Solaris on Wall Street - Faster and Faster

I remember a dinner I had a while back with the CEO of a global financial services firm. As one of his first acts as CEO, he'd cancelled an enormous outsourcing contract, and I'd asked him why - his response has stuck with me. "Banking is a technology business. Pure and simple. I can't win if I don't have my own team."

Independent of his views on outsourcing, I've heard the same point made by many (but not all) financial services executives - banking (like big swaths of telecommunications, media and retailing) has become a technology business, where every ounce of performance and differentiation matters. Even, and especially, in the midst of market turmoil.

Which is a fitting backdrop for a joint press release we just issued with Intel - in which we achieved a land speed record - a million messages per second, running the Reuters Market Data System on Solaris 10 for Intel silicon (see release for details). To our colleagues at Intel and Thomson Reuters... thank you! Performance = market advantage, energy savings, or datacenter consolidation  - or all of the above. Customers get to pick.

And following up on my last post on the impact of flash memory and ZFS on the world of datacenters, our own Adam Leventhal has added a far more fulfilling technical perspective in Communications of the ACM: Flash Storage Memory.Worth the read...

Posted on 12:16AM Jul 03, 2008 | Comments[22]

Share this post  | | | | | |

Anything But a Flash in the Pan

There are only two kinds of storage devices - those that have failed, and those that are about to fail. That's the view most datacenters have about the traditionally mechanical devices pejoratively referred to as "spinning rust." All disk drives fail, cheap drives fail faster.

If the average time to fail is five years, you and your laptop can make do with the occasional backup. But when an average enterprise has 100, or 1,000, or increasingly 10,000 or 100,000 individual disk drives, failure is a daily, if not hourly occurrence. Mechanical devices fail.

And with failure comes the potential for losing data - using commodity disks to save your boss $500,000 does her no good if she's fined $50,000,000 for violating data retention regulations. Stock transactions, medical images or feature length movies - take your pick, some data has to be perfect. Not a decimal point or pixel out of place.

That's exactly why, years ago, Sun invented a storage platform called ZFS. ZFS makes a powerful assumption - that a reliable system must be built from unreliable parts. By using surplus computing cycles, ZFS constantly runs powerful integrity checks, giving data corruption no place to hide. With ZFS, customers can use the cheapest disks and simplest systems, and get exceptional data integrity, along with massive reductions in cost and complexity.

But there's a new option on the table, known to many by the memory cards they use in their phones, iPods or digital cameras - called Flash memory. Flash is very fast at reading and writing data, like DRAM (the memory chips in your computer). Its price sits squarely between DRAM and traditional disk drives. But unlike either alternative, Flash requires no power to remember data. And with the price of electricity escalating across the world, keeping 10,000 disks spinning at thousands of rpm can cost you in power what you pay for your storage. Power has become the dominant factor in high scale hardware decisions - and Flash is set to disrupt the industry.

Historically, there have been two impediments to using Flash in the enterprise.

The first was cost. Flash is more expensive per gigabyte than a comparable disk drive. But with every increase in the cost of electricity (and decay in the price of Flash memory), Flash's relative cost per available gigabyte is quickly improving - remember, disk drives have to be powered on to be available. And although a gigabyte of mechanical disk might cost you less than a gigabyte of Flash memory, the latter is at least an order of magnitude faster in reading and writing data - so the cost per gigabyte served is exceptionally low.

But simply introducing Flash as yet another tier of storage in a datacenter isn't the real opportunity - that adds new costs and a set of new management hassles. To truly change the industry, adding Flash would have to be completely transparent to users and operators, alike, with no switching or operational cost. And that's exactly what we're doing with ZFS. ZFS will transparently incorporate Flash into the storage hierarchy of a running system, using the microprocessor cache for the most performance sensitive tasks, DRAM for the next, then Flash, then disk (then ultimately tape). ZFS will allow Flash to join DRAM and commodity disks to form a hybrid pool automatically used by ZFS to achieve the best price, performance and energy efficiency conceivable. Simply put, our storage and server systems will get enormously faster - without any upgrade to the microprocessor. Adding Flash will be like adding DRAM - once it's in, there's no new administration, just new capability.

That's one reason we're so excited by Flash - the cost per available gigabyte served (the total operational cost of storage) plummets with Flash in the mix, especially for data or performance intensive applications (like MySQL, Postgres, Oracle or SQL Server). From the right systems designs, Flash has the potential of providing orders of magnitude improvements in economics and performance - and with the advent of Sun's xVM hypervisor, we can bring this performance benefit to any host operating system (running atop xVM, Windows operators can inherit the benefit of ZFS+Flash, too). 

The second problem is trickier - simply put, although Flash memory can be read an infinite number of times, writing to Flash more than a few hundred thousand times can wear it out. Now, most normal humans will never hit 500,000 writes in a digital camera. But you might in your enterprise. What to do?

Again, ZFS to the rescue.

ZFS treats Flash memory like any other storage medium - remember, all storage devices fail - and manages data integrity whether failure's induced by a bad hard drive motor, write-fatigue or a hammer drill. Increasingly sophisticated "wear leveling" algorithms are also maximizing Flash lifespans - evening out write activity to avoid hot spot failures. But the bottom line is this - with ZFS at the helm, wear is a non-issue (on hard drives or Flash - they both have wear limitations, after all).

These are the premises behind Sun's systems approach to Open Storage. We're integrating ZFS, Flash memory and some exceptional hardware/silicon innovations to deliver high performance, low power, general purpose storage and server appliances - accelerating any software that runs on our SPARC or x86 systems (MySQL users, in specific, will see a big turbo charge). For a fraction of what proprietary NAS storage ordinarily costs. Expect our first Flash systems to ship toward the end of this calendar year.

And as you might expect, ZFS and all the underlying software will be free without commercial support - OpenSolaris, ZFS, MySQL and Postgres are already available (click the image at left to get a free LiveCD - or check out Apple's release of ZFS in Mac OSX). Software revenue will come from those enterprises that want Sun's technical support for mission critical deployment. On the hardware side, Sun's Try and Buy programs allow any partner or customer to order one of our systems for free 60 day trial - if you love it, buy it. If not, we'll cover the return postage.

If the above doesn't make it obvious... our view is Flash is anything but a flash in the pan - as the price of power continues to increase, and the price of Flash continues to plummet, the combination of Flash, ZFS and true systems innovation will have an even bigger impact on datacenter economics than virtualization.

