Sun Microsystems
In1986 Matt joined Sun External Page Policy (click to see policy and instructions) as a hardware product development manager. He joined the then fledgling Graphics group, in the Workstation Division. Later this group became GPD, the Graphics Products Division. Later still, it became part of the Desktop and Graphics Development Group (DGDO or “dog-doo” as it was affectionately known). By now, Matt had switched to the software side (kinda like swtiching from the Republican to the Democratic party).

When Sun was reorganized into planets the group moved to SunSoft (the software “planet”) and Matt tagged along.

All in all, he managed the development of hardware products ($25M incremental revenue!); killed some projects (MTV); and nearly got killed by a project (Genesis).

On the software side of things, Matt managed the Graphics and Multimedia group for a number of years. The group grew from about 16 to over 160. They developed bleeding edge technology, and shipped a lot of very high quality products. Very satisfying.

Just before leaving Sun, Matt managed the Solaris OS group. That was a totally different ball of wax. And much fun, too. But, alas, it was time to move on and in 1995 Matt left Sun Microsystems after nine years of incredible fun and growth (for me and Sun).

In the early '95, Matt wrote a couple of Java appletsExternal Page Policy (click to see policy and instructions) to get a feel for the language: a game (catch the box), and a humorous Org Chart applet, called “Re-org Tool.” I knew then that Java was what C++ should have been all along. And I wished then (but dare not hope) that it would become insanely popular and obsolete C++ (as much as languages become “obsolete” – can you say Fortran? COBOL?). I now believe that this, too, shall come to pass!

And finally, a picture of early spring.