Rating: 
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: I purchased this book thinking it would provide a detailed insight into the business strategies of Sun and how Scott McNealy thinks business. As it turns out McNealey was never even interviewed for this book. It is filled with nothing but second hand accounts of the things McNealey did as told by people who worked for him years ago. The book has a logical order to the chapters but each chapter, chronologically, jumps all over the place. The author interviews everyone from Mcnealey's right hand man to the cleaning people and a variety of other folks that the reader does not care about. It is as if the author started cold calling people in Silicone Valley and if they ever worked for Sun she would interview them. I would not waste money on this book.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: I purchased this book thinking it would provide a detailed insight into the business strategies of Sun and how Scott McNealy thinks business. As it turns out McNealey was never even interviewed for this book. It is filled with nothing but second hand accounts of the things McNealey did as told by people who worked for him years ago. The book has a logical order to the chapters but each chapter, chronologically, jumps all over the place. The author interviews everyone from Mcnealey's right hand man to the cleaning people and a variety of other folks that the reader does not care about. It is as if the author started cold calling people in Silicone Valley and if they ever worked for Sun she would interview them. I would not waste money on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good History, Lacks an edge
Review: Karen Southwick provides a good overview of the development of Sun Microsystems from a workstation start-up to its current position as a vertical computing platform. Unfortunately the book lacks the edge that some other recent computer histories have. Southwick does try to create a "Sun King" in Scott McNealy, but his personality does not seem to lend itself to the stereotypical high-tech meglomania of a Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Larry Ellison (that may have been the result of McNealy not making himself available to the author for an interview). All in all a worthy read to supplement a broader understanding of the high-tech marketplace.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: One of the most boring books I have ever read. I love Sun Micro, but this seemed to much of a promotional book for Wall Street analaysts than anything. Its a timeline of events, and a very boring one at that. I could not wait to finish it.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good book.
Review: The author captures well the essence of Sun's roots, the company's several mid-life crises, and its recent resurgence on the strength of its high-end server offerings and the awesome potential of the still-nascent Java. As well, the spirit of the defining character of this tale, Scott McNealy, is vividly illustrated time and again. The dictionary definition of "visionary" should have a picture of McNealy and a Sun logo attached. Sun's rise makes an inspiring story, but in this reader's opinion, the best is yet to come. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Rating:
Summary: The SUN never sets....
Review: This is more of a business biography about the company and its present CEO. The age old feud against Microsoft and SUN's active role to bring the big brother to book have been narrated like a novel. Technology takes the back seat when dramatics take over. The concepts of "Network is the computer", Java, "Openness" and the paradigm shift in the world of computing that has taken place during the last two decades, the major players and the not so ethical ways of competing do get some attention. The dot in the dot com deserves a much better book that can bring out its real strengths and contribution to the world of cyberspace.The SUN never sets over this small planet !
Rating: 
Summary: Well researched and written, useful.
Review: Unlike most books of the high-tech, hero-worship genre, these authors actually did their homework and then wrote an intelligent, well organized history of Sun Microsystems and Scott McNealy. Given the multiple transformations that Sun has gone through (workstations, chip design, software design, servers, memory systems, enterprise hardware and software, and Java), as well as its famous feud with Microsoft and Mister Bill, that is no easy task, but they provide a succinct (225 page) and unbiased view that will be of interest to anyone who is interested in learning more about these subjects. The endnotes are particularly helpful. Although the authors were not able to interview McNealy (he turned down their request), they do include intelligent observations about him and Sun from knowledgeable persons both within and outside Sun. Given the shallowness of McNealy's public comments and statements in other interviews to date (one suspects that he is finally learning to put a governor on his mouth), the omission is not noticeable. It is rumored that Ms. Southwick is in the process of preparing a similar volume about Oracle and Larry Ellison. If so, it will be a welcome improvement over the swill (e.g., "The Oracle of Oracle" by Florence Stone) that has been published about them to date.
Rating:
Summary: Not Propaganda
Review: What I really liked about this book was its objectivity about the subject. It would have been easy to just bash Microsoft and say 'Sun was King'. But this book focuses fairly on both the strengths and shortcomings of McNealy and Sun, making it a true history of a really remarkable company. It seems like the author talked to everyone who was anyone involved with Sun and the high-tech computer industry to write this. It gets deep inside the motivations of the people without resorting to the kind of salacious "star-gazing" someone like Albert Goldman, Kitty Kelly or Victor Bockris would inject into their prose. Consummately professional. The April's Fool's jokes alone are worth the price of the book!
Rating:
Summary: Needed more information about Sun the company
Review: While I harbor no great love for Microsoft, I have even less for people who whine about a problem when they should be working on a solution. In my opinion, Scott McNealy is in that category. His constant verbal bashing of Microsoft detracts from what should be a positive message of Sun's advances in technology. Java, the crown jewel of software development at Sun, is a sound technical achievement. No one can examine the technical specifications of C#, the language developed at Microsoft, and not recognize its' Java "roots." In this book you learn about McNealy and I was gratified to learn that there are people at Sun who are just as frustrated at his "first whiner" tactics.
While Southwick goes to great lengths to maintain an even-handed approach, there is still a clear, although slight bias towards Sun. However, it does not detract from the quality. In my opinion, what lessened the value of the book was the emphasis on the personality of McNealy rather than that of Sun. As a major technology company, it is far more interesting than its' talkative CEO. From my perspective, Sun chief scientist Bill Joy is a more interesting personality than McNealy. A superlative, extrapolative thinker, Joy is someone to be listened to.
The complex interactions between Sun, IBM, HP, Oracle and Microsoft is one of the most fascinating events of our time. Simultaneously competitors as well as cooperators, how they move together dictates the rate of technical progress. This means far more to me than a series of negative comments about Bill and his group. Therefore, more ink should have been spent describing how these companies interact.
Rating:
Summary: Great chronological review of Sun and Scott McNealy.
Review: You could feel the fast pace of Sun in Southwick's writing. The story followed a sensible chronology, was well-written as far as layman terms and yet enjoyable for the techies, too. The good points and needs-improvements of both Sun and Scott McNealy were well presented.
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