SUNset

Though SUN was bought 2 years ago, the legal entity change just happened. From October 1 onwards, SUN Microsystems India ceases to exist.  I kind of feel sad writing this post. I guess this would be my last post on SUN Microsystems.

Whenever I think of writing about SUN, I'm flooded with thoughts about my days in SUN. I enjoyed every bit of my time there.

This worn out card is my ID which I had used during my 5 years tenure in SUN. When I joined SUN, it was a fancy thing using SUN Ray. You can go to any terminal, insert your ID card and automagically, your desktop is there.

What really made SUN special was those amazing people who I got to work with. I never felt bad working an 18 hour day. In fact I remember working 90hrs a week followed by 80hr week which was followed by 70hr week and still felt good.

SUN had always been a people's company. Even during the worst crisis, the people who'll get laid off will get hints about the impending event which helped people secure new job and face the layoffs happily. SUN was the only company in which people would have loved to be laid off.

One thing I loved the most about SUN was Freedom. You can write a mail to Scott (then CEO) or to a VP criticizing the performance of SUN and you'll still get a reply with no side-effects on your performance ratings.

I loved Scott for the way he speaks. I always rated him as the COOL CEO. He was always famous for his one liners against Microsoft.

Having fun was a part of SUN Culture. My friend quipped once, "there are two types of cultures in the world, work culture and sun culture". That was the amount of fun we used to have in SUN. That fun streak also ran in the funny ads that SUN had created targeting microsoft and IBM (the IT guy series).

A webpage paying tribute to sun microsystems was set up at http://thenetworkisthecomputer.com/ holding even more memories of the SUN Life.

For all it was, I kicked butt and had fun. Rest In Peace SUN.