Should the ponytail stay or go now?

It may not be the most critical aspect of Jonathan Schwartz' promotion to CEO of Sun Microsystems, but that hasn't kept people from debating whether he should keep the signature ponytail.

Depending upon who's talking, Schwartz' current hairstyle is a symbol of everything from non-conformity, to the absence of fashion sense.

And cutting it off, according to disparate bloggers, would represent everything from a way to instill more investor confidence, to completely selling out to corporate America.

Blog community response:

"The hirsute leader's unconventional appearance has to be unsettling to some of America's more conservative business cultures (Disney and IBM come to mind). But, I think it's totally liberating and very cool of Sun's board to not care about Schwartz and his locks. For one thing, it fits the Silicon Valley/technology industry's counter-culture philosophy. For another, it sets a nice tone for the corporate culture within Sun."
--RepMan

"Of course, the dude he succeeded was not exactly the type whose own fashion tastes would have landed him on the cover of GQ. McNealy typically wore sweaters, jeans and sneakers."
--The Tech Chronicles

"I predict that Jonathan Schwartz will cut his ponytail in some sort of act of solidarity in his new role as CEO. Isn't that the most obvious PR stunt that you could think of? I can just see him strutting out at JavaOne with a nice corporate hair cut and some messaging about fresh starts...One snip would make a lot of investors happy, I believe. Or maybe not...now that I think about it, I like the pony-tail. It's subversive and corporate all at once, the yin/yang of CEO hairstyles. I hope he keeps it."
--InfoWorld