It's that big a deal.

---

UPDATE:  You may have seen we added yet another company to the list led by Intel, IBM and Dell supporting Solaris (and thus ZFS) as OEM partners - this morning, we officially announced the addition of Fujitsu-Siemens. Congratulations, all...

Posted on 03:00PM Jun 10, 2008 | Comments[41]

Share this post  | | | | | |

Growing in the P7 (not just the G7)

De facto standards are the only ones that matter.

That's a bit of a truism in the technology world - well intentioned standards bodies and departments of justice can do their best, but at the end of the day, volume deployment is the only setter of standards. Ubiquity trumps policy, just about every time.

To that point, I was on a panel recently, discussing the impact of technology on the world's more rapidly developing economies (what's often referred to as "BRICA," or Brazil, Russia, India, China and Africa).

One of the speakers referenced an interesting shift in the traditional media industry: western companies were turning their attention toward the developing world. GDP growth wasn't drawing their attention - as much as demographics. Teenagers and those in their early twenties represent the biggest media buyers in the world, spending a greater portion of their income on music, movies and entertainment than any other age group. And the majority of people fitting that age profile live, by definition, in population centers - not in the US, UK, or Germany, but BRICA. Whose collective population represents nearly half the entire planet's. Think of the Ovum analysis from the New York Times, pictured on the right, more as growth in media outlets - and remember, more people in the world see "the internet" on their phone, than on a PC.

The impact of that shift in buying power won't be limited to traditional media. The software industry is a media industry, as well - technically, the two have fully converged (a digital file is a digital file, whether it's OpenSolaris, MySQL, a new Jay Chou video, or a champion cricket highlight). The infrastructure to distribute and manipulate that content (eg, servers, networking, storage and infrastructure software) is increasingly geared to serve consumers - the "business to consumer" (or, B2C) segment of the IT marketplace is growing far, far faster than "business to business" (B2B). And where will the market for such network computing infrastructure be largest? By definition, where the markets are centered - near consumers (more than half of whom now live in urban environments, well covered by mobile network service). If B2B caused the IT industry to concentrate in proximity to economic centers (the G7), B2C focuses our attention on consumers and population centers (the P7?). That's a profound change.

So with that backdrop, I've made a few significant changes to how Sun's organized, focusing leadership and resourcing around two new areas.

First, as many folks know inside of Sun, I announced the addition of Lin Lee to my staff, to manage relationships with governments and NGO's across the world. Based in Shanghai, Lin will advocate Sun's vision of sustainable network infrastructure, encompassing open source and document formats to power efficient datacenters - we've already found a very receptive audience in emerging economies. Lin's focus will be helping students, universities and governments to lower the barriers to indigenous opportunity.

I also announced today a new leader reporting to me for Sun's Global Sales and Services organization, Peter Ryan. He's also added to his staff a new business region, Emerging Markets - with a new leader (Denis Heraud). Emerging Markets, representing a basket of rapidly developing economies (BRICA included), will be a peer to North America, Europe and Asia. Last quarter alone, our BRICA business grew in double digits - this change is designed to accelerate that growth by adding new focus, resourcing and strong leadership.

Peter (who disclosed to me only this weekend that he started his career as a mainframe systems engineer!) replaces Don Grantham. (Don's leaving Sun to help HP secure a Solaris license before their EDS transaction closes...)

Rapidly developing economies have, of late, started throwing their weight around in the world of traditional IT standards - and have been among the most assertive in embracing and deploying free/open source software. Quite naturally, they've also been among the most concerned about sustainable technology practices: 100,000,000 new PC users, each drawing 200 watts, certainly paves the way for social and economic progress - at the cost of ~20 gigawatts of new coal fired power plants. Now you know why our SunRay desktops, at 4 watts apiece, have been of such interest in the developing (and developed) world.

Bluntly put, we're elevating our focus on developing economies because that's where free software, and Sun's businesses, are growing fastest. Where is OpenOffice deployed in the greatest numbers? In places where saving $300 per desktop is meaningful.

No wonder those economies are so passionate about open standards - their citizenry will ultimately make them the most important decision makers in the world.

Posted on 01:26PM Jun 02, 2008 | Comments[36]

Share this post  | | | | | |

Transparency and Making Choices

Not long ago, I was sitting across from the CEO of a media company. He showed enormous pride in the social value of his organization - in delivering news to the world via a global team of thoughtful, award-winning journalists.

He asked what made me proud to be at Sun. Among a number of things, I said I'm proudest of the role Sun plays in making sure stories like his are told - "Our technologies, after all, are how your journalists file their stories, and we play a central role in how you present them to the world via the network." I am unreservedly proud of Sun's role in making the world a more open, transparent place.

Beyond professional journalism, the network is a social utility for the world's citizenry - whose digital cameras and cell phones and blog postings and emails form a tidal wave of transparency. We live in a world whose traumas and triumphs are visible instantaneously. Sunlight's not just a great disinfectant, it's a wonderful safety net, too - you can't fix the problems you don't know about. But once you know about a problem, even small attempts to help, multiplied over the long tail of the internet, can make an extraordinary difference.

Over the past few days, the world has watched an earthquake in China lead to the death and dislocation of countless thousands. The San Francisco Bay Area, where Sun is headquartered, has felt the impact deeply - beyond co-workers, friends and family, we've suffered our own traumas with earthquakes. A cyclone in Myanmar triggered similar thoughts among those of us effected by hurricanes in New Orleans, Louisiana.

But the world's an increasingly transparent place. And any help, from $1 to $1m, multiplied over the world, makes a difference.

Which is why I'm sending personal funds to the relief organizations I trust to bring aid to those stricken.

And I'm encouraging you to take the time to make a similar choice.

Posted on 09:09AM May 18, 2008 | Comments[39]

Share this post  | | | | | |

JavaFX as Rich Internet Application Platform

JavaOne wrapped up on Friday. We hosted individuals from across the globe, and from every industry: consumer electronics and gaming, to enterprise IT, space exploration, factory automation, the automotive industry, academia - like the network itself, Java delivers something for nearly everyone, everywhere.

This year's biggest announcements centered around Java's role in the future of rich internet applications (or RIA's). What's a rich internet application? It depends on your perspective - from mine, it's any network connected application that persists in front of a user, typically outside a browser, that can operate when disconnected from the network.

