, of course, to Solaris engineer Mahesh, for asking Scott when the doughnuts would be coming back!   Good work!

While looking for some other information, I stumbled upon some new Solaris 10 Marketing stuff...   and stopped to take a longer look.   This, in itself, is noteworthy as I tend to keep moving along swiftly when I see marketing "fluff".   But this was different...

The "10" in Toyko is an intriguing image, reminiscent of Japanese horror films and yet technerdical at the same time.   Yup, I actually like it.   No, I wouldn't frame it and hang it in my study, but it is cool.

I also like the yellow car...   So much for taste.     :-)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

When the internet boom was doing just that, I saw someone flying a UK aircraft with the registration G-MSFT and thought, "Ah, a Microsoft stock owner, no doubt".   I also plane-spotted   (yes, sad muppet,I know)   G-SONY.   So, as a huge fan and owner of Sun Microsystems stock, SUNW, I went looking for G-SUNW to see what stockholder had grabbed this unique registraion....

....and didn't find it on an aircraft.   It was not taken... yet.

While we had planned to put G-SUNW on our lovely Grumman AA5 Traveller, plans, as you know, have a way of changing.   So, instead, we are now selling the airplane, and thus, also the registration mark G-SUNW .

As Sun fans and Sun blog readers, you get to hear it first!   Contact me directly if you're interested in obtaining this unique aircraft mark for yourself or a friend.

Recently, a cool email announcement was forwarded about a zillion times within Sun.   I believe the news also entered the public domain fairly quickly.

For folks like myself (technogeeks and former technogeeks), the news that a new system said "hello world" strikes a warm spot in our hearts.   We know how good it feels to see this simple message, how the hours, weeks, or years of hard work all suddenly seem to be worth it.   We can get quite emotional over this, and often for very good reason.

But for some of the non-techies, the full impact of the moment is lost.   They may not understand that "hello world" is the first program many of us wrote when learning a new language.   They may not know that the same simple "hello world" program is sometimes used to test new hardware and software.   They may not realise that whether it really was "hello world" or calculating pi to the 1000th decimal point, the first cry of an infant system is it's own "hello world".

To the teams who brought forth another new system, congratulations on "hello world"!   May your baby grow up to be great!

"She didn't react well to your ideas for improvement."

"Well, can you blame her?   You called her baby ugly."

This is not a snippet of conversation from a hospital maternity ward.   Nor is it from a television soap opera.   Instead, this comes straight from work.

Telling a parent that their baby is ugly is not a good conversation starter to use at your local BBQ.   This sort of opinion is rarely voiced.   But in the world of Software Development, speaking up is absolutely necessary.

Within Sun, some of our engineers have to use hideous babies (software applications) designed by 3rd parties.   Frustratingly, we sometimes have little impact on making them more beautiful (user friendly).   But, fortunately, when it comes to developing our own software for our customers, we are much more empowered to influence change.

Recently, one of our development groups heard their baby was ugly.   And my guess is, like most parents, they did not like hearing this!   However, instead of rolling forward with plans to release the ugly duckling into the world, their baby is now being genetically modified before making its debut.

We'll let Mother Nature keep the monopoly on ugly babies.   And, we'll keep Sun software beautiful.

Sun advertising is not something I see very often, with exception, of course, to the posters on the walls of our building.   Billboards are rare creatures in the UK (unlike Silicon Valley) but every now and then, one sees a Sun billboard here, in the Underground or at the airports.

At London Heathrow airport, there are a quite a few billboards and sometimes Sun is up there.   I remember one of a cute little girl in pigtails with a tag line I can't even recall.   It puzzled me...

But recently, a new advert showed a departing aircraft and the message, Thank you for flying Sun Microsystems, which was followed by an impressive stat about how many airlines use Sun kit.

It was a simple message.   I got it, but probably not quite the way Marketing intended.   As a 15 year Sun employee and one who believes strongly in the maturity and secure nature of Solaris, I was moved with a sudden sense of pride.   And, as I was about to fly to Boston, I felt... safe.