Sun’s Graziano Joins Rival Apple Computer

Joseph A. Graziano has resigned as vice president of finance and chief financial officer at Sun Microsystems Inc. to join rival Apple Computer Inc. in a similar position.

This is the second tour of duty at Apple for the 45-year-old Graziano, who served as the company’s chief financial officer from October, 1981, to May, 1985.

Graziano is the second high-ranking executive to leave Sun this spring. In April, executive vice president Bernard Lacroute abruptly resigned. No reasons were offered and Lacroute has not taken another post.

Graziano’s switch was not viewed with great alarm by analysts in Silicon Valley, where job hopping among high tech companies is a fact of life. Over the past year alone, Sun has gained two product marketing managers from Apple, including Chuck Berger, now Sun’s vice president for product marketing. Apple hired away Jim Davis, Sun’s former director of software product marketing.

Graziano succeeds Deborah A. Coleman, who took a medical leave of absence from Apple late last year. At the time, Coleman said she wanted to lose the weight she had gained while in the CFO position and assume a less demanding role in the company.

A Sun insider said it was well known within the high tech community in Silicon Valley that Coleman’s post was vacant, and Graziano had been weighing for a while whether to return to the post. Because Apple’s revenue is about four times higher than Sun’s, the shift was widely viewed as a career-enhancing move for Graziano.

William J. Raduchel, vice president of corporate planning and development, has been named acting chief financial officer at Sun.