Sun Micro Still Ahead Of Industry Says Ceo

[WnXP2002]

Scott McNealy, the chief executive of network computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc., says his company is leading the industry in next-generation computing and making gains in the education market.

With its N1 computing initiative aimed at automating computer data centers to help customers cut costs and boost productivity, the popularity of the Java programming language it invented and its powerful Solaris operating system, Sun is in good competitive position, McNealy said in an interview on Monday.

Sun, based in Palo Alto, California, first made its mark in the 1980s selling computer workstations used by engineers and academic researchers. When founded, the name stood for Stanford University Network. Then, in the 1990s, it moved higher up the computing food chain and became a leading seller of powerful computer servers.

Now that the dot-com and telecommunications bubble has burst and the economy is in the doldrums, Sun finds itself battling lower-priced rival offerings using Intel Corp. processors and running on the freely available Linux operating system.

But McNealy said he believes the company he co-founded in 1982 has always been ahead of the computer industry at large.

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[Reuters.co.uk]