MLP hasn’t blogged about this yet but our guys on the inside say he’s going to announce it very soon. This is totally hush-hush, but trust me, this is going to be friggin huge news in the Valley and it is absolutely going to change the way people view Sun and think of Sun and just totally give Sun a huge boost of confidence and a whole new image in the marketplace. Ready? Here goes. Starting next week, Sun is going to announce that it is switching from Starbucks to Green Mountain Coffee Roasters brand as the official coffee brand in all of Sun’s cafeterias and mini-kitchens. MLP is working on a five-thousand-word blog post to explain it all to customers and Sun employees alike, making sure everyone is informed immediately of every important move that Sun ever makes. From the leaked blog post which MLP’s PR guys are still revising for him:
I know this seems like a bold, audacious — dare I say risky? — move, especially at a time like this when we as a company are faced with so many enormous challenges and opportunities and hurdles. We are, obviously, at a historic inflection point that approaches in significance some of the other very historic inflection points in the storied, historic history of this great, historic company. Do we still dare to dream? Do we still dare to change? I say we don’t dare to not dream. And we can’t dare to not change. Otherwise we start looking like some scared, desperate, terrified company that has totally lost its way and spent years in a death spiral and is desperately clutching at any random publicity stunt that it thinks will improve its image, and that is just not who we are or what we are all about. After the change, will we still be the same company? Of course we will. Except that in many ways — big, important, fundamental, audacious, brazen, bold ways — we will not the same company anymore. Will we still have the same focus, the same drive, the same determination to succeed? Of course we will, except that all of those things will be different, and they will be redirecting and changing, because we are, indeed, as we all know, in an industry that thrives on change and exists in a state of constant flux, and we too thrive on responding to that change and feeding the protean beast that is ever hungry for new ideas and new challenges and is totally intolerant of standing still and stasis and (still not wordy enough, Ed). Also, the new coffee is going to cost money. A quarter a cup. Honor system until we can finish coding up an automated system with a Java application running on a local SPARCserver in each coffee-dispensing location, all networked so that we can share data among all of Sun’s locations. Three to six months is the estimate from IT so bear with us. Also, please disregard those rumors that the Sun board is interviewing possible replacements for me. Not true. Nobody in their right mind wants this job. Neither does Scott. That is all.
UPDATE: Photo above is by James Duncan Davidson. See his page here. FSJ regrets not giving credit originally.
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