SiliconBeat

During his keynote address to the audience at this year’s JavaOne conference last week, Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy took time to introduce a special guest to the stage, saying “there’s kind of a big pink elephant, uh, in the room”, according to a transcript of that portion of the talk Sun filed with the SEC.

The metaphorical elephant was none other than Read the rest of this entry »

“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 »

Sun Microsystems’ largest shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, is evidently losing patience with the company. A day after the maker of servers and software announced that its results for the most recent quarter would be less than analysts had expected, Southeastern converted its reporting of Sun holdings from a 13G filing to a 13D, “in order to be more active in corporate governance and management matters, and to have the ability to enter into discussions with third parties concerning proposed corporate transactions of a significant nature.”

Southeastern also revealed Read the rest of this entry »

General counsels of several Silicon Valley corporations are in the vanguard of critics railing against changes being proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board “”that would force public companies to disclose more about the risks of litigation,” judging by the sources in this story by Zusha Elinson of the San Francisco Recorder.

“Under the revised rules for FASB Statement No. 5,” Elinson writes, “the threshold for reporting the potential loss from a lawsuit would be lowered from ‘probable’ to Read the rest of this entry »

Shares of Sun Microsystems shot up in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company reported that its fourth-quarter profit may have beaten analysts’ expectations. The shares were up 15 percent from where they ended regular trading on Tuesday, according to our Bloomberg box. If that holds up in regular trading on Wednesday it would make for the stock’s biggest one-day gain since Read the rest of this entry »

We noticed something curious in Sun Microsystems proxy filed Tuesday afternoon. In its introduction to two proposals put forward by shareholders for a vote, the company did not name the shareholder requesting the vote or how many shares they own.

One of the proposals on the agenda for Sun Microsystem’s upcoming annual meeting Nov. 8 is asking for adoption of a rule seeking a simple majority vote on most issues. As the proposal puts it:

Our current rule allows a small minority to frustrate the will of our shareholder majority. For example, in requiring a 75%-vote on certain key governance issues, if our vote is an overwhelming 74%-yes and only 1%-no — only 1% could force their will on our 74%-majority.

Read the rest of this entry »

We haven’t seen Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan I. Schwartz blog on this yet. But according to a Form 4 filed Monday, director Michael Marks paid about $2.4 million to buy 500,000 shares of Sun’s stock last Thursday and Friday for prices ranging from $4.67 per share to $4.94 per share.

That might be a real shot in the arm unless you consider Marks’ day job: He’s a senior advisor to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., that little buyout fund based in New York. What does that mean? Who knows? Back in May, he spent another $1 million dollars to buy 200,000 shares of Sun, giving a total now of 700,000 shares.

Marks has some money to spend. He sold $88.8 million worth of stock during his decade as CEO of Flextronics before stepping down in 1996. And last week, he also bought $1 million in stock in Schlumberger Limited, an oilfield services company where he is also a director.

Sun’s stock, of course, has been skidding along between $3 and $7 per share over the past 4.5 years. Could Sun be ripe for a buyout?