On the one hand, I'd claim Java's always been a RIA platform - before the world really wanted one. Early Java applets delivered interactivity, but at the expense of development complexity and, in the early days, performance - when a browser, and more recently Javascript, would suffice.

But browser based applications are hitting complexity and performance limits, and content owners are striving for higher levels of engagement (via high definition video, or advanced interactivity). Developers are demanding something new - the browser's a wonderfully accessible programming model, but it's a weak deployment model for rich/disconnected applications.

An unspoken driver of RIA is also business model evolution - many companies behind rich applications are seeking independence from browsers and search engines, whose default settings and corporate parents present a competitive threat. There's a growing appetite for locally installed applications that build rich, direct and permanent engagement with consumers. No one wants to pay a toll to meet their own customers.

With that in mind, as we looked to reinvent the Java platform, we heard a consistent set of requirements. And not just from coders, but from sports francishes seeking to directly engage their fans, media companies wanting to bypass browser defaults, to artists and businesses and device manufacturers - everyone's looking to uniquely engage consumers via the network. These audiences have nearly identitical requirements for a RIA platform - they want technology that:

• Reaches every internet consumer - on desktops, mobile, and new devices, too.
  
• Delivers high performance - and the ability to engage creative professsionals in the design process.
  
• Leverages existing skills and enterprise infrastructure.
  
• Is totally free, and open source.
  
• Provides content owners with control and ownership of their own data.
  

At JavaOne last week, we addressed every one of those issues - here's how:

First, RIA developers want to reach every consumer on earth, and on every device.

Why? Because the market is in front of consumers - no matter what screen they may be using. Desktop, mobile phone, personal navigation, digital book - you name it. The market's in front of all the screens in your life, not just a PC.

That said, on PC's alone, Java's popularity has grown in the last few years, as measured by runtime downloads - we routinely download 40 to 50 million new Java runtimes a month, and update more than a billion every year. The adoption of the Java platform exceeds the adoption of Microsoft's Windows itself - Sun's Java runtime environment (JRE) is preloaded on nearly every Windows machine (from HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc.), but also runs on Apple's Macintosh, Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSe, Solaris and OpenSolaris desktops. In addition, a JRE is present on billions - yes, billions - of wireless and mobile devices, from automobile dashboards and navigation devices, to Amazon's Kindle (did you know Amazon's Kindle is a Java platform?).

Which is to say, the Java platform reaches more people than any other software technology the world has ever seen.

Second, RIA developers want performance, functionality AND simplicity.

Why? Because content owners and application developers want to engage consumers - and want to engage artists and creative professionals in the workflow.

Java's history with simplicity isn't perfect - which is why our teams have rewritten the applet model, and focused so intently on making the new consumer Java runtime environment (download a beta version here) exceptionally fast to load within a web page, exceptionally performant for complex interactivity, and trivially accessible to consumers. We've also simplified Java with a scripting language, JavaFX script, that enables creative professionals to engage with coders to create immersive experiences, while embracing the creative tool chain (from interaction design to pixel manipulation) used by the worlds designers and digital artists.

And I'm really pleased we've solved the desktop installation problem, by making JavaFX applets separable from a web page with a simple drag and drop (click the image above to watch this demonstrated). Developers can now bypass the browser to trivially install apps on desktops - once the applet's dropped on the desktop, content owners have a direct relationship with their consumers.

You might have also seen that we're adding full high quality audio and video codecs to Java on every platform on which it runs - resolving another gap for RIA developers, support for time-based media (click here for a demo of high performance video).

Third, enterprises want to reuse their existing Java skills and assets in moving to RIA.

Nearly every enterprise employs programmers with Java skills - it's still the number one internet language taught across the world, and found pervasively in global business infrastructure. As businesses move to engage their customers via RIA platforms, reusing existing skills, and connecting RIA's to existing systems, gives the Java community a unique ability to build from what exists - rather than attempt to replace it.

This familiarity also allows businesses and developer teams to focus on engaging with consumers - rather than irritating IT with new infrastructure requirements (JavaFX developers simply link to existing enterprise infrastructure, vs. requiring new systems for RIA apps).

Fourth, RIA developers want free and open platforms.

Why free? Because developers don't want to encumber their applications with royalty bearing dependencies, or use technologies that predefine where consumers might appear. You don't build developer communities around closed source, you build user communities - and this is an instance where developer selection and adoption will define the broadest RIA marketplace. JavaFX will, like all of Sun's software platforms, be made freely available as open source, and it'll be released via the GPL (v2) license.

And lest you think free and open software is the province of those with goatees and tattoos... we're seeing a rising tide of developing nations mandating free and open software in government and academic procurement. Why? To protect choice, and build indigenous opportunity - there's no reason to build dependencies upon proprietary software if you can avoid it.

Lastly, lets face it, the real value in Web 2.0 is the data - not the app. And that data is YOURS.

If you've been watching the social media space as carefully as we have, you understand the value of instrumentation and intentionality in building a business on the web. Knowing what users are doing with your product, whether it's a fantasy cricket league or a consumer banking application, enables more innovative business models, the delivery of higher value services, placement of more valuable ads - data allows for better decisions, and better value creation (and bluntly put, higher CPA).

But most rich internet applications are built, then deployed - into a fog. Developers who leave the confines of the browser either lose access to information about what their users are doing, or have to rely upon a technology provider that's inserting itself into their data stream. And some of those technology providers compete with content developers.

With a project code named Project Insight, we'll be instrumenting the Java platform to enable developers to harvest the data stream generated by their RIA content. JavaFX developers can focus on their business models - rather than enhancing someone else's.

_______________________

With all that said, what's the success of JavaFX worth to Sun?

By definition, it's worth more to Sun than the adoption of someone else's platform (known as "positive option value") - and the proprietary infrastructure used to serve it (don't forget, RIA's have rich internet back-ends (RIBs?). And in the RIA world, all the options are going to be priced at free, anyways - this isn't a contest to be won on price.

From where I sit, the platform likely to win will be the one that sets developers free - to pursue markets, opportunities and customer experiences as they define them, not as vendors define them. Now, setting developers free - that's where we can excel. It's in the DNA of everything we do.

For developers, learn more at JavaFX.com. And be sure to check out NetBeans - like Java itself, it's starting to rock the free world...

Posted on 10:59PM May 13, 2008 | Comments[41]

Share this post  | | | | | |

OpenSolaris, Amazon, MySQL and Glassfish... Clouds Parting

We made some big announcements this week at our annual developer forums, CommunityOne and JavaOne. I thought I'd highlight a couple in particular.

