Each firm operates in its own distinctive environment in which compensation formulas have to interact with the patterns of shareholder control, the type of direct regulation in place and the rapid movement in product markets.
However, the biggest challenge to Sun's dominance may come not from the old enemy in Redmond, but from Linux, a free operating system that is a product of the open-source movement.
He is referring not only to the touchscreens on most smartphones and tablets like the iPads, but also to the Kinect - another Microsoft product that launched this year with sensors that track physical movement.
As I said earlier, creativity happens in unexpected ways and it was a design movement that started organically as a result of a real product and business need that was the genesis for the introduction of the totally fresh-looking Microsoft Windows 8 family of products.