Sun CEO resigns; tweets on Twitter

Schwartz late Wednesday night tweeted, “Today's my last day at Sun. I'll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more.”

The resignation was quite expected after the company’s $7.4 billion acquisition by Oracle. Earlier last week, even Scott McNealy, chairman and co-founder, had bid goodbye to the employees.

Schwartz at Sun
The tweet comes a week after Oracle completed the acquisition process, thus marking the end of the 28-year-old company headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Schwartz has not announced what he plans to do, but speculations are rife that he may join a software or a venture capital firm.

Schwartz, who was appointed the CEO in 2006, will be remembered for giving a new strategic direction to the company, away from proprietary systems and towards open source software.

The company had a strong position in Java and operating system software with Solaris, and Schwartz continuously endeavored to strengthen company’s foothold by expanding into Java middleware.

But the CEO was unable to stir the company out of recession when the clients turned to low cost hardware. The company, which soared during the dotcom burst, was hit the hardest during recession.

Schwartz is not going empty handed though. As per the regulatory filings, the former CEO will receive $12 million as severance package from the company.

Recalling Sun
Sun, a multinational vendor of computers and its components, will always be remembered as a company that powered the Web and the Wall Street firms.

Stuart Williams, a senior analyst at Technology Business Research, was quoted by Sans Francisco Chronicle as saying, “Sun was an icon. It was a small startup that grew to be a billion-dollar player that shaped the course of technology. That's a great story about the U.S. tech industry."

Bill Cook, CEO of Greenplum, a data based company, stated that he has spent 19 years at Sun. He added that though the company has come to an end, the spirit of Sun will continue to live in its former employees.

He also said that he hopes to turn his company into Sun one day.