Sun discloses plans for a software development centre in Dublin to put computer-literate graduates to work
Sun Microsystems Inc duly unveiled plans for a European software centre located on the outskirts of Dublin in the Republic of Ireland last week (CI No 2,1180. A site has yet to be secured – although the Mountain View, California-based company said it had been working on the plans for some 18 months – and a choice will be announced within 60 days, according to Sun’s chief financial officer, Kevin Melia. The company’s SunSoft Inc satellite will be the centre’s first tenant, with other Sun planets such as SunTech Enterprises likely to follow soon. Dick McQuillen, formerly vice-president for Sun’s intercontinental operations in Tokyo, becomes managing director of the centre. McQuillen was responsible for establishing Sun’s Scottish manufacturing plant in Linlithglow – ironically both McQuillen and Irishman Melia have done time at Digital Equipment Corp’s Galway plant in Ireland, the closure of which was formally announced last week, at the same time as news of the planned Sun centre emerged. The centre will be responsible for localisation of SunSoft’s Solaris 2.X operating system environment, initially handling development of device drivers and doing certification for European OEM partners – especially for customers of its forthcoming Intel Corp iAPX-86 implementation – such as ICL Plc, Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA and local Dell Computer Corp operations. European partners that currently have to send their systems all the way to Los Angeles for testing will now be able to use facilities in Dublin. The centre will expand to take on software duplicating and packaging over time. There are just three employees on the payroll now, but McQuillen expects the centre to employ 50 by the end of this year – and 200 jobs are expected to be created within three years. SunSoft will begin recruiting software specialists from Irish university campuses immediately. Sun, which claims an installed base of some 2,000 machines in Ireland, has had an operation up and running for three years. Its 20 staff support two distributors and 11 resellers across Ireland and in the six counties north of the border which make up Northern Ireland. Details of Industrial Development Authority incentives granted to Sun for the establishment of the centre in Dublin were not revealed – it is not our practice to reveal payments, a spokesman said. They will, however, be made available in the Authority’s annual report.
Sun’s new FirstPerson company is dedicated to bringing the fruits of the Spring project to the mass market
Sun Microsystems Inc, as reported (CI No 2,118) has formed a new software subsidiary that is noticeably more distant from itself than its orbiting planets, so much so that it does not even rate a Sun tag. Instead, it’s called FirstPerson Inc, and is intended to move the object-oriented technologies of the Spring project to the mega-volume consumer market. Wayne Rosing, the Sun executive who has overseen the Spring project for some time, has been named the unit’s president. Rosing, known for playing his cards close to his vest, declined to discuss specific products or the company’s intended customers. It will be licensing its software, which he said includes some hardware support, to third parties, hence the subsidiary status. Naturally Sun may be a customer. Rosing however indicated that FirstPerson, said to be very focused, will not be in the personal digital assistant business, although the technology could be used in the handheld devices. He also seemed to indicate that, despite press reports, it would not be treading on General Magic’s toes either. Painting his charter with a very broad brush, he talked vaguely about software in aid of media convergence, interoperability and data exchange in all forms of digital devices including facsimiles, ISDN, CD-ROMs, digital television, radios, satellites and computers. Initial product is due in two years. The unit is based in Palo Alto, California, away from the corporation’s headquarters in Mou
ntain View, and has about 12 to 15 people to start with, including James Gosling, author of NeWS, the Network-extensible Windowing System. It will build to 40 or 50 staff. Apparently FirstPerson will have a tough task to water down the industrial-strength principals of Spring and make them lightweight enough for the mass consumer market.
