I read today that Robert Youngjohns, former VP of Sun UK and ultimately senior VP of global sales for Sun, has just joined Microsoft as president of sales for their US and Canada operation.
Robert joined Sun shortly after I did in 1995. He had a knack of being able to impress any audience by finding a way to talk on their level about subjects that mattered to them. Shortly after joining the company Robert presented at the UK Systems Engineering meeting to Sun's pre-sales technical community. At the time all of our systems, network and PC management software products had been brought together under the "Solstice" umbrella. Robert started to talk to us about the Solstice products saying "These Solstice products are a great example of software integration....", he paused then continued "at the brochure level". Robert Youngjohns won 120 new friends that day.
I wonder if he will find the same thing at Microsoft?
Excellent. I have a similar one on stock prices... Robert was the VP wheeled in to be The Face Of Management at my iPlanet induction workshop. Sun had just announced a 2:1 stock split, and someone asked how soon Robert thought the price would re-gain its pre-split level.
He thought for a second or so and said "I think the market's already made that correction".
;^)
Posted by Robin Wilton on July 30, 2008 at 11:04 AM BST #