In all my years as a Sun employee, I've never seen so much discussion about a topic both in and outside of the company. It hasn't been a full day since the announcement from Jonathan and I think this decision is already a success. Sure, there are people on both sides of the fence, but it has people talking and it further strengthens the association of Java to Sun Microsystems. I believe Jonathan when he says that awareness creates opportunites for all of our offerings in software, systems and service.

Here's a personal experience that helps me see Jonathan's reasons for making this change.
A couple of months ago, my wife and I went to Toronto to celebrate our anniversary and we took a day tour to Niagara Falls. During a break on the tour, I sat down next to our tour guide. He started talking to me and asked me where I was from and what I do. I told him I work for Sun Microsystems and he immediately responded that he knows Sun because of Java. And he asked me if I work on Java. I told him no, but I work on software projects related to Solaris. But he didn't know Solaris. That wasn't the first time where I've met someone and they immediately associated Sun with Java, but then they don't know about any other Sun brands.

I was just as surprised as everyone else to read Jonathan's blog about changing the SUNW stock ticker to JAVA. But then the more I thought about it, and read about it and talked about it with other co-workers, I am liking it. That's why I say JAVA is Jonathan's Astonishing and Visionary Alias to Sun Microsystems. I'll be looking for it on the NASDAQ ticker next week.