As board does nothing, another loss at Sun

Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) lost $1.68 billion last quarter. Much of that was a write-down of goodwill, but revenue fell and the company had red ink even without the accounting charge. The numbers also missed most Wall Street estimates and raised the question of how long Sun can stay independent.

Revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 were $2.99 billion, a decrease of 7.1% compared with $3.219 billion in the same quarter a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, the net loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 was $65 million. Last year, the figure was a net profit of $285 million.

Sun had done poorly to some extent because of competition from large competitors like IBM (NYSE:IBM), but the company is running low on excuses. As might have been expected, CEO Jonathan Schwartz, famous for his ponytail and blog, said there were better days ahead.

Sun's shares have dropped from a 52-week high of over $23 to $5.29 and are likely to be pushed down more by the news.

The responsibility for Sun's performance now rests squarely with its board. The group has refused to fire Schwartz, or put the company up for auction. A look at the members shows that very few of them have had careers of much distinction. Perhaps that is why they were chosen. One member, Anthony Ridder, flew his company, newspaper firm Knight-Ridder into a mountain. Another, James Barksdale, ran Netscape, a well-know tech company failure.

The board may simply not have what it takes to begin to fix things at Sun.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.