We announced the first commercial release of OpenSolaris - targeting high speed developers and development teams (not consumers...). OpenSolaris focuses on developers wanting to be freed from proprietary software models, who see innovation and automation in operating systems as a source of competitive advantage.

If Solaris 10, OpenSolaris's older brother, is for IT departments prioritizing carrier grade stability over rapid innovation, OpenSolaris targets the exact opposite - developers, from high performance computing to social networking, that prioritize a constantly refreshing repository filled with community innovations (and ZFS-based automated rollback) over an unchanging qualification target. Go to OpenSolaris.com to download a free copy, or click on the OpenSolaris logo to have a bootable CD delivered to you (free of charge). Or if you want a simpler way of trying it out... just go to Amazon!

We also announced a partnership with Amazon, through which we've made OpenSolaris, alongside MySQL and Glassfish, available with commercial support on Amazon's elastic computing cloud. From where I sit, this is a profound change in the industry - the world's most popular database is now available, and commercially supported, as a cloud service. As is the fastest growing Java container, and a redefined OpenSolaris for the modern world.

The traditional software industry, first revolutionized by open source, next by software as a service, is now embarking on a third revolutionary change... infrastructure as a service.

Sure feels like the clouds are parting.

(And again, if you'd like a free copy of OpenSolaris sent to you on a bootable, "live" CD, just click on the OpenSolaris logo above.)

Posted on 10:32AM May 08, 2008 | Comments[34]

Share this post  | | | | | |

Our Q3

We announced the results of our third fiscal quarter (Q3) on Thursday last week, and the results weren't what I, or any of us, wanted.

As you can read in the press release, we delivered $3.267 billion in revenue for Q3, roughly flat with a year ago. On that revenue, we delivered a GAAP loss of 4 cents (equal to the charge associated with the acquisition of MySQL, which closed within the quarter) - on that revenue, we generated around $320m in cash.

The low light of the quarter was revenue in the US - which declined year over year by nearly 10%, a big step down for a geography that typically contributes 40% of our total revenue. The highlight of the quarter was our India performance, up 30% year over year - and our chip multi-threading Niagara systems, which grew (billings) 110%.

We had growth in 12 of 16 geographies in which we sell, but a shortfall in the world's largest economy (and the largest in Sun's portfolio), is tough to make up elsewhere. So we showed no growth at the corporate level.

Despite a weak US economy, we still see growth and opportunity across the world. We are going to be making some changes as a result of the quarter, certainly, but not in our core vision or strategic direction - network infrastructure is being built out across the world, developers will continue to define its architecture and shape demand, and we will continue to position ourselves to drive and capture that market.

With that, I'll go through a few questions:

What happened in the US?
Late in the quarter, we saw a fairly aggressive slowdown - among smaller customers, and for larger systems (like enterprise servers and large tape libraries). As you recall, we left Q2 with a healthy backlog, lots of momentum, and feedback from customers that we were totally on the right track, so we were as surprised as anyone that deals started stalling in early March.

Why did big systems slow?
It's counterintuitive, but larger systems and purchase orders's are easier to slow down than smaller purchases. When you sell the systems and storage behind a big buildout, it's typically a long selling cycle, and a fairly long implementation process (systems aren't powered up the day they arrive). So holding off for a few weeks, either because you're spooked about the US mortgage crisis or because your CFO decided to put a pause on capital spending, is fairly straightforward.

And remember, our business is a portfolio - from high growth, low end blades and training services, to slower growth, high end enterprise systems an infrastructure software. There is no one system or product for all workloads, it's a portfolio.

So how are you going to adjust going forward?
We'll continue to diversify our business - geographically, and with the introduction of our Open Storage initiatives this past week and acquisitions like MySQL and Vaau, we'll continue moving into adjacent markets.

We also announced a restructuring plan, through which we'll be making targeted reductions in operating expenses. The net result will be the elimination of up to 2,500 jobs.

To be clear - we are taking assertive, and prudent steps to focus on growth opportunities, and to pull our cost structure in line with our business model. As we've done in years past, we're doing both - making choices to invest and disinvest.

Evolving companies are never done making choices.

Where did you grow in the quarter?
In 12 of the 16 geographies we serve - including India (up 30%), Brazil (up 20%), up in China, Russia, the Middle East, Canada, to name a few places. In general, the world continues to look to technology as a source of growth, automation and efficiency. Even our Wall Street business was up this past quarter.

On the product front, our focus on energy efficiency continues to pay off, with Niagara systems grew (billings) 110% year over year, and our newest (AMD, Intel and SPARC) blade systems growing at an even higher clip. The MySQL team delivered a great growth quarter, and Service revenues were up 3% (a major portion of which are software related, of course). Disk storage billings were up 6%.

Deferred product revenues were again up nicely, more than 25% - these deferred revenues tend to be for higher end systems and more complex configurations, with gross margins above the corporate average. Deferred Services were down, attributable to the ERP transition I mentioned earlier (we expect to recover that in Q4).

What didn't go well?
Enterprise systems, which were great growers in Q1 and Q2 (20% and 8% growth, respectively), were down in the quarter - and not specifically attributable to competition. We saw exceptional performance on our APL systems built with Fujitsu, and a strengthening partnership. Tape libraries were also down, although media sales were strong.

Given the size of both these line items, our higher volume lower end businesses were not yet at a sufficient scale to eclipse the slowdown on the lower volume, high end systems.

Why don't you just stop giving your software away?

Because we prioritize developer adoption. Let me give an example.

Last week, we saw a very high profile media company raise a considerable sum of money. They had not otherwise been on our radar. I sent a note to the head of our global sales team, given the fundraising had cited a growing infrastructure buildout, and asked if we'd made contact.

He said no, but we were immediately reaching out - and it turns out they're completely built around MySQL.

So before we arrived, before we were engaged, and before they began building out a large infrastructure, the MySQL team had scored a design win - ahead of the proprietary competition. What should we have charged them beforehand? No matter what it was, they wouldn't have used the product - startups and developers don't pay for software. But here's a diffrent question: what would we have paid them to select MySQL over the proprietary alternatives before embarking on a massive expansion?

Right question. We didn't pay them, the MySQL team earned their adoption.

