McNealy salutes Phil Rosenzweig

Scott McNealy was overcome with emotion at the launch of his firm's StarCat monster server in New York today, as he saluted the Sun employee killed on Flight 11.

The Sun boss fought back tears as he paid tribute to the bravery of his staff and their determination to keep doing business after the terrorist attack on the city two weeks ago. But when he started talking about Phil Rosenzweig, director of horizontal scaling in the Solaris software organisation, he broke down.

McNealy welled up with tears and exclaimed: "God, I hate my job."

No amount of money could recompense Sun's New York staff for what they'd been through, he said. More than 300 Sun field staff were based at WTC's south tower, but all had escaped. McNealy spoke proudly about their response in the aftermath of the disaster.

He led the audience attending the StarCat launch, the successor to Sun's E10K Unix server, in a round of applause for the Sun staff attending the New York event, and in a moment's silence for Rosenzweig, who'd worked for Sun for 12 years.

Ed Zander, Sun COO and a native New Yorker, was also moved by the event. He said: "It's really, really tough coming here today to do a product announcement. It seems so out of place. I hope you understand if we're a little understated."

The Reg reckons that Sun Microsystems deserves a huge pat on the back for its decision to press ahead with this launch, especially because it was in New York. The last thing NY needs right now is for the business community to shun this great city. ®

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