McNealy to Ellison: How to duck death by open source

"Let's forget the last few years ever happened — the last five, at least. Possibly 10. In the 1980s Sun Microsystems was on fire.

"Founded in 1982, Sun raked in so much money that it broke the psychologically important $1bn sales barrier in six years. It took Microsoft 15 years to hit $1bn — six if your starting point is the date Microsoft was incorporated. Oracle — up the road from Sun — took 14 years.

"Sun was the fastest growing US company between 1985 and 1989, according to Forbes, and supplied the entire US government with more than half its workstations nine years after starting."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• And Then There Was One: Red Hat(Dec 07, 2010)
• Scott McNealy defends Oracle CEO from criticism(Nov 05, 2010)
• End of days for Sun(Aug 15, 2009)
• Slicing up Sun(Dec 04, 2008)
• Java and Linux - an Open Marriage in Search of Success(Dec 02, 2008)
• McNealy: "We Invented Open Source, Gang"(Jun 26, 2008)