Comment Articles

Should McNealy step down?

David Berlind ZDNet.com

Published: 27 Oct 2003 16:10 GMT

Gartner's Fall Symposium in Orlando, Florida. Sunshine, palm trees, Mickey Mouse and a re-casting of old computing themes in new names. There's also the perennial cavalcade of executive keynotes from industry heavyweights: Intel's Craig Barrett, HP's Carly Fiorina, MCI's Michael Capellas, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Sun's Scott McNealy.

Barrett, Ballmer, Fiorina and Capellas were present and accounted for, but no McNealy this year. No calling Microsoft a "hairball" or IBM a company that wants to "Hoover your wallet." Scott's absence at the event was noted by many attendees. What could be more important, at this critical point in time for Sun, than the opportunity to communicate his vision for turning Sun around to 6,000 important (or potential) customers? There are attendees here that allegedly pay $86,000 a year just to be a part of Gartner's most elite group of pampered CIOs and get access to the industry heavyweights.

According to a Gartner spokesperson, "Scott couldn't make it. There was a conflict in his schedule, perhaps due to the fact that the conference is being run a week later than it is normally run each October." But when asked the same question, Sun's spokespeople were mum. A search of the Web revealed no record of any public appearances this week. For as long as the agenda for the event has been published, his name hasn't been on the docket.

If there's any question about his priorities, then that question is probably reflected in the next question I'm hearing from several sources: is it time for McNealy to step aside?

It has been a few weeks since Merrill Lynch analyst Steve Milunovich wrote a note to that firm's clients in the form of an open letter to Sun's CEO Scott McNealy. The note was sent in response to one of the worst revelations in Sun's 21-year history regarding the company's performance. Those revelations officially materialised in last week's reporting of Sun's quarterly performance, which McNealy addressed by saying "We're doing our best to be a disruptive innovator. We think it's working. It's not showing up in the numbers, and we're not happy with that."