Sun’s CEO Urges ‘Chain Saws’ for Microsoft
Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy fired a fresh salvo Thursday at his longtime nemesis, Microsoft, saying the Justice Department “ought to start buying chain saws and chop that thing up.”
Speaking at the Oracle OpenWorld convention in Los Angeles, McNealy peppered his talk before a receptive audience with jabs at Microsoft, saying the company was not only behind the times technologically but also a malevolent force in the industry.
“Y2K won’t be a problem. W2K is the problem,” McNealy said, referring to the year 2000 computer glitch and the upcoming release of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 2000.
McNealy, who frequently mocks Microsoft and its chairman, Bill Gates, in his speeches, has relished Microsoft’s latest problems stemming from U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s Nov. 5 finding of fact that Microsoft is a monopoly that has used its position to stifle competition.
Sun Microsystems is the Mountain View, Calif.-based maker of high-performance computers used to power many Web sites.
On Wednesday at the Comdex computer convention in Las Vegas, McNealy proposed four ideas on how to punish Microsoft if it loses its antitrust suit.
He said the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant must first agree to open and uniform pricing of its software. He said the company had to end its practice of exclusive agreements with customers, fully disclose some of the underlying software codes of its Windows operating system and stop using its huge cash reserves to extend its influence through mergers and acquisitions into other industries.
If Microsoft could live with those four conditions, McNealy said, there would be no need to break up the company.
But he doubted Microsoft could ever change its ways, describing the company as “incorrigible and unrepentant.”
“They just don’t get it,” McNealy said Wednesday.
He said the Justice Department should consider breaking up Microsoft.
