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Mr Scott McNealy, Chairman, President and CEO, Sun Microsystems Inc, addressing businessmen in the Capital on Thursday.

NEW DELHI, March 20

MR Scott McNealy, maverick chief of Sun Microsystems, spent almost an entire day in the Capital doing what he loves the most - bashing up Microsoft.

On his first visit to India after he co-founded Sun in 1982 with an Indian, Mr Vinod Khosla, Mr McNealy was at his vituperative best in running down rival companies such as Microsoft and Intel at the three sessions he attended.

No major announcements in terms of expanding Sun's activities in India or specific business strategies to tap the country's market, but Mr McNealy, who is the Chairman, President and CEO of Sun, doled out some charity by way of free software for educational institutions and researchers, which he says is worth $300 million.

At a morning session hosted by the National Association of Software and Service Companies, his animosity with Microsoft came out with the first statement: "You do not need a Microsoft Office. This is a Star Office presentation."

Here are some of his trademarks, pugnacious statements during the day:

"In .Net viruses are a feature."

"We've got mankind against Microsoft. And the mankind is winning."

"Microsoft offering source code to some Governments is like giving a cheese burger to look at and not to eat."

"Itanium (a microprocessor developed by Intel) is an incredible disaster by one of the most credible companies."

When there was an initial glitch in his presentation: "I think it's a Windows. I think it's going to crash."

Apart from spitting venom on his arch rivals, Mr McNealy also gave a glimpse of the future of computing, which he believes would be led by technologies developed by Sun Microsystems.

"Today my desktop follows me in my campuses and houses - all I need to do is to insert a Java card into the systems and I can access my desktop," he said. Soon Sun's technologies will enable global roaming for desktops, letting users access their computers from anywhere.

He said though dot-coms went burst, Internet is still a growing medium and everything and everybody is rapidly getting connected. "You car will run an auction with gas stations to get fuel at the best rates," Mr McNealy said.

Though Sun supports open source software such as Linux, he advised companies and other users to stay away from downloading free source code and trying to develop solutions themselves.

"Downloading zeros and ones could be potentially radio-active for you. So you should buy products based on open source software from companies who develop such stuff," he said.

During the day, Mr McNealy met the President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, and the Union Information Technology and Telecom Minister, Mr Arun Shourie. He is also going to Mumbai, where he will meet the Tatas and Reliance officials, and to Bangalore, where he would meet the top brass of Wipro and Infosys. Mr McNealy is also visiting Chennai.

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