Goodbye Sun!
Hello New Employer!
Job seekers resource guide for worried Sun
employees |
| October 11 -
2001:- |
article by
Zsolt Kerekes |
| See also:-
|
Looking Back
on Sun's Cache Memory Problem
How Sun Got Burned... What should Sun do now?
more articles,
SPARC News,
STORAGE News,
Market research |
October 5,
2001 the messages start coming out from Sun Microsystems. Quarterly
revenue will be 38% below the number for last year, 4,000 jobs will be shed to
reduce costs and get back into profitability.
If you're worried
about the prospect of looking for a job in an IT economy that's been in
recession a year and is already awash with hundreds of thousands of people from
companies like Dell, Compaq, HP etc. this reference article and source file is
intended to help get you focused, and in a positive frame of mind.
The
good news is that there are 2 economies in the IT market today, and
companies can be divided into 2 segments. The majority, which have been
seeing revenues decline all year, and for which the prospects still look bleak,
and the minority, which have been seeing double digit and even triple
digit percentage revenue growth and expect things to get even better. When
you're marketing yourself, you can' t afford to waste time targeting losers. By
choosing a marketing intelligence based job seeking strategy you can focus on
segments which are growing and where your skills and experience may be a good
fit. That will save you time, effort and energy. It's depressing enough finding
yourself in a situation where you need to do this. There will be setbacks, but
you need to know that you're heading in the right direction.
More
good news. Just as companies like Sun were hiring people from longer
established computer companies like IBM and DEC in the 1980's and early 1990's,
there's a whole bunch of new companies out there which are the wannabe successes
of tomorrow. If they're selling high value systems or software, then a resumé
which has Sun Microsystems on it, is just the kind of thing they may be looking
for.... And in nearly all the examples I've given below, knowledge of Wintel
servers (which I assume you know nothing about), and knowledge of what to type
at the DOS C:\ prompt, is not required. | |
|
|
|
| Useful Link |
Why I think it can help |
| Squeak! - Venture funds in
storage |
This directory lists venture
capital investments of $1 million (or more) made in storage companies since
January 1, 2000. Approximately 50 companies have received a total of $2
billion. Not every company in this list will be successful. But I estimate that
the companies in this list will need to recruit somewhere between 5,000 to
20,000 new employees during the next 2 years. New companies are added to this
file regularly. |
| Squeak! - The fastest growing
storage companies in the US |
This directory was compiled in
April 2001 and excluded companies which were not profitable, or which had
revenue below $50 million. Since then circumstances have changed and some
companies would exit the list, and new ones would be added on. Use the
search-engine in the article (for STORAGEsearch.com or indeed any other portal
which carries IT news and financial results) to search for key words like grew,
growing, or "revenue growth". That kind of search
strategy will pick up many more companies which should be in your target group. |
| rackmount SPARC
systems |
Surprise! In case you
didn't already know, market research company IDC has been reporting that the
rackmount server sector is not in recession and has actually been growing at a
double digit revenue rate most of this year. Not all companies are doing as well
as others, but this directory will point you at companies which may be the
strongest match for your skills.
...Later October 2002 - update. Our
SPARC portal statistics indicate that the new bright areas in the SPARC market,
measured by reader interest are:-
SPARC Notebooks
and SPARC Blades /
compactPCI SBCs. |
| STORAGE Software |
Many storage software companies
have been seeing double or triple digit revenue growth this year, even while
most other sectors in the software market have started to go into recession.
Following the September 11th atrocity, even the non technical media was
publicising how data backup strategies were key factors in getting survivors in
the Twin Towers back into business. As a result many companies involved in data
replication have seen increased interest in their products and services. |
| Market research |
The dozens of market research
and analyst companies in this directory focus on the storage market, and other
segments in the IT market. If you search their press releases and the abstracts
of their market reports you'll be able to identify other business areas which
have been growing fast, or which are projected to grow in the near future.
Companies which are growing fast, need to hire people like you. Otherwise they
can't grow. |
| Sun/SPARC Resellers in
the USA |
Whereas the Sun reseller
segment as a whole has also suffered from the same market effects which have
impacted Sun, some companies which are better at marketing, are doing a lot
better than others. The directories below, includes only companies which have
their headquarters in that state. In many cases, other national resellers also
have locations in those states. So you may need to reference our US list (link
on the left).
Apology in advance... This directory has been compiled
from independent market research by us and our readers, with no help whatsoever
from Sun. So it may be incomplete. But it's the best list of Sun VARs we've got.
|
|
AL,
AZ,
CA,
CO,
CT,
FL,
GA,
IA,
IL,
IN,
KY,
MA,
MD,
MI,
MN
, MO,
NC,
NH,
NJ,
NM,
NV,
NY,
OH,
OR,
PA,
RI,
SC,
TN,
TX,
VA,
VT,
WA,
WI |
| Linux portals,
Industry trade associations,
Sun, Solaris &
SPARC portals |
Once you've gained confidence
in your basic search strategy, expand the number of web sites which you use for
your trawling. The list of portals on the left will expand you out to a larger
range of information sources than you've probably seen before, if you've worked
for Sun. These are mainly focused on the Sun and closely related Unix markets,
because that's where your skills will be most highly valued. (And the other
reason is that I don't know any PC sites.) |
| Events & trade shows |
Going to trade shows and
conferences in the enterprise systems market is a traditional way to find out
who's hiring. Only problem is, everyone else is doing the same thing. There are
more shows in December this year than usual, because many events originally
scheduled for September and October were postponed. |
| SAN training companies,
Solaris Training
Companies |
Training companies and other
services types of companies may be useful outlets for your skills. These are
quite small lists, but you may know of others. |
| STORAGE Sales Jobs in the
USA |
This is a small list of job
portals which have sales and marketing jobs in the IT sector. Not the biggest
list but worth having a look at. |
Dear Reader
If
you've gotten this far, then good luck and I hope you find the above ideas
useful.
Most of the people I know (including myself) have been in
the situation of having to look for a new job at a bad time in a recession. All
of them finally ended up finding something better. It may be hard to imagine
that now, and the next job may not be the answer, but a recession accelerates
innovation and the development of new companies. I hope that in your new career
(if that's why you came here) you find some of the resources you use today still
come in useful.
Zsolt Kerekes, Publisher |
Sun/SPARC Resellers in
the USA
Sun/SPARC Resellers in
the UK