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#73314 in Audible 2001-08-10Format: UnabridgedOriginal language:EnglishRunning time: 534 minutes | File size: 75.Mb

Karen Southwick : High Noon: The Inside Story of Scott McNealy and the Rise of Sun Microsystems before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised High Noon: The Inside Story of Scott McNealy and the Rise of Sun Microsystems:

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Not as insightful as I had hopedBy Bas VoddeI had high hoped for high noon. I regularly read company biographies and Sun was an very interesting company (before Oracle swallowed them). However, I ended up a bit unsatisfied. Yes, it had some interesting inside stories, but overall it felt shallow and too much Microsoft focused. It is also interesting that the book got published in 1999 which was probably still the best period for Sun, after which things turned worst and they eventually got eaten up by their large partner...The book has 12 chapters, each describing a period of Sun's company history. There is actually not that much about the early years, except that it explains how Sun was founded, how Scott McNealy got into power at Sun and how is defeated their major competitors and grew to a large company.Also already some of the early chapters, unfortunately, there is a lot of focus on Sun vs. Microsoft. I mean, Sun vs. Microsoft is definitively interesting and worth a chapter, but I didn't felt it needed to be mentioned again and again and again. Especially in the earlier chapters, it disappointed me.The chapters that interested me most were the ones where the author described how Sun created their major innovations: Spark, Solaris, . The major drawback of the stories was that both the inside stories and the technical details were sort-of missing. It was still interesting, yet it could have been a lot better.The later chapters nearly only focus on Microsoft vs. Sun and that got a bit boring. The book ends up trying to predict the future of Sun, which was insightful yet a bit off the mark.All in all, the book was ok. It wasn't bad and I enjoyed reading it. Yet, I wouldn't recommend it as I had wished a less MS focused and more inside-story version of the history of Sun. So, 3 stars... just ok.20 of 21 people found the following review helpful. Sun deserves more creditBy Ken StephensI found this book interesting, and for the most part factual, or at least consistant with my knowledge of the industry and Sun's history. I was hoping to get more biographical infomation on Scott McNealy. I felt mislead by the cover as the book doesn't really give any "inside story" of Scott McNealy. While the book does tell an interesting story on "the rise of Sun Microsystems", I think the book comes across as biased against Sun in regards to its struggles against the competition. The industry changes quickly and prehaps things have changed since this book was written. It appeared to me that the author was implying that Sun was standing still with Solaris and trying to buy time until NT overtook Solaris. It is my professional opinion that Sun is improving the Solaris operating system and the Ultra Sparc hardware at a faster rate than Microsoft is getting NT ready for prime time. I don't see Sun facing much competition from Compaq or Dell, even when and if the Merced chip arrives. The author states in the final pages of the book that Sun needs to focus on beating IBM. I have worked in a large IBM Mainframe shop for 15 years. What I see is more and more work being offloaded from the IBM mainframes to the Sun/Solaris servers. I think IBM will beat itself as far as competing with Sun goes. Their mainframes running MVS are too expensive to purchase, too expensive to operate and don't offer the variety of database and ERP software that can be found on Unix. If IBM had a decent offering in the Unix world, they wouldn't have just gone out and accuired Sequent Computer Corp.I think it is IBM who must play catch up in order to be a major player in the internet world. I think the author could have painted a more objective and less subjective view of Sun's chances for survival in the industry. All, in all, I would still recommend the book. I found it interesting, just a bit too biased toward Microsoft and IBM.4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Well researched and written, usefulBy Diego BanducciUnlike most books of the high-tech, hero-worship genre, these authors actually did their homework and then wrote an intelligent, well organized history of Sun Microsystems and Scott McNealy. Given the multiple transformations that Sun has gone through (workstations, chip design, software design, servers, memory systems, enterprise hardware and software, and Java), as well as its famous feud with Microsoft and Mister Bill, that is no easy task, but they provide a succinct (225 page) and unbiased view that will be of interest to anyone who is interested in learning more about these subjects. The endnotes are particularly helpful.Although the authors were not able to interview McNealy (he turned down their request), they do include intelligent observations about him and Sun from knowledgeable persons both within and outside Sun. Given the shallowness of McNealy's public comments and statements in other interviews to date (one suspects that he is finally learning to put a governor on his mouth), the omission is not noticeable.It is rumored that Ms. Southwick is in the process of preparing a similar volume about Oracle and Larry Ellison. If so, it will be a welcome improvement over the swill (e.g., "The Oracle of Oracle" by Florence Stone) that has been published about them to date.