Will they buy a license now? Maybe not, but we'll be well positioned if and when they, like Facebook or Nokia or the New York Times, do. And in the interim, it costs us nothing for the reference. I was with a bunch of startups at our StartupCamp this morning, and asked how many folks in the audience *didn't* use free software... no hands were raised. Why are we focused on startups? Because we're focused on all developers, in big companies and small.

How do you feel about the competition?
Just fine, we looked at the deals slowing in the US, competition wasn't our big issue - it's not that someone else was getting the purchase order, it's that no PO was being issued in the quarter. We're more exposed to the US markets, and potentially more exposed to discretionary purchases (although I don't really believe that servers are more discretionary than storage - they're converging). Avnet, one of our big distributors, had a similar experience in the US.

Why didn't you pre-announce the quarter?
We wanted to be sure, when we made our announcements, to have finalized our numbers and our plan to adjust our cost structure going forward. Given we're in the midst of an ERP transition, we were still finalizing work late into April. Secondarily, we needed to review our FY 2009 restructuring plan with the board before going public. We announced as soon as we'd met, reviewed and approved the plan.

How did you lose money compared to a year ago profit?
Well, although we generated a lot of cash in the quarter (more than $320m from operating activities), we also incurred a number of charges which reduced our net income. These included non-cash items related to stock-based compensation and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets as well as other acquisition-related charges - all of which added up to 20 cents worth of charges.

Are you repurchasing your own shares?
We don't comment on buyback plans, but we'll report any potential purchases at the end of the quarter.

When will the US recover? Will the malaise spread overseas?
We build network innovation at Sun, we don't predict the global economy.

And with that, you've hopefully got a clearer sense of what we saw, and what we see. So I'll end on a particuarly vexing question,

"Why does Sun's CEO waste time writing that blog?"
Because I believe in providing clarity surrounding our strategy and operations - not just once a year in the Annual Report. I believe clarity behind our direction is useful for our shareholders, customers, partners and employees.

In good times, and in challenging ones.

________________

Safe Harbor Statement

Jonathan's blog contains forward-looking statements regarding the future results and performance of Sun including statements with respect to the effects of our restructuring plan, and expectations for deferred revenue. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ materially from those predicted in any such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in such forward-looking statements include: risks associated with developing, designing, manufacturing and distributing new products; lack of success in technological advancements; pricing pressures; lack of customer acceptance of new products; the possibility of errors or defects in new products; competition; adverse business conditions; failure to retain key employees; the cancellation or delay of projects; our reliance on single-source suppliers; risks associated with our ability to purchase a sufficient amount of components to meet demand; inventory risks; and delays in product development or customer acceptance and implementation of new products and technologies. Please also refer to Sun's periodic reports that are filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2007 and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarters ended September 30, 2007 and December 30, 2007. Sun assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update these forward-looking statements.

Posted on 03:47PM May 04, 2008 | Comments[68]

Share this post  | | | | | |

Freedom's Choice

Today is the opening day of the MySQL User Conference - so I thought I'd describe a recent customer interaction related to the acquisition.

A few weeks ago, I was visiting the Chief Information Officer of a large commercial institution. He had with him the company's Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Security Officer (known as the "see-so"), and a series of lieutenants from various parts of their (large) development organization.

The Sun team had spent the day reviewing our progress together, and was finishing up with a product roadmap presentation. From what I sensed, it'd been a good day, so when I arrived, it was mostly to say thanks for the business, and ensure everyone had my contact info in the event I could help out going forward.

We had just closed the acquisition of MySQL, so before I wrapped up, I asked, "And would you like a quick update on the newest addition to our family, MySQL?"

The CIO responded categorically with "we don't run MySQL, we run [name withheld to protect the proprietary]." The CISO said, "We can't just let developers download software off the net, you know, we've got regulation and security to worry about." The CTO smiled. Everyone else appeared to be sitting on their hands. I was going to leave it at that. Thanks for the business.

Until a (diplomatically) assertive Sun sales rep piped up, "Um... no, I connected with a buddy of mine over at MySQL, and had him check - you've downloaded MySQL more than 1,300 times in the last twelve months."

After a profoundly awkward silence, one of the individuals from their internal development team piped up, "Actually, everybody uses it. Why bother hassling with license agreements when MySQL's got you covered. We're stoked you bought them."

Awkward silences aside, we've now got a very productive engagment with the customer around delivering commercial support on a global basis to what's turned out to be the most popular database inside their development shop. They're finding more and more applications for MySQL, and more ways to save significant time and money in moving toward the future.

And that experience - of a CIO not knowing how ubiquitous and valuable free software has become to their organization - isn't atypical. In fact, it's the norm, and a divide we're gently trying to bridge.

Opportunity's everywhere.

So is free and open software.

They might even travel in pairs.

Posted on 01:14PM Apr 14, 2008 | Comments[42]

Share this post  | | | | | |

Which is the Real Poisson D'Avril?

If you'd like the backstory on the April Fool's video making its way around Sun (below)... it goes like this.

My normally trustworthy administrator let me know I had a lunch appointment with my normally trustworthy friend, Ted. So I went to a normally trustworthy restaurant, where the normally trustworthy host walked me to my table - and past a series of video cameras I foolishly didn't notice. Ted lets me know he's managed to connect with Dan, a normally trustworthy colleague, who's put him in touch with a technical expert I might be interested in meeting.

Ted lets me know the guest is flying up from Los Angeles. And that he's been in an accident that might impair his ability to speak. Pay special attention at minute five, marking the first time I've seen anyone make a chicken out of a dinner napkin.

Let me be the first to point out that the video shown was highly edited. The good (and, notwithstanding this prank, normally trustworthy) people who edited the footage exercised appropriate restraint for a global audience unaccustomed to diluvian drooling. How uncomfortable was it at the table? Having watched the unedited version with a Sun colleague before it was posted externally, she remarked, "Look how well your Mother raised you, you didn't even stare."

On a far more civil note, Sun's headquarters were also attacked by a herd of squeaky dolphins yesterday, swimming in formation from right to left... rumor has it they were on their way to meet with a representative of their community who now leads our database business.

Oh, and Bill Macgowan is still at Sun.

I hold him personally responsible for my designation as the real poisson d'avril (dolphins aren't fish, after all, they're mammals), and I'll forever view him with a lingering suspicion... but he's still here.

Posted on 02:44PM Apr 02, 2008 | Comments[19]

Share this post  | | | | | |

Give it Back.

