Comments on: First impressions (or: is every Fortune 500 company like this?)

By: Susan Robertson

Susan Robertson — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:51:09 +0000

Hello
I’m interested in applying for a job at a local Fortune 500 company. What specifically is the advantage of working for one? Any particular disadvantages?

By: Gustavo

Gustavo — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:20:10 +0000

Recently installed solaris nevada 55. It seems like a great operating system. But….no via sata driver. After years of this chip being in the market. No network driver, so no internet connection. I know there is a third party driver for this network card(yukon sysconnect), but this driver is in every linux kernel.

By: Christof Meerwald

Christof Meerwald — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:56:39 +0000

Is there any chance of seeing a “Solaris Testdrive” anytime soon (something similar to http://www.testdrive.hp.com). I think this could really help getting more developers interested in Solaris (as it’s not always easy to get access to a Solaris box).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 15:30:15 +0000

If they are really interested in hearing an outside perspective, I have one to offer: GPL ZFS.

Now, if they decide that’s not in their best interest, that’s fine, but if they would like developer mindshare (read: free debugging) on what could be a new standard, they need to get it into more open source OSs, and *BSDs are not going to be enough…

By: Jeff Huter

Jeff Huter — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:16:48 +0000

Glad to see you are enjoying yourself. I can’t speak for all Fortune 500 companies, but my first year (about 6 years ago) at Intel was very similar. I was greatly impressed at the time how fast the 800 lb. gorilla could move.

One word of caution, a company that moves fast has it’s benefits and disadvantages for its employees. The main disadvantage for its employees is that people can easily get left behind when the company moves into a new direction or wishes to leave a certain market. During my 5 years at Intel, I saw several reorgs and changes in direction as Intel reinvented itself. While I believe Intel was better off as a result of these changes, not everybody at Intel benefited from these changes as business units were eliminated, sold-off or absorbed into other business units. Intel did a decent job of trying to relocate people to on-going business concerns, but if you lacked the skill set for the new business unit there was little they could do.

For a company that moves slowly, employees can usually see these changes coming and find other opportunities in the same company or another company. However, a company that moves quickly is much more likely to catch its employees unprepared for the change.

By: Deirdré Straughan

Deirdré Straughan — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 09:38:36 +0000

I started at Sun (with far less fanfare, understandably!) about the same time you did, and my new boss/old friend there used the same “drinking from a firehose” metaphor to describe my first visit to the Broomfield campus (I’ll be working mostly from my home in Italy).

I, too, am delighted with Sun culture as I find it so far – there seem to be a lot of very happy people there who know what they’re doing, but are open to new perspectives as well. It’s a fascinating new “country” to explore.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:41:34 +0000

I certainly felt that way at IBM, in the LTC.