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Sun Microsystems was one of the giants of the 1980s and 1990s computer industry. Its workstations and servers ran much of the early internet. Its engineers created the Java programming language. Two of the company's Palo Alto connections are easy to miss. Its name came from a Stanford computer network, a few minutes from downtown. And for a stretch in the late 1990s its corporate headquarters sat on San Antonio Road in south Palo Alto, on a site that now holds a Jewish community campus.
This profile covers those two chapters, the moves in between and what you can see today. For the wider story of the era, start with our Silicon Valley history.
The Stanford University Network
In the early 1980s Stanford's computer science department was wiring its machines together on a campus network called the Stanford University Network, or SUN. Andy Bechtolsheim, a German-born graduate student, designed a personal workstation for the project. It used a Motorola 68000 processor and a memory management unit that let it run the Unix operating system. He built the first examples from spare parts from Stanford's computer science department and local supply houses.
Bechtolsheim licensed the design to other companies before Sun existed. An International Directory of Company Histories profile says he sold licenses for the SUN workstation at $10,000 each in 1981. The design was published as a Stanford technical report in March 1982. Stanford's computer science department now works from the Gates Computer Science Building, beside the area covered in our guide to the Science and Engineering Quad.
Founding in 1982
On February 24, 1982, three Stanford graduate students founded Sun Microsystems: Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim and Vinod Khosla. Bill Joy, a leading Unix developer from UC Berkeley, joined soon after and is counted as a co-founder. Khosla was the first chairman and chief executive. Kleiner Perkins put up early money.
Sun was profitable from its first quarter, in July 1982, according to Wikipedia. Its logo, four interlocking copies of the word "sun," was designed by Stanford professor Vaughan Pratt. McNealy became president in 1984 and led the company for more than two decades.
The founders went on to shape the valley in other ways. Khosla became a partner at Kleiner Perkins and later started his own firm, covered on our Khosla Ventures page. Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 check to Google Inc. before the company was incorporated, a story told in our Google profile.
Santa Clara, Mountain View and growth
Sun did not start in Palo Alto. Company histories in the International Directory of Company Histories say Sun's first office was in Santa Clara. As it grew quickly, it moved to a larger building in Mountain View, which became its headquarters. Sun's own 1992 history booklet was published from Mountain View.
The 1980s and 1990s were Sun's boom years. It built workstations based on its own SPARC processor design, licensed SPARC to chipmakers in 1987 and pushed open systems built on Unix. In 1995 it released Java, which became one of the world's most widely used programming languages. Sun's slogan, "The network is the computer," summed up its bet on connected machines years before most people had heard of the internet.
901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto
By the late 1990s Sun listed its corporate headquarters at 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303. That address appears in company profiles of the period and on Sun's own software documentation from around 2000. The site sits in south Palo Alto near the Mountain View border, a short drive from Highway 101. Our page on south Palo Alto describes the area.
A July 2002 report on GlobeSt.com described the building as a five-story office of 256,000 square feet on about 12 acres. We could not confirm the exact year Sun moved its headquarters there, so we describe it simply as Sun's late 1990s headquarters.
The move to Santa Clara
Sun soon needed more room. In 1997 it agreed to buy land at the former Agnews Developmental Center in Santa Clara, a state hospital campus that dated to 1885. The plan drew local criticism because most of the historic buildings would be demolished. Sun's new 82-acre headquarters campus there opened in 2000. At its height, Wikipedia notes, Sun's headquarters were in Santa Clara on the former west campus of Agnews.
From Sun headquarters to a community campus
In July 2002 Sun's former Palo Alto headquarters was sold for $35 million. The buyer was a partnership of the Jewish Community Federation and the Jewish Community Center. It was one of the more unusual reuses of a tech headquarters in the valley.
The Oshman Family JCC tells the rest of the story on its history page. A capital campaign of $140 million paid for a multi-generational campus on the former Sun site. The City Council approved the plan unanimously in 2006. Groundbreaking was on October 7, 2007. The JCC moved in that summer and opened its doors on September 1, 2009. The site is now the Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life, at 3921 Fabian Way, home to the Oshman Family JCC and the Moldaw Family Residences for older adults.
Later additions include a town square, a cafe and in 2018 the Arrillaga Family Pavilion and the Freidenrich Community Park with a walking track. The campus is open to the community for programs and membership. Check the Oshman Family JCC website for hours and access.
Decline and the Oracle deal
The dot-com crash hit Sun hard. Several quarters of steep losses led to layoffs and cost cutting. Sun closed its Newark factory in 2004 and put the rest of that campus up for sale in 2006. In 2008 it bought the open source database MySQL for $1 billion.
On April 20, 2009, Oracle announced a deal to buy Sun for $7.4 billion, or about $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. The European Commission opened an in-depth review over MySQL, then approved the deal on January 21, 2010. Oracle completed the purchase on January 27, 2010.
Sun's other big Bay Area campus had a famous second life too. In February 2011 its former Menlo Park campus, about one million square feet by the bay, was announced as Facebook's new headquarters. Facebook turned the old Sun sign around and put its own logo on the back. Our Facebook profile covers that move.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1981 | Bechtolsheim licenses the SUN workstation design built for Stanford's network. |
| February 24, 1982 | Sun Microsystems founded. |
| 1995 | Java released. |
| Late 1990s | Headquarters at 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto. |
| 2000 | Santa Clara headquarters campus on the former Agnews site opens. |
| July 2002 | Former Palo Alto headquarters sold for $35 million. |
| September 1, 2009 | Oshman Family JCC opens on the former Sun site. |
| January 27, 2010 | Oracle completes its purchase of Sun. |
Seeing Sun's Palo Alto past
Good to know
- There is no Sun marker in Palo Alto. The JCC campus on Fabian Way is the most visible reminder.
- The JCC is a community center, not a museum. Respect its rules and security when you visit.
- On campus, the Gates Computer Science Building is home to the department where the SUN workstation's story began. It is a working academic building.
- For computing history exhibits, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View is a short drive south.
For more company histories, see our guide to Palo Alto companies.
Frequently asked questions
Why was it called Sun Microsystems?
The name comes from the Stanford University Network, a campus computer network project. Andy Bechtolsheim designed a workstation for it as a Stanford graduate student and called it the SUN workstation. The company kept the name when it was founded in 1982.
Was Sun Microsystems founded in Palo Alto?
Not quite. The workstation design came out of Stanford, next to Palo Alto. The founders were Stanford graduate students. Company histories say Sun's first office was in Santa Clara before it moved its headquarters to Mountain View. By the late 1990s its headquarters address was 901 San Antonio Road in Palo Alto.
Where was Sun's Palo Alto headquarters?
Sun listed its headquarters at 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303 in the late 1990s. It moved to a new campus in Santa Clara that opened in 2000. In 2002 the Palo Alto building, a 256,000 square foot five-story office on about 12 acres, was sold for $35 million to a partnership of the Jewish Community Federation and the Jewish Community Center.
What is on the old Sun site in Palo Alto now?
The Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life, home of the Oshman Family JCC and Moldaw Family Residences, stands on the former Sun headquarters site. It opened on September 1, 2009 and uses the address 3921 Fabian Way.
When did Oracle buy Sun Microsystems?
Oracle announced its deal to buy Sun on April 20, 2009, for about $7.4 billion. After a European Commission review the purchase was completed on January 27, 2010.