Even Keeled

One of the great things about (re)starting my blog is I can post about things that honestly, I don’t have any specific area of expertise or vested interest.  Just ideas or thoughts that cross my mind.  So I was at a party last week, talking to a few friends who were all ex-SUN.  They were bemoaning the completely lifeless stock, but still held out hopes that some day the company would turn things around and go on another run.

Honestly, I just laughed.  No way is SUN going to turn that sinking battleship around, unless they do something completely drastic.  Which got me thinking.  Why not just focus a significant portion of the company on a completely new (ideally growing) market? Like, I dunno, solar technology?

So here are 8 reasons why SUN should shift gears and throw their hat into the solar tech ring:

 1. My non-engineering mind thinks solving complex processor cooling issues can probably be leveraged to develop some type of solar panel with incredible performance gains.  Its all silicon and energy transfer.

2. There has to be substantial operational effeciency in the manufactoring centers SUN has developed over the last 20 years which can be re-tooled for solar. 

3. Employee inspiration.  Take 5,000 of the best engineers, industrial designers and product managers and challenge them to develop the world’s best solar infrastructure.  Give them 5 years and guaranteed employment for the duration.

4. LAMP is going to overtake whatever architecture, servers, OS, your working on anyway.  Maybe not in 5 years, but absolutely in 10. 

5. JAVA is cute, its not an industry.  The debacle created in mobile with J2ME is a perfect example.  Yes, some carriers use it, but honestly no one starting a mobile company now says “Yeah, I’m psyched about porting my app to 19 flavors of J2ME and then regression testing every update across 304 devices.”

6. Karma.  Just getting the project going will bring some positive energy to the rest of the troops and maybe lift the stock price 10% too boot.

 7.  The country, and world, need someone to take leadership and just GSD with this whole energy/oil issue.  Google is probably using more power per day than most countries.  No reason why y’all can’t do this and restore glory to technology!  Driving your bike or Prious to work doesn’t count either.  

8.  Your company name rocks it.  Hard.  No one can top that.  It is your destination.

I’m sure there are more reasons (as well as clarifications to the ones above).  But screw it, I don’t need to know what I’m talking about right?

Palabra.

If you haven’t tried the new Honeycrisp apples, they are highly recommended.  The apple is a cross between a Macoun and a Honeygold (which is itself a cross between a Golden Delicious and a Haralson).   Large, crisp with a very smooth taste that doesn’t have the grainyness of a Macintosh or the bitter bite of a Granny Smith. 

Originally developed in Minnesota, many farmers in WA and elsewhere are now adding orchards to meet the growing demand.    Can probably find at your local Wholefoods through the end of the year! 

On life support for many years…my blog is back.