Congratulations to Peter Ryan, newly promoted EVP for Sun's Global Sales and Services organisation (GSS). Peter has recently led the combined AMER Sales organisation (AMER stands for 'Americas') over the last year and a half, and prior to that he very successfully led the EMEA Sales organisation as EVP for the region.
Having worked with Peter during his tenure as EMEA EVP I'm sure he'll be looking at fresh ways to engage with our customers, as he is immensely customer focused, with a real thirst for his role. Peter's remit will also be covering a newly created Sun Business Unit, that of 'Emerging Markets', predominately made up the fast growing 'BRICA' countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and Africa).
Good luck in the new role Peter, I'm sure you're more than up to it !
Of course all the very best of luck to Don Grantham, who is moving on to new opportunities.
All this congratulating nonsense is just that.
I've known Don for quite awhile and had a lot of respect
for him. I don't know if he was forced out or bailed out,
but the fact that these announcements come at the same time
Don takes on the same role at HP, the competitor, makes it
a blatant "abandone ship" scenario. With Sun being in the
trouble they are, that was grossly unethical. He could
have quietly disappeared for three months and re-emerged
in his new role. This is a major indication of where the
executive mindset at Sun is at: not in favor of the customers,
employees and certainly not the shareholders. Comments?
Posted by Lewis.Clarke on June 03, 2008 at 11:03 PM GMT #
very gutless not to post my comment!!!
Posted by Lewis Clarke on June 04, 2008 at 09:10 PM GMT #
I suppose your looking for a full and frank response, so here goes. Completely unofficial and my own subjective opinion, not sanctified by Sun.
It's my blog, I'll write what I want. I write about a variety of topics, not purely work related items, and I feel this gives me the right to post items which I think will be of interest to my colleagues in Sun and the wider technology industry. Plus it's nice to be nice.
Re: "lot of respect": Glad to hear it, me too by the way. However I suggest that if you do know Don to the extent that you postulate, that you get in touch with him and get his opinion first hand.
Re: "forced or bailed", hmmm, I suspect the situation is more complex than you suggest. Personally I don't know the facts of the matter either, however a senior role such as 'Head of World Wide Sales' doesn't come up for grabs every day. It's more likely that it has been in negotiation with HP for some time.
As to "HP, the competitor", thats not quite true. First off HP falls into the category of competitor, partner and customer, and given their recent acquisition of EDS they've moved even further over towards the 'partner' and 'customer' camp. Secondly Sun and HP are not a one to one match of companies, it is a rather unfair 'apples' to 'oranges' comparison that you're alluding to here.
Re: "grossly unethical" is rather strong seeing as you nor I know the full details behind the change of circumstance.
Re: "trouble they are": First off I've helped build some of the largest IT systems in the UK, and a few large international ones too, and I'm not particularly dumb. Nor are my work mates and colleagues, a list that includes some of the cleverest and most savvy people I know. None of them think that Sun's financial situation is insurmountable, and nor do I, otherwise surely I and they would have left by now. It's great to know I'm surrounded by friends and co-workers who all believe that we can work together to improve Sun's fortunes for the better. Secondly last quarters poor performance was predominantly due to the US economy tanking, over here in the UK we were doing well as was the majority of the World. See Jonathon's blog about this very issue and our strategy to mitigate it as a problem in the future: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/our_q3
And finally "favor of the customers": Jonathon's appointment of Peter to Head of World Wide Sales puts one of the most Customer focused executives I've ever met in control of driving that very focus, which is excellent for people like me and my colleagues in Sun UK, working in what we at Sun call Customer Engineering. I for one see Peter as a Customer Advocacy champion, and after working with him in his role of EVP for EMEA, look forward to him being given the position.
All in all I think it's easy to make more of a situation than is actually the case, because it makes good copy, and that sometimes a situation can be more complex than whats simply taken at face value, basically because it's easy to over simplify.
Posted by Wayne Horkan on June 05, 2008 at 01:34 AM GMT #
Wayne,
I do appreciate you took the time to respond. Thanks mate. After 20+ years at Sun I recently retired to pursue other ventures but as an investor I stay close and continue to be frustrated with strategies not working out. I was quite close to sales and sales operations and I know with the US accounting for over 40% of total revenue and for that TZ or GEM (or whatever the latest acronym) to continuously miss their numbers without a significant change in strategy/management/direction is baffling to me and clearly to Wall Street. Enough said. Again, thanks for the cordial reply - I wouldn't have expected anything less from a Brit. Cheers.
Posted by Lewis Clarke on June 05, 2008 at 04:54 AM GMT #
OK Wayne,
Not much happening on your blog. Let me just be blunt:
Once again we are in the single digits stock-wise.
This is absurd and unacceptable and can't be blamed on the
economy. Competitors aren't nearly as affected. Going from
$16 (which is low to begin with) to $9 in one quarter is a
serious message: Jonathan is not cutting it and he's had
plenty of time. The board better have some guts and show him
the door. Sun's story as represented through JS lacks credibility
and isn't bought by customers and investors alike. We need some
significant change, drastic change. Introduce some executive
courage for a change, or become another sgi.....
Posted by Lewis Clarke on July 18, 2008 at 11:09 PM GMT #
Wayne,
Still employed? What could you possibly say in defense of destroying investors equity? I know, you're quietly drawing your salary and benefits and brag to your neighbours about your influentual position at this major corporation... I understand mate... -L.
Posted by Lewis Clarke on August 01, 2008 at 05:14 AM GMT #
Lewis,
I've been thinking very hard about your last couple of comments and I'd be happy to discuss this with you directly, however the email you've supplied doesn't exist, is there any particular reason for this ?
Frankly I'd like to point out that the UK and Ireland business unit (or GEM), of which I am technology lead, did rather well last quarter, and over the last year, and is certainly not letting the side down.
I empathise with your frustrations, however it's not the case that I'm 'quietly drawing my salary' nor that I 'brag to my neighbours', and I'm not sure why I'm drawing so much of your ire.
Wayne
Posted by Wayne Horkan on August 01, 2008 at 04:42 PM GMT #