This book gives the history of the SUN Microsystems. The company went through a very fast growth phase in the early 90's and it is interesting to read about how they handled the growth. There are a lot of practical lessons from their successes and their failures. The book discusses technology, but its main focus is on the business and organizational aspects of Sun. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about starting a business or trying to manage an organization going through rapid growth.
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 Schuler
Not a good story book
Well, here I am, after reading the book for about two weeks every morning, and I am left with no deep impressions about either Sun or Scott.
The book appears to be a collection of newspaper articles. My first impression from the title of the book was that it talks a lot about Scott McNealy, which the author clearly failed to achieve. I guess the author could have rather written two books - a biography on Scott and business history of Sun. The book fails to achieve either of these satisfactorily.
I was hoping to know a lot about Java and Solaris, and although there were three chapters dedicated to Java, they didnt leave a lasting impression on me. The author seems to be unaware of other battles going around which would give Java a tough time to evolve.
Finally, the book doesnt really form a story. Its more like every chapter can be read almost independent of each other.
Thin
If you were on a desert island from 1982 to 1999, this book might have extra value to you. Otherwise, you may already know a great deal about what's covered in this book.
"High Noon" is quite readable but doesn't dig very deep. It provides a good, albeit Pollyanna-ish introduction to Sun's history and to McNealy...up until 1999. Did I learn anything? Yes, for example, I hadn't known that Gosling architected NeWS. But the level of this book isn't that much deeper than a Reader's Digest article.
If you don't know much about Sun's pre-2000 past and want a quick survey, "High Noon" may help you.
Good, just very dated
After recently taking on some professional responsibility for a large Solaris farm after a long hiatus (about a decade) from Sun technology, I thought this might catch me up with the company and products. It did provide some good info, but this work is over four years old, an eternity in technology. It certainly did not reflect Sun's rapid decline in market cap and Linux debacles, both of which landed it on the front page of the WSJ a few weeks ago.I might have rated this four stars a few years ago. The only qualms are that the author should have presumed a more technical, computer-literate audience, and the audio quality was inferior (I listened to the unabridged Audible version).