Interview: Sun shines over Linux

HE’S BACK. TIMES are tough and Sun has missed the boat on several key industry trends. But Scott McNealy is clearly back in charge of strategic decisions as the CEO of Sun. In an interview with InfoWorld Editor in Chief Michael Vizard and Test Center Director Steve Gillmor at LinuxWorld Expo, McNealy talked candidly about Sun server missteps, the company’s push into Linux, and his commitment to open computing in the face of what he calls an industry oligarchy known as the Web Service Interoperability (WS-I) organization.

InfoWorld: With your drive to adopt Linux on Intel servers, it kind of sounds like you just discovered 32-bit computing. Sun was a pioneer in 32-bit computing, so why now the emphasis there after pushing the value of 64-bit computing for the past several years?

McNealy: The first version of Sparc processors were 32 bit. But the whole Sun strategy was a 64-bit architecture, so we went 100 percent to 64 bit. We just kind of forgot. We didn’t forget the 16-bit, 8-bit or 4-bit environment with Java Cards, ME [Micro Edition], and SE [Standard Edition] and all the rest of it. But what snuck up on us is that servers moved out of the server room. They moved out to the edge of the server room and out to the edge of the network.

InfoWorld: Does that mean Sun was exclusively focused on datacenters?

McNealy: It’s not exactly like we missed the 32-bit uniprocessor space. We’ve been competing in that 32-bit space with a 64-bit overhead. It costs extra to have 64 bits versus 32, and it costs extra to have scalability to a 100-way or a 1,000-way when they’re only scaling to two-way. But even with that extra cost we’ve still been very compelling with our products in that space. But now we just decided, why not take the overhead off and run Solaris or Linux on that environment and take advantage of the Linux lifestyle, too?

InfoWorld: Now that you have embraced Linux, how do you remain credible given the perception of Sun in that community prior to last week’s announcements?

McNealy: I’m a believer in intellectual property ownership and intellectual property rights. I’m always saying that, but I’m also saying we’ll live the Linux lifestyle in a whole bunch of places. I believe there are multiple systems that can work and will work and need to work and have to exist. As for Linux, we have been peeing in every corner of this opportunity. We have marked our territory. We have donated spews of code to the whole Linux thing. I think IBM and HP are scared to death that people will understand how powerful we are in this community.

InfoWorld: You also seem to be saying that Linux is limited to two-way processors and 32-bit computing. Is that going to be the case forever?

McNealy: At some point when you go eight-way or 16-way, you’re dealing with large address spaces and you want 64 bit because of the large data sets you’re working with. Intel doesn’t go there and we own that space already with a compatible Sun ONE platform. So it doesn’t make sense to go do things that you already have. And, by the way, from a price-performance perspective there’s nobody close. Will the Linux Standard Base ever go 64 bit? I’m sure it will at some point. We have talked about the fact that we want to make Solaris LSB -compliant. Is that a Linux then? They’re both LSB-compliant if it’s truly open.

InfoWorld: How does embracing Linux and bundling products such as the mySQL database with Linux affect your relationship with partners such as Oracle?

McNealy: Oracle is embracing Linux and we’re embracing mySQL. I don’t know that there is any issue. To say that Linux is a threat to Solaris is like saying mySQL is a threat to Oracle 9i. If you look and you ask [Oracle CEO] Larry Ellison, he’ll tell you he has two platforms: Linux and Solaris. Those are his two platforms. You know what? Those are ours — not a problem.

InfoWorld: You want to be seen as a steward of Linux. Why should we trust Sun?

McNealy: We’ve been the driver for 20 years for Unix, and even though USL tried to be the benevolent dictator, they were incompetent. We ended up taking over and we ended up driving the standard and we never closed up one API on Solaris, even though we now ship all the other Unix systems combined by a big number. We have never taken it proprietary. We’ve got a dominant position in Unix today, and we’ve never done anything to take advantage of that. We’ve never crossed the line. We’ve stayed true. We’ve stayed on a level playing field.

InfoWorld: Some competitors, especially the founders of the WS-I, would say you stacked the deck when it came to Java and the Java Community Process. How would you respond?

McNealy: There is nobody who can complain. There is a whole bunch of Java envy because there is a halo effect to being a benevolent, competent dictator in the community. Customer community, shareholder community, all kinds of community. So there are a lot of people upset about that, but they’re only upset that we’re doing a competent and benevolent job. Anytime anybody has had a real factual beef, we fixed it. I haven’t had anybody send me an e-mail saying we’ve stacked it in three years. So if someone has got a beef, send it to me and I’ll fix it. We’ve had IBM running JCP [Java Community Process]. We’ve had more competitors running JSRs [Java Specification Requests] than you can shake a stick at.

InfoWorld: What’s your take on WS-I and Sun’s role in the development of Web services standards?

McNealy: We don’t have to be in every standard. Let other people do the work. We’ll go implement. It’s expensive, hard work. I’m happy to go second as long as it is royalty-free.

InfoWorld: How do you make sure it is royalty-free?

McNealy: If we think things aren’t going fast enough, we’ll introduce our answer and that will force them to do their answer and open it up. If they do the answer, we’ll join it and make it happen faster. As long as they’re royalty-free, we’ll do it. At some point, this stuff gets opened up. We believe the puck’s always coming to you if you endorse open interfaces and the puck’s always running away from you if you go proprietary.

InfoWorld: The common wisdom is that hardware companies can’t sell software because hardware is a commodity and software is a separate long-term investment. How does Sun compete as a combined hardware and software entity against Intel and Microsoft?

McNealy: Only in the computer business do we have that disaster because I’ve never bought my hardware separate from my software anywhere else. My digital watch has software embedded. You’ve got a hundred microprocessors in your automobile. There are billions of microprocessors shipped in the world all with the software embedded. Only in the Intel world do you buy software separately because you’re deciding on Windows or not. But you don’t go out and buy your call-forwarding software separately from your telephone switch. That’s why I call application servers a feature as opposed to an industry. It’s a feature, not an industry. You don’t go buy your operating system separate from your computer. It’s ridiculous.

InfoWorld: For a long time the prevailing wisdom was, I can have a thin client that was weak or I could have a rich client that was thick. We’re getting to the point where we can now have both thin and rich client environments.

McNealy: My Sun Ray is as thin as you get. No disk, no CD, no floppy, no LAN, no OS, nothing. Stick your Smart Card in and it downloads your fully rendered desktop out over the network from a server to wherever you are. When I’m on a plane all I do is take a browser and a laptop, go into that same server room and download anything I want, and then, when I disconnect, I can operate, and then I resync when I land. This environment that I have today is absolutely rich. StarOffice. If you guys were to send me a Microsoft Office document, I just click on it and up pops StarOffice and it renders the document.

InfoWorld: So at the end of the day when people think about Sun, what should come to mind?

McNealy: This company is all about being a valued engineered company. It ain’t for the weak of heart and it ain’t for the short-timer. It’s for people who want to be in this thing for the long term. It’s working well and it’s a lot more fun right now. It’s a really tough environment but it’s a lot more fun. I’ve always been in charge, I just have more control now because we’ve flattened the organization.