As you know, Sun's open source software and microprocessor strategy has been, at times controversial. We've filled trade journals and chat rooms with all kinds of dialog and the occasional crackpot conspiracy theory.

As many have rightly assumed from the outset, that controversy was, in fact, not a byproduct of the strategy - it was the strategy: if you're talking about Sun, you're not talking about the other guy. And then you'll buy a datacenter.

But now that we've firmly established our reputation for open source leadership, I'm very worried there's no more controversy to be had. There's too much trust in the system, and too much clarity around our strategic intent. So it's getting tougher and tougher to kick up a storm - and we can't very well spend a billion dollars or change our ticker symbol every time we want to generate a headline. Now can we?

So today I'd like to unfurl the second chapter of our strategy.

We want you to give it all back. You couldn't possibly believe we'd let you keep it, did you?

We specifically request that all free software originally distributed by Sun Microsystems, related to software or microprocessors, including but not limited to source files, binaries, derivatives, extensions, applications, patents, patent applications, copyrights, ideas, thoughts, and derivative thoughts, along with any and all mirrors thereof, be returned immediately.

In addition, (we know this is the risky part, but we need to get the privacy advocates twittering, too), we demand all data processed, stored or created by such intellectual property, up to and including all data held within file systems, databases or open source productivity applications be returned, as well. Up to and including the book report your kid just typed on OpenOffice.

We'd like to request this all be returned within thirty days.

Thank you for your understanding.

______________________________

And although it pains me to say this, we do live in a litigious society, so: YES, this is an April Fool's joke, as defined by relevant sections of the United States Securities Act of 1933.

Posted on 12:35PM Apr 01, 2008 | Comments[36]

Share this post  | | | | | |

Do I Still Have a Job?

This is Bill Macgowan.

Bill is Sun's Chief Human Resources Officer.

Which means he works with me to build and cultivate talent at Sun.

He's bright, well spoken, and usually exercises good judgement.

Usually.

But today, he perpetrated a prank. On me. An April Fool's Day prank.

Executed early enough to turn into a video for the enjoyment of Sun's employees on Tuesday (April Fool's Day). And if I have the courage to publicly display my gullibility, it'll be here, on this blog, in front of a global audience.

The prank, like any good Silicon Valley practical joke, involved a venture capitalist, a drooling visitor, a bib and lamb chops.

Owing to the graciousness with which my parents raised me, I suffered through the prank. Without staring. Focused on the business at hand.

Having no idea it was a prank.

Until all the camera men appeared. At which point I picked up on the notion something wasn't quite right. I had been spoofed.

Upon my humbling return from lunch, Bill caught me in the hallway. He asked, with his ill-gotten video in hand, "so do I still have a job?"

And I have until Tuesday to think up a creative response.

Remember, my office mate is the CFO, and the General Counsel writes a blog. Surely there's an opportunity for clever repartee.

Surely :)

Posted on 07:00PM Mar 28, 2008 | Comments[31]

Share this post  | | | | | |

OpenSolaris, Security and the NSA (National Security Agency)

We made a very significant announcement last week, of a collaboration with one of the most (if not the most) security sensitive institutions on earth, the United States government's National Security Agency. They've joined the burgeoning OpenSolaris community, to collaborate with Sun and other community members on the future of ultra-secure operating systems.

To put this in context, community engagement has always been one of the most important ways Sun innovates in the marketplace - we partner with those that have extreme demands (whether it's the world's largest supercomputing facility, or the world's most paranoid security professionals (no offense intended), or the world's largest archival storage facilities), and then we leverage that expertise to create products for the mass market. We let extreme customers teach us what the rest of the world will ultimately experience.

Nine times out of ten, what extreme customers experience is a great leading indicator for the industry as a whole.

Historically, this type of collaboration used to involve reams and reams of legal documents describing all kinds of confidentiality restrictions, intellectual property exchanges, or cumbersome institutional processes. But it got really simple when we embraced the open source community - now our most fruitful collaborations boil down to this: "come join the community." And that's exactly what we're announcing with the National Security Agency, they've joined the OpenSolaris community.

And rather than walk through the details of our collaboration, I figured I'd have Bill Vass, the president of Sun's Federal Systems Group do all the heavy lifting - so I sent him a bunch of questions, and thought I'd post the resulting Q&A. His responses are below.

So Bill, what did we announce?
That we've formalized a relationship with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) to incorporate their security research into an OpenSolaris community project called Flexible Mandatory Access Control (FMAC). The press release for the project is available here.

What's Flexible Mandatory Access Control (FMAC)?
First, Mandatory Access Control (MAC) is a mechanism generally implemented in the operating system that provides unbypassable restrictions over system privileges. MAC's exists so that not just anyone, for example, can look at your passport file without permission, or turn off a machine in mission critical deployment. MAC is all about managing privileges.

But when it comes to MAC, there isn't one size that fits all, so that's where the flexible part comes in. An installation's security goals can vary based upon the value of its information assets or systems, and the methods used to protect them. By allowing flexibility, the security policy can be described to meet the actual needs for access control based upon an extensible enforcement model.

Thus, Flexible Mandatory Access Controls - you can read more about FMAC here. FMAC isn't just a government issue, of course, it's just as much an issue for a social networking site, or a bank - everyone wants simplified, easy to use access controls, consumers and corporations, too.

Who's involved in the project?
Sun and the NSA are jointly working in the OpenSolaris community, and we're inviting broad participation - one of the great benefits of being an open source company is that Sun can innovate out in the open, within a very large community. For security technologies in particular, transparency of development is absolutely vital, even for the NSA - you can't sneak trojan horses into open source platforms. So open source allows high security customers to trust vendors *and* verify.

This collaboration is a great endorsement for the integrity of the OpenSolaris community among government users focused on technical and commercial progress.

So why did the NSA select Sun?
Security and performance are really the core of our relationship with governments around the world. We've been focused on security since our inception, and we've got more than 20 years experience in the trusted operating system business (remember, Trusted Solaris spawned from collaboration with the US government about a decade ago).

Our security technologies touch everything from the SIM card in your cell phone, to the identity management platforms at the heart of some of the world's largest web services - and Solaris has long been recognized as the most secure open source OS in deployment, from battlefields to command and control systems. So this seemed like a natural partnership to us.

You mentioned something about integrating NSA security research?
Yes, we are investigating how the NSA research on Flux Advanced Security Kernel (FLASK) architecture and type enforcement (TE) policy can be combined with our Solaris Trusted Extensions technology. They're potentially complementary, and we think we can leverage that in the delivery of a fully open source application stack - from MySQL through Glassfish/Java, and up to the user.