[Audio CD Library Edition in vinyl case][Read by Sneha Mathan] In 1982, a little upstart named Sun was making waves in the high-tech industry with its groundbreaking workstation technology, even as early competitors dismissed the company as not worth losing sleep over. Since then, Sun Microsystems has become a formidable presence in the industry, making its own rules and taking no prisoners, and is currently poised to reach the highest point of its ascendancy -- the challenge of Microsoft's dominance over the future of computing. The driving force behind this once fledgling company is a man who has been described as brash, unconventional, ambitious, forward-looking, and sometimes his own worst enemy. Scott McNealy turned Sun into the multibillion-dollar success it is today -- a developer of innovative software like Java that is revolutionizing the computing landscape. High Noon is the inside story of Sun's rise to power, from its shaky start in through its transformation under the aggressive and inspirational leadership of McNealy. Karen Southwick reveals the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of McNealy and Sun, with candid interviews from the key players and insights into the inner workings of the high-tech industry. This book examines how scrappy underdog Sun overcame its larger and supposedly tougher competitors, combining hard work, tenacity, and talented people to build a more innovative and flexible company. Among High Noon's revelations: * A new perspective on how the complex, contradictory McNealy shaped his company and fashioned its strategy * Insight into central issues facing the high-tech industry, such as network computers and the future of the Internet * An insider view of the maneuverings of industry powerhouses, including Microsoft, Oracle, Netscape, IBM, and Intel * Both entertaining and instructive, High Noon offers valuable lessons for taking charge of your destiny and succeeding in a fast-paced, unpredictable, and even hostile environment

.com Sun Microsystems is the type of company that most new startups hope to become: massively profitable, astoundingly innovative, and supremely adaptable. But as Karen Southwick's engaging narrative High Noon makes clear, there were many bumps along the road to Sun's $25 billion market valuation. In fact, when Sun started out in the early '80s as a spinoff of the Network (SUN), there was barely a road at all. It's hard to remember a time when there wasn't a computer on every desktop, but in 1981, engineers had to stand in line to use their company's mainframes. Sun's business strategy was to sell a desktop workstation for each employee who needed a computer. On top of that, Sun allowed those workstations to exchange data via an intracompany network, and used graphical interfaces to make them easier to navigate. Standard stuff now, but a radical series of concepts back then, and it was inevitable that Sun would clash with Microsoft. Sun CEO Scott McNealy's enmity for the software colossus is well-known--he was a key player in the U.S. government's antitrust action against Microsoft in the late 1990s--and it temporarily scattered the company's focus, leading to a major reorganization. The conclusion to the Sun story is, of course, unknown. Southwick ends her book with a peek into the future, speculating on what will become of promising computer languages like Java and Jini. But it seems like it'll be a long time before Sun sets. --Lou SchulerFrom Publishers WeeklyMany readers may still be unsure exactly what Sun Microsystems does, despite the company's recently ubiquitous ads ("We're the dot in .com") obliquely touting the Java programming language. Southwick, the managing editor of Forbes's online daily edition, ASAP, doesn't spend much time explaining Sun's hardware manufacturing and software development. She concentrates, instead, on the company's rapid growth to a current valuation of about $10 billion. She sees Sun (an acronym for Stanford University Network) as a creation of CEO McNealy, who was tapped by two other Stanford-affiliated students, and Andy Bechtolscheim, to help run the fledgling company in 1982. After the board ousted engineering visionary Khosla in 1984, McNealy got the nod, and never looked back. According to most accounts, including this one, he has piloted Sun with a mixture of brio, financial know-how and sensitivity. He has also become perhaps Bill Gates's most vocal antagonist. McNealy declined to be interviewed for the book, and Southwick was forced to rely on conversations with many current and former Sun employees. Though her report founders on too many business-talk sentences like "With tremendous growth comes the equally tremendous challenge of accommodating that growth from a resource and management perspective," Southwick does give a solid, chronological account of the company and its momentous decision to transform itself from a hardware-only company into a creator and provider of software. $100,000 ad/promo; 75,000 first printing. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.From BooklistRight now Scott McNealy, head of Sun Microsystems, is a "media darling." Playing White Knight to Bill Gates and his "evil empire," McNealy is whom the press turns to for a reaction when Gates and Microsoft make a move. Ironically, some computer-industry observers charge that McNealy's strategy for Sun's Java software is not all that different than Gates' plans for Windows. Besides being bitter rivals, however, McNealy and Gates have fundamentally different styles and philosophies. Sun's mantra is "the network is the computer." PCs will disappear; networks accessed by personalized "smart" appliances will be pervasive. Gates, on the other hand, assures us that the PC will never die. In 1990, Mark Hall and John Barry chronicled the rise of Sun Microsystems in Sunburst. In computer time, that account is by now prehistoric, but Southwick skillfully brings Sun's saga up to date. Now managing editor at Forbes ASAP, she wrote High Noon while working as executive editor for Upside magazine. David Rouse

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