Technical Impromptu
Tech Tidbits to ponder...

Times change, and people do too!

I worked at Sun Microsystems for the past (close to) 6 years, and it was a great place to work. I went to Sun in response to a bad choice they made to try and end of life Solaris on x86. During the time I was there, I saw Sun make a massive shift to support the Solaris operating system on x86/AMD64 architectures. Enough that I would say it would appear to be one of their long term strategies. Now it is time to move on, time to find something new to do, and I have my eyes focused on Embedded Linux as the target for future work. Prior to joining Sun Microsystems it was quite a tough time in Silicon Valley, and I certainly shared some of those hardships. I also felt very fortunate that Sun gave me a position working for them at one of the worst times in Silicon Valley, the dot-bomb really took a toll on all of us, as many of you know that are here and experienced it first hand. OTOH, the rise of the bubble was one of the most incredible rides and a milestone in history for the high tech. Alas, my position was alleviated with the 6000 employee reduction in force at Sun on January 22, 2009. I enjoyed my time there, and have many great experiences at Sun.

At the tail end of the dot-bomb, I was working on one of the first Embedded Linux projects, the Kerbango Internet Radio. I wrote all the communications for the radio, handled the authentication of the radio to connect to the tuning service, and worked on some of the system, along with some device driver work. This project was without a doubt one of the greatest projects I had worked on, and Embedded Linux has grown quite a bit since.

Here's a picture of the Kerbango Internet Radio.

Some things we can't explain, and how we get to where we are going is for each of us to figure out. Who knows what the future will bring. I want to stay in Silicon Valley, I can't imagine leaving, certainly not before I can get my daughter through high school which she will start next year. Embedded Linux is without a doubt one of the healthiest sectors of the high tech industry. In fact, I would venture to say that Linux is tossing the embedded space on it's head, and more and more companies continue to gyrate towards using it in their products.

Having been in the high tech industry for more than 25 years, one thing I have learned is that you can never know what to expect. I am not clear what I will do, but I am glad I have some experience in developing on Embedded Linux. I gave a presentation last August for the Peninsula Linux User Group and you can get the presentation here in PDF format, if you have interest. The presentation was about Embedded Linux and the Kerbango Internet Radio.

If you know of an interesting project using Embedded Linux, feel free to pass my name along!

Posted at 08:30PM Mar 03, 2009 by aland in General  |  Comments[16]