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An interview with Jonathan Schwartz

Sun 'pre-configured for the downturn' says Schwartz

By Patrick Thibodeau, Computerworld, 02/02/09

Page 3 of 3

Some people think that the current economic problems will accelerate the adoption of software-as-a-service technologies. What are your thoughts on that, and how are your products going to line up to support SaaS?
Customers under stress are open to change. And that is what I see from every customer I've spoken to, especially [lately]. That means they are open to change in moving away from proprietary software vendors and proprietary storage vendors, more open to moving to software as a service, more open to moving to free software -- and that, again, creates opportunity for Sun. I think the doors are going to be more open in the next year than they have ever been.

Where is this innovation going to come from?
The fear is that investment dollars will dry up. Innovation rarely arises in a bubble. Someone clever once said that necessity is the mother of all invention, so believe me, people are becoming a lot more innovative as I speak. Why? Because they have to. If your budget just got cut 50%, I promise you, everything is on the table. There is no better time to start a company than right now. It may be tough to find funding, but there is no better time to go look at the parade of legacy technologies that need to be replaced and the extraordinary interest from customers in entertaining new ideas.

If that's true, are you considering any changes in where your research dollars are being spent?
In general, we're looking at ways to increase R&D. That doesn't mean across everything. It means to double down on those parts of the market that really represent clear revenue return. Coming back to the T5440 -- although [the Niagara platform] is more than a billion-dollar business, you have to remember that [work on] the first silicon began in 2001. R&D takes patience, discipline and rigor. We're not going to make changes within the quarter or within the next six months that are just going to be episodic or ephemeral changes because there was a downturn.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright Computerworld, Inc.