SANTA CLARA -- Sun Microsystems, a small "Silicon Valley" startup finally achieved
it's goal of being acquired by a larger company this week. They have
been purchased by Oracle.
Most startups plan their exit strategy as either being an IPO or being acquired. Sun's unique strategy was to do both with a 23-year gap in between. This long, painfully slow, strategy included years of selling their products to big name Wall Street firms, developing cutting edge operating systems and microprocessors, convincing the entire world that RISC is better than CISC, and blowing it all by ignoring the rise of cheap x86-based PCs. Sun is also reported to have invented "the dot", an enabling technology that precipitated the "dot com" revolution.
The purchase by Oracle surprised and stunned industry observers that had been on vacation and hadn't been paying attention to anything for the last few months. Said one analyst on vacation in the Bahamas, "When I left for holiday I heard IBM was going to snatch them up. Whatever happened to that?"
The original founders, Andy von Bechtolsheim, Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy, were excited to make the announcement at a press conference in Mountain. Now that they have completed their first startup the entire world is watching to see what they do next.
Most startups plan their exit strategy as either being an IPO or being acquired. Sun's unique strategy was to do both with a 23-year gap in between. This long, painfully slow, strategy included years of selling their products to big name Wall Street firms, developing cutting edge operating systems and microprocessors, convincing the entire world that RISC is better than CISC, and blowing it all by ignoring the rise of cheap x86-based PCs. Sun is also reported to have invented "the dot", an enabling technology that precipitated the "dot com" revolution.
The purchase by Oracle surprised and stunned industry observers that had been on vacation and hadn't been paying attention to anything for the last few months. Said one analyst on vacation in the Bahamas, "When I left for holiday I heard IBM was going to snatch them up. Whatever happened to that?"
The original founders, Andy von Bechtolsheim, Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy, were excited to make the announcement at a press conference in Mountain. Now that they have completed their first startup the entire world is watching to see what they do next.