The Flask architecture separates policy enforcement from the policy itself. Policies can be modified without needing to change the enforcement "hooks" in the operating environment, which makes life a lot easier for security administrators, and makes the systems more flexible and useful.

Type Enforcement policy allows for very fine-grained access control that can be used to to protect against malicious software.

Why are we embarking on this work with the NSA?
We've received requests for a Flask/TE based implementation in Solaris from a number of government customers. And now that we have Solaris Trusted Extensions out the door, it's a great time to start looking toward the future. We already have a great Multilevel Security (MLS) infrastructure with Solaris Trusted Extensions but the value of the combined technologies may provide a single extensible platform that can be used to protect sensitive government information, along with mainstream enterprises, and ultimately, even consumer electronics like your phone or digital video recorder.

What audience does FMAC address?
Like I said above, MAC based systems are used primarily by governments. Our goal moving forward is to make technologies such as FMAC more accessible to commercial markets, from startups to big enterprises. Governments tend to be good leading indicators for broader commercial security concerns.

High security used to be esoteric, now it's essential - for the US government, for international governments, and most importantly, for users.

Is this limited to the US?
Nope. It's an OpenSolaris project and we want the global community to help drive it forward. If others want to collaborate, just create an account on opensolaris.org and join in.

If someone wants to get a hold of your team to talk about FMAC in the open source community, what should they do?
Just send me an email, bill.vass@sun.com. We've got lots of folks in Washington, DC, as well as contacts around the world, who can help organizations understand security and open source, and understand how to join the community to collaborate around security innovation. Now's the time, join in!

Thanks, Bill. Much appreciated.
You're very welcome. ADDITION: if any of your readers are local to Silicon Valley, and would like to hear Sun's lead John Weeks discuss Flask/TE and the OpenSolaris collaboration project, you might stop in on us in at Sun's Santa Clara campus at 7:30p. If not, I'll post a video of the session so interested parties can share their insights.

Posted on 09:35AM Mar 25, 2008 | Comments[21]

Share this post  | | | | | |

The World's Largest Supercomputing Cloud

I had no idea the Hubble telescope could see only 12 billion years into the past.

Frankly, I'd never really thought about telescopes looking into the past until Dr. Michael Norman, a researcher from UCSD gave me a basic education in astronomy - and explained the Hubble looks at celestial bodies whose light is just now reaching us. But it can "only" see 12 billion years into the past - and that was a veil he'd like to pierce. (I asked him what he did for a living, he said, "I simulate the universe." Trump that job description.)

The question he was interested in answering was, "what about the prior 1.7 billion years?" The universe is roughly 13.7 billion years old, and given the Hubble's limits, he was using the world's largest supercomputer, the Ranger platform at the University of Texas at Austin's TACC (Texas Advanced Computer Center) to simulate the prior 1.7 billion years. (He later confided he was most interested in the prior 1.5 billion years, the first 200-300 million were characterized by lots of hydrogen fog, yet to clump into the wells that enable stars to be born.)

I was asked to give a keynote to celebrate Ranger's opening, and this was only one example of the flood of basic research and science that will now be performed on the world's largest open computing platform. Open? The facility was funded by the National Science Foundation, and is committed to providing large scale supercomputing as a service to any researcher or scientist within the US (submit proposals here). Ranger is built entirely on Sun - to dip into geekspeak for a moment, here are the stats:

• In around 6,000 square feet datacenter space, consuming less than 3 Megawatts...
• More than 4000 quad core Sun/Opteron blades, 120+ Tb of DRAM, running CentOS
• Delivering more than 500 teraflops computing capacity
• Jobs scheduled by Sun's Grid Engine
• Interconnected by two, 100 terabit non-blocking Magnum switches (horns optional)
• Data managed by the Lustre file system, on Thumpers
• More than 2 petabytes of storage
• Managed by our hierarchical data management SAM-FS product, archived to Sun tape platforms
• With overall systems managed and monitored by xVM OpsCenter (the world's largest installation).

An enormous amount of engineering went into the construction of the facility and the technology behind it, which Sun can now replicate across the world in smaller (and larger, of course) installations (public and commercial). Beyond governments and research facilities, Industries across the planet are turning to high performance computing for business advantage, not simply scientific endeavor. This system consumes a fraction of the power budget required just a few years ago - making it among the greenest supercomputing facilities on earth, too.

To give you a sense of how significant Ranger actually is, check out this chart (click for live version):

Ranger's capacity exceeds that of all other National Science Foundation granted supercomputing facilities combined. When they say big in Texas, they mean big.

As the director of Cyberinfrastructure at the NSF pointed out during his congratulatory speech, computational simulation is now considered a legitimate field of scientific exploration. From drug discovery to climate modeling, fluid dynamics to simulating the universe, epidemiology to materials science - a facility of this size will revolutionize science, in the US and across the world. To date, there are already more than 500 research projects using Ranger - it's already changing the world. And because it's part of the NSF Teragrid, output from the studies will be shared throughout the world. Open means open. Jay Boisseau, TACC's director, let me know they're dangerously close to receiving more applications for time on Ranger (they have about 500 million cpu hours to allocate each year, or 125m/quarter) than they have available. For folks like Jay and Dr.Norman, increasing capacity increases appetite - unlike much of enterprise computing, where surpluses are often consolidated away (the heart of Greg's redshift theory).

How did Ranger come together? It resulted from a commitment to basic science from the National Science Foundation, a passionate set of people at the University of Texas, inspired by a driven technical leader in Jay, commitments from an exceptional (truly exceptional) team of TACC, Sun and AMD employees, with all three groups in a mad scramble to stand up the facility in record time - as the world's largest open supercomputing facility. The world's largest, by a factor of 4.

Ranger will transform academia, industry and ultimately society. Why do I believe that?

As I pointed out during my speech, there was a point at which the Niagara Falls power plant in the United States supplied fully 30% of America's electrical requirements. The engineering and basic science that went into that work parallels the work required to build Ranger. It was truly fundamental research.

Did electricity transform society? Unquestionably. Will knowing what happened in the first 1.7 billion years of the universe transform our lives? We don't know yet. That's what Dr. Norman is figuring out. A question Sun, AMD and the University of Texas researcher will now be able to help him answer. With a platform Sun will now be making generally available to the commercial market. (I was going to write something like "parting the clouds of cloud computing," but even I winced when I read that.)

