Challenge:
In 2001 with the escalating demise of the dotcoms, Sun found itself facing a critical juncture in its history. For more than a decade, Sun Microsystems was the darling of Wall Street, consistently delivering double-digit growth along with a series of stock splits. Sun was a respected leader, implementing a “best product” strategy by providing UNIX-based hardware and software products to demanding IT professionals around the world. In 2001, Sun was nearing $20 billion in annual revenues, but competitive pressures and a precipitous decline in core businesses such as Telco were proving too much. In a nutshell, Sun was growing as long as their products were superior and their customer segments were growing. However, the company had failed to aggressively follow the shift in customer needs to exploit new opportunities with strategic brands.

Solution:
The Anderson School at UCLA was contracted by Sun Microsystems to work directly with senior management on a series of initiatives to address new challenges and opportunities. Scott Griffiths was appointed the project leader on a strategic branding study, working directly with the Director of Marketing and Strategic Planning at Sun. Over a period of six months, Scott directed the Anderson team along with the GO team to assess the Sun business model, study competitive pressures, examine trends in wireless mobility, interview Sun customers, and identify and conduct case studies on companies that had also faced strategic inflection points and applied (or didn’t apply) strategic branding to exploit new opportunities to drive success.

Results:
We determined that JAVA is an under-exploited brand that can take advantage of the growth opportunities in mobile wireless and represent “a more reliable and dependable Net experience.” Much as Intel had discovered in the early 90’s, consumers are confused as to which brands represent the best in wireless mobility. Consumers need brands that provide a promise that they can depend on. JAVA is a common and open software standard owned by Sun. The name is ubiquitous and memorable. Sun has the opportunity to not only provide the customer solutions enabled by “JAVA,” but to also develop and create partnerships to create new JAVA-based products and services.

Sun is in the process of implementing many of the recommendations from the study.