It looks as if Sun Microsystems Inc CEO Scott McNealy’s rewarding his right hand man, Ed Zander, for passing-up the forbidden fruit of Apple Computer Inc’s vacant CEO post by promoting him to COO. Zander, formerly president of the company’s hardware business, gets the reports of all Sun’s units, including Sun Microsystems Computer Co, SunSoft, JavaSoft, SunService, Sun Microelectronics and SunLabs, making him responsible for engineering, R&D, manufacturing operations, marketing, sales, and service and support. Zander, who will name a new SMCC president in a week or so, becomes part of a new Sun executive management team that is expected to spread the load of managing Sun, now a $10bn concern. Joining McNealy and Zander on a new executive committee are CFO Michael Lehman – who gets an additional chevron as VP corporate resources, including CIO functions – and Bill Raduchel, who has been promoted from CIO to the new position of chief strategy officer. The committee will be responsible for day-to-day company operations and long-range planning. McNealy is expected to focus most of his attention on longer-term strategies and establishing business alliances. The Wall Street Journal hears Zander decided not to pursue the Apple job but doesn’t say whether he was also approached about filling the CEO post at Silicon Graphics Inc. Both companies are searching for new chief executives and are reported to have been chasing the same candidates. The San Jose Mercury News says AutoDesk Inc CEO Carol Bartz and Oracle Corp COO Ray Lane are both on SGI’s short list, though Lane’s said to have ruled out the possibility.