__________________

(For those interested, this is a great summary of Dr. Norman's approach to computational astrophysics - notably, like pretty much all the work I'm seeing in high performance computing across the world...

...predicated upon free and open source software.)

Posted on 04:00AM Mar 03, 2008 | Comments[41]

Share this post  | | | | | |

MySQL is Officially a Part of Sun

Today, Sun announced we've closed the acquisition of MySQL - MySQL is now officially a part of Sun! From a dinner meeting back in late November, through some introspection from MySQL's CEO, to a closing today in late February - everyone involved showed a great sense of pace, urgency and excitement. And now, it's off to the races!

Since the announcement, I've seen and heard near universal support for the relationship - most everyone wants to know where we're headed, so here's a quick overview of our initial plans.

Starting today, we're rolling out global programs to raise awareness and adoption of MySQL among more established enterprises - you'll see ads like this (to the right) targeting institutions and independent software/service vendors (ISV's) looking to standardize on open source architectures. As the ad highlights, we're introducing global, enterprise support programs for MySQL - offering the largest institutions on earth a new option in mission critical deployment. We are going all out to sign up new customers, extending MySQL's reach.

The overall message is simple: we're bringing our largest customers the innovation and performance the world's most important on-line companies are already experiencing - giving them the option of putting MySQL into global, mission critical deployment.

Internally, the more than 10,000 people that make up the Sun engineering community - of which the MySQL team is now a core part - have begun to engage across a dizzying array of touchpoints. From diagnostics and technical integration, to performance engineering, hardware and software optimization and, leveraging our large scale benchmarking facilities, going after a few more world records. A breadth of projects are underway to enhance the value MySQL can deliver in a diversity of settings - and we'll work hard to ensure MySQL flies like a dolphin on Linux, Windows and Solaris, and on systems built by Dell, IBM, HP, Intel, AMD, Sun, Fujitsu (ie, everyone).

As importantly, our market development teams are also spooling up - to assist ISV's who rely upon MySQL (along with those that are newly interested in doing so) with the engineering, marketing and sales support they require. Functionality aside, what matters most to ISV's is ready access to markets and customers - what's known as "go to market" partnering with ISV's has always been a long suit for Sun. So over the next few months, you'll start to see a parade of new wins - which we'll be winning with ISV's, and with partners, arm in arm, across the world.

The big MySQL user conference is coming up, too - to which I'd like to invite all interested in the future of MySQL (partners, ISV's, customers, developers, all). You can get more information here.

Now, although the feedback has been hugely positive, across the globe, there have been a couple snarky comments from a cynic here and there, whose concerns I thought I'd put to rest right here, once and for all.

There are still folks in the world who don't believe there's an economic model behind open source - they thus believe $1 billion is an outlandish price to pay for MySQL. The most extreme among them see Linux, OpenSolaris or companies like SugarCRM as nothing more than playgrounds for hobbyists.

Most of the IT world knows quite the opposite.

Companies that freely distribute their products, rather than limit access via pricing or proprietary licensing, are simply prioritizing adoption over immediate revenue - a good example of this is Microsoft's recent attempt to revive adoption of their developer tools in universities by lowering some prices to free.

There is a clear economic model behind open source, eloquently summarized by Marten Mickos, MySQL's CEO: the spectrum describing the marketplace spans those with more time than money, who form the user and developer communities around free software; and those with more money than time, who purchase commercial support contracts typically in more mature enterprises. To win in the long run, you have to win on both sides of the spectrum - with the same product. Crippling products, or sneaky licensing exceptions don't work - freedom does.

In terms of the price we paid for MySQL (roughly $800m in cash, $200m in assumed options), we thought about it this way - first, the standalone business, unenhanced by Sun, was on a ramp to an IPO. The IPO would've been priced, by our calculations, at near the purchase price we paid. Remember, we're buying a financial asset as well as a strategic one. We paid a control premium to convince their board to go with Sun, obviously. But then we figured we could amplify their success as a software company by aligning with Sun's 17,000+ person global sales/service/support/channel organization - we can together reach a far broader customer set than MySQL could on their own, which generates upside for Sun. And, although a small (but growing) percentage of their downloads convert to purchase orders, 100% of those downloads require a hardware purchase - for many, a server and storage device (for just as many, a laptop). We'd like to believe we can earn some of that business with solutions optimized for MySQL - even if the end customer isn't (yet) paying for software.

Finally, remember that database licenses often make up a considerable part of any company's budget - to the extent we can introduce new options for those customers (even via the appearance of a well designed coffee mug on the procurement agent's desk), we can free up budgets for new investments. Which drives more customers to seek out Sun - vendors that save money with better performance are well liked.

Net/net, we believe we paid a fair price (and all that said, remember, we're not a monopsony).

Now, another concern forwarded to me was the conspiracy theory that wondered... as soon as a big company owns MySQL, surely they'll adopt a nefarious proprietary license that levies extortionate rents for the simple act of storing and retrieving data?

Anyone who thinks that hasn't be following Sun of late.

One reason the integration of Sun and MySQL has gone so smoothly is our development and business models are nearly identical - we both invest in very high quality free software and the cultivation of large communities, then turn our efforts to monetize at the point of value for companies that want commercial support. We're peas in a pod.

And to prove the point - I would like to formally invite you to try MySQL, with a free download (just click the logo). While you're at it, why not give Glassfish and NetBeans a swim around the tank, too... Web developers never had it so good...

It's truly a great day for free software - and for the growing majority of companies across the globe that look to open solutions for choice, value and innovation.

I hope to see many of you at the MySQL Conference! I'm quite confident it's going to be an interesting event for everyone.

Posted on 07:50AM Feb 26, 2008 | Comments[54]

Share this post  | | | | | |

What I Said at our Analyst Conference...

Last week, we held a conference for leading financial and industry analysts from around the world. My keynote presentation is below - broken into two parts for ease of viewing. One analyst remarked, "but this is pretty much what you said last year."

I responded with, "That's the point."

If you'd like more specifics on our financial performance (directly from Mike Lehman, our CFO), views from the marketplace (from Don Grantham, our Global Sales and Services) or specific product roadmaps (from the heads of our Systems or Software businesses), just click here...)

Posted on 11:53PM Feb 13, 2008 | Comments[24]

Share this post  | | | | | |