Sun Microsystems Inc. announced Monday that it has promoted John Loiacono, the vice president of its operating platforms group, to executive vice president of software.
That move follows Suns announcement Friday that Jonathan Schwartz, who was the executive vice president of software, had been promoted to president and chief operating officer of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm.
While Sun executives and officials declined to confirm that Loiacono was set to be promoted to the new role, sources close to the company said this was in the cards and would be announced publicly on Monday after internal Sun staff had been informed of the move.
There was a lot of speculation on Friday about who was in the running for the job, with most people telling eWEEK it would either be Loiacono or John Fowler, Suns chief technology officer for software.
In an interview with eWEEK on Friday, Schwartz declined to say who would replace him, saying that Sun staff had not been informed of the choice as yet. But he did rule Fowler out as a candidate.
“Software is the lens through which Sun is seen as we touch so many people with our software. Literally 30 million people a month visit Java.com and experience Sun.
“So we take the role of software leader really seriously and the person who heads that up has to be savvy not only on technology issues but also someone who is a tremendously effective communicator. The person we promote to that role is both of those things,” he said.
Loiacono is a natural successor to Schwartz, with whom he has worked very closely on projects like Orion, first reported by eWEEK in Dec. 2002 and now known as the Java enterprise System, as well as on the development of its Solaris operating system and Solaris for x86.