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Hal Stern has become the new chief technology officer for Sun Microsystems' software group, he announced on his blog last week. In the job, he'll work on governance, architectural decisions, partnerships and running Sun's security program office, he said.

"There are several models for what CTOs do; some are more like CIOs and some are the displaced technical founders of startups," Stern wrote. "I'm more in the middle as a technology critic."

Sun Microsystems' blog effort has far outpaced that of Hewlett-Packard, but at least among the executive ranks, HP beat its Silicon Valley rival to blogging in an audio format.

Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz, one of the most aggressive executive bloggers, pledged in March to begin podcasting--distributing audio information on a blog using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology. Essentially, podcasting is used to broadcast audio to anyone who subscribes.

Nora Denzel, the senior vice president who runs HP's adaptive enterprise program, posted her first Agility Radio audio blog entry on April 28. It's not a podcast yet, … Read more

Sun Microsystems released a third update to its Java software for personal computers last week, but the company plans to provide it only to expert users who fetch it themselves.

Sun on April 28 released Update 3 to its Java 2 Standard Edition 5.0, also known as 1.5 for complicated historical reasons. But it only made the update available on its java.sun.com Web site for programming experts, not its Java.com designed for the mass market or through its automatic update service.

Update releases "are intended to deliver fixes that will be important to some … Read more

"We are the most partnered company on the planet," boasted Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy at a quarterly product launch Tuesday. But just because a company is a Sun partner doesn't mean it's protected from McNealy's competitive barbs.

Microsoft, once a bitter enemy, has become something of a Sun ally as a result of a partnership signed a year ago. But not too much of an ally. McNealy said Tuesday that Sun's Java technology is ahead of Microsoft's .Net competing programming environment: "It is really mankind versus .Net, and we're winning. … Read more

With great fanfare in February 2003, Sun Microsystems began a new quarterly product announcement strategy called NC, short for network computing. But the most recent such event, the NC05Q2 conference held Tuesday in Washington, D.C., could be the last.

The idea behind the strategy was to get customers to admire the integration of a broad collection technology while getting Sun designers to march to the beat of the same drummer. Ever the fan of automotive industry analogies, Chief Executive Scott McNealy likened the approach to the annual rollout of new car models rather than piecemeal announcements of new piston … Read more

Programmers inside and outside Sun Microsystems are beginning to fix a Solaris 10 weakness: the inability of a tool called DTrace to diagnose Java programs.

Sun executives love to boast about DTrace--the Dynamic Tracing, which lets experienced computer users see the inner workings of software. Ideally, experts can use the tool to pinpoint bottlenecks down to specific processes within software.

But DTrace isn't good at finding out what's happening with Java programs, which don't run directly on a computer but instead run in a higher-level software environment called a Java virtual machine.

"DTrace has cast light … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Sun Microsystems will take new a step "in the next week or so" to try to press for more secure software, the company's No. 2 exec said Monday.

"It is increasingly imperative that all companies that deliver technology take active responsibility for how secure they are," said Sun President Jonathan Schwartz, speaking at the Veritas Vision conference here. "Any company simply delivering technology and wishing their customers well is going to be viewed as irresponsible."

It's not clear exactly what Schwartz has in mind, but it won't just be a … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems' outspoken president and chief operating officer, is a big fan of subscriptions. Sell a product as a subscription and you won't get as much money up front, but you'll get a series of payments stretching as far into the future as you can convince your customer it's worth paying.

Sun sells subscriptions for its Java Enterprise System server software and Solaris operating system, but a favored Schwartz illustration of the power of subscriptions is giving away cell phones then selling phone service.

Next up: cars. General Motors sells a subscription service called … Read more

Sun Microsystems has updated its instant messaging server software with support for a nascent standard called Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, or XMPP. The technology is designed to bridge the gap between today's separate IM networks.

The XMPP support is built into Sun's Java System Instant Messaging software, part of its Java Communications Suite, the software and server company said Wednesday.

Sun also announced partnerships with two companies to expand the software's abilities. Integration with Clique Communications' software permits the software to be used for sending video streams. And for companies that must comply with regulations governing … Read more