Posted on 09/09/2003 7:04:05 AM PDT by HAL9000
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, a driving force behind the company's key technologies, said Tuesday he's leaving after 21 years."I have decided the time is now right for me to move on to different challenges," Joy said in a press release. He was not immediately available for further comment.
Sun shares fell 7 cents to $4.17 in early trading. The stock is up from a trough of $2.34 a share in October 2002, but is down from its 52-week peak of $5.64, set in June. Sun took its usual position among the Nasdaq Composite Index's most active stocks with 5.5 million shares exchanged.
Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's chief technology officer, will take over Joy's responsibility of overseeing a group of 80 engineers and 12 Sun Fellows, including James Gosling, who led the design of the Java programming language.
"Bill will continue to be an inspiration to all innovators," Sun CEO Scott McNealy said in a press release.
McNealy was expected to face questions about Joy's departure during a keynote address and press conference scheduled at the OracleWorld conference in San Francisco later on Tuesday.
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