Sun's Schwartz taking blog into audio realm
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Jonathan Schwartz, the Sun Microsystems president who championed the idea of executive blogs, is trying to stay a step ahead of his competition by adopting a relative novelty called podcasting.
Podcasting broadcasts audio files with widely used blog dissemination technology called Really Simple Syndication (RSS). This method for automatically sending audio content to a subscriber's computer or digital music player is one of several fashionable new trends in the blogging world.
In his March 15 blog, Schwartz said he plans to podcast a Churchill Club panel discussion in which he argues it's possible to make money off a free product.
Schwartz latched onto blogs in an attempt to inject Sun into the conversations of programmers and customers. An added bonus: better communications with his own employees.
Schwartz used early blogs to criticize IBM's Linux strategy or tout software sales strategies. Since then, he's drawn executives from Hewlett-Packard and Red Hat into his debates.
Schwartz has successfully encouraged numerous Sun employees to write their own blogs. But some have yet to go the full monty: John Fowler, the executive vice president in charge of Sun's x86 servers, has a blog that's only available to Sun employees.