I am forwarding this not because Sun (the company) is particularly leftist (and Scott McNealy definitely is not). My intention is to hopefully trigger some curiosity among non-techies about recent Internet history (1985 and later), and the vital role that Sun (a company that I greatly admire for its technical output) played in it. As the piece below notes, starting with their seminal "The Network is the Computer" approach, Sun got it right almost each time (it mattered) through the 90s.
--ravi
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_19/b3983043.htm
> McNealy's Greatests Hits -- And Misses Sun's outgoing CEO shaped the
> Internet Economy, but his company hasn't thrived there
>
> No one on Wall Street shed tears when Scott G. McNealy announced he
> was stepping down as CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW ) on Apr. 24.
> The stock zoomed 8%, to its highest level in more than a year.
> McNealy's hand-picked replacement, Jonathan Schwartz, offered
> admiring comments. Otherwise, few tributes were made to one of tech's
> most influential and charismatic characters -- just lots of talk
> about Sun's bloated costs and weak server sales.
>
> That's unfortunate. McNealy is the rare executive who shaped an era.
> He envisioned and set the tone for the Internet Economy, and his
> stubbornness -- and over-the-top showmanship -- cleared the way for
> some amazing accomplishments. The problem is, having helped built
> that world, McNealy never figured out how to thrive in it.
>
> When he began proclaiming that "the network is the computer" back in
> the mid-1980s, McNealy helped marshal the energies of thousands of
> startup companies -- at a time when IBM and Microsoft (MSFT ) were
> making great strides in locking customers into using their mainframes
> and PC operating software. His key point was that the greatest value
> comes not from what can be done with a particular machine but from
> what happens when all manner of devices can tap each other's smarts.
>
> It wasn't just a slogan. [...]
>
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