主题：【业届消息】SUN, McNealy又站起来乐! -- 丁不二

Sun's McNealy Shifts From CEO to Pitchman; Sales Rise (Update1)

By Connie Guglielmo

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Sun Microsystems Inc. founder Scott McNealy took on a new role when he quit as chief executive officer in April: corporate pitchman.

His new job may be paying off. Sun, the third-largest U.S. seller of computers that run Web sites and corporate networks, last week reported a 17 percent jump in first-quarter sales.

McNealy, who stepped down after five years of losses, said he has traveled 75,000 miles, visiting a customer a day, since passing the top job to protégé Jonathan Schwartz. Sun, which dominated during the technology boom in the 1990s, has struggled for clients since then as companies such as Dell Inc. offered cheaper machines.

``During the dot-com era, the Sun rep would call and the customer would say `Come in. I want to talk to you.' Now they say, `I don't even want to see you,''' McNealy, clad in his usual jeans and sneakers, said in an interview last month at Sun's campus in East Menlo Park, California. ``It takes somebody like me to go get in, which they do as a courtesy, and then we lay it on.''

McNealy, 51, has new products to pitch. Sun spent the past year buying companies, adding technology and reviving a product line that McNealy says lagged behind those of rivals. Schwartz meantime is cutting 5,000 jobs and closing offices.

Sales, Shares Rise

Sun posted the biggest sales gain among server makers in the past two quarters and vaulted over Dell to retake the third-place ranking it lost last year, according to research firm IDC of Framingham, Massachusetts.

The company's shares rose 6 cents to $5.56 at 12:02 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. They reached a one-year high Oct. 27 and have gained 10 percent since McNealy handed the top job to the 41-year-old Schwartz. The Standard & Poor's Information Technology Index has lost 0.6 percent in that period.

Known for his cockiness and jibes about competitors -- he called the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ``whacko'' and Microsoft's Windows a ``hairball'' -- McNealy is better suited to spokesman than CEO, analysts said.

``His weakness as a CEO is that he was stuck in a business model that he was invested in,'' said Michael Cohen, research director at San Diego-based Pacific American Securities, who personally owns Sun shares. ``The market changed.''

Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Steven Milunovich became so concerned about McNealy that he told investors in 2003 that the CEO was steering Sun toward ``a ravine filled with carcasses.'' He said McNealy's ``brash and contrarian'' personality was getting in the way.

`Enormous Sense'

McNealy's new position makes sense, said John Doerr, one of the earliest Sun investors and a director.

``He is the very best at consultative selling: cultivate a relationship, understand and solve a problem, earn and win the business,'' said Doerr, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park, California. ``The role makes enormous sense.''

To keep momentum, global sales chief Don Grantham has put together a list of the top 53 customers for McNealy to pitch, including AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. telephone carrier, and General Electric Co.

``We have a lot of faith in Sun's product set and strategy, and we're certainly putting effort and money into this relationship, more than we have in the past,'' Don Rippert, chief technology officer of Accenture Ltd., said after the consulting firm expanded its partnership on Sept. 13 to develop technology with Sun. ``Their message is definitely getting clearly through to customers.''

So far, McNealy said, he's happy not to have the job of ``CEO Pinata.''

At a developers conference in May, he offered a list of the ``Top 10 Best Things About Not Being CEO.'' They included ``I don't have to apologize for stuff I say to Wall Street'' and ``I have someone to blame.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at [email protected]

Last Updated: October 30, 2006 12:04 EST