SiliconBeat

Many longtime investors in Sun Microsystems watched with alarm as the company’s share price plunged over the last few years. This week, as Sun announced a deal to be acquired by Oracle for $9.50 a share, one big investor decided it was time to get out.

Southeastern Asset Management, which had become Sun’s biggest investor after acquiring more than 22 percent of the company’s stock, notified the SEC today that it had sold almost all of its stake in the company.

The value investment firm, which is based in Tennessee, reported last October that it had spent more than $2.1 billion to purchase 160 million shares in Sun last year, for an average price of about $13.18.  It sold almost all of them on Monday, after Sun announced the Oracle deal, for an average of roughly $9.10 a share — meaning a loss of more than $500 million.

But the investment group could have done a lot worse. Sun’s stock, which once traded for over $250 back in the heady days of the dot-com boom, had fallen from above $25 two years ago to a low of $2.60 last November. It recovered a little, but never got back above $5 until reports surfaced last month that Sun was engaged in ultimately unsuccessful buyout talks with IBM. (The stock value rose, then fell again when those talks collapsed.)

Southeastern has said little publicly about its investment in Sun, and it declined comment this week. But it notified the SEC last fall that it planned to begin active discussions with Sun’s management about finding ways to “cause the company’s true economic value to be recognized.”

Those efforts helped lead the board to explore a sale, according to one knowledgable source. Southeastern had also won agreement last December to name two directors on Sun’s board. But only one new director, Rahul Merchant, had been appointed before the Oracle sale was announced.

On Friday, ground will be broken on the Southwest Hall Lawn of the University of the Pacific’s Stockton campus to kick-off construction of the John T. Chambers Technology Center (artist rendering of the project pictured), a $12 million dollar facility that will serve as the new home to the university’s school of engineering and computer science.

The 24,000-square-foot center, which is to include Read the rest of this entry »

The stampede definitely is not on for H-1B visa applications for foreign workers.

In years past, the total alloted were snatched up in just a few days. Nearly three weeks after companies began applying for the coveted visas, the 2010 65,000 cap has yet to be reached.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reported Monday that about 44,000 visa petitions have been received. However, the agency has received about 20,000 petitions for H-1B visas for foreign workers with advanced degrees. The government hands out 20,000 visas to those with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions.

It’s no wonder. Tech companies are laying off workers by the tens of thousands.

“This is one of the toughest emails I’ve ever had to write.” Thus began this morning’s communique from Sun Microsystem’s Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz to his troops. Fear not, though. With Dickensian flourish, Schwartz lifted up the tone of his email with his very next line: “It’s also one of the most hopeful about Sun’s future in the industry.”

Then follows a stirring paean to the 27-year old company whose board has signed off on the plan to be acquired by Oracle for $9.50 a share.

“I do not consider the announcement to be the end of the road, Read the rest of this entry »

   I’m back from a brief vacation, ready to check back in with the three folks we’ve been following since they were laid off from their Silicon Valley jobs. Are they still searching for work? Have they found new jobs? Are they coping well or barely coping? How are their spouses and children and other family members doing? Read the rest of this entry »

Given the number of Silicon Valley executives seeing their salaries cut recently, it may comfort s0me C-level leaders to know that at least one CEO, CyberSource’s William McKiernan, is getting a pretty fat raise.

According to a filing the company made Monday, the compensation committee of CyberSource’s board of directors pushed McKiernan’s pay up by $80,0000 to Read the rest of this entry »

Altec-Lansing inMotion Max

As I forecast on Friday, I started testing out the Altec-Lansing inMotion Max iPod speaker system over the weekend. As might be expected, it was easy to set up.

I haven’t really put the device through its paces yet, but my initial impression is somewhat mixed. The sound quality seemed fine. Unlike many iPod speaker systems, it’s fully compatible with my iPhone, meaning that not only will it charge my iPhone, but it doesn’t prompt an annoying incompatibility message on the iPhone that asks whether I want to turn off the iPhone’s antennas everytime I plug my iPhone into it. So that’s nice.

Read the rest of this entry »

Somewhat lost among the news about Google’s first sales decline ever in its 2009 first quarter and the decision of the company’s first salesman, Omid Kordestani to step down — he’ll continue on as an advisor to the company’s chief executive and co-founders — was news of the filing of an amendment to the company’s innovative “Transferable Stock Option” program.

The program, first unveiled in April 2007, was designed to let workers auction off their Read the rest of this entry »

As I mentioned in a review that ran on Monday, I generally liked iHome’s iH15

iHome iH15

iPod speaker system. It offers nice sound for a relatively low price.

I’m getting ready to box up the iH15 and ship it back to iHome, but there is one thing I don’t like about it that I neglected to mention in my review. In order to turn up or down the volume on the iH15, you have to press the volume control buttons multiple times. You can’t just hold them down to raise or lower the volume.

I know that’s a nit, but I still found it annoying the more I used the device.

Speaking of Altec-Lansing, I’ll likely be playing around this weekend with a new speaker system from the company, the iPhone-compatible inMotion Max.

In coming weeks, I also plan on testing out a handful of new headphones, including a pair of new models — the 200 and the 300 — from SoundID.

Finally — and I realize I’m a little late to this — but I’ve been playing around this week with Apple’s new iPod shuffle. My first take: I love the ultra-slim size, and I generally like the new VoiceOver feature, which uses a computer-generated voice to tell you what song is playing or what playlists are available.

But I hate that Apple’s decision to incorporate the volume, VoiceOver and play/stop/fast-forward/reverse controls into a button on the headphone wire means that I can’t use my noise-isolating headphones with the shuffle.

Read the rest of this entry »