Sun is not having a good quarter. This reminded me of a few things that have been bugging me lately. I remember going to a live presentation of Scott McNealy's when he was creating a Java terminal/workstation. I remember hearing him say something to the effect of "This is the Windows-killer, in a year no one will buy PCs with Windows - everyone including your secretaries will be using these workstations". Of course, none of his predictions came to pass, and so the company still limps on. My philosophy has always been that actually building a better technology and making it a success has nothing to do with talking about how world-changing it will be. In fact, I have always thought the opposite. I think showing people what a technology is capable of is better than just talking about what it’s going to do in the market, or that's it’s the next "x-killer". Sure, you can say, "See how great the y feature of this product is", but predictions as to success and reach just sound dumb to me. I've always really disliked Scott McNealy, not because he was loud, and not because he hated Microsoft, but because he always talked about how this new thing Sun was doing was going to be the Microsoft/Windows-killer . How about just making a great technology? And then after it becomes the "X killer", you can boast. A number of things I've heard or seen lately remind me of Scott McNealy. I wish people would just do cool things or build cool things without talking about what the effect of that thing
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