Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Irony Returns!

Since I seem to be in a mood for reviewing past posts, I also realized that this blog has not had a healthy shot of irony since last June. Fortunately, I am happy to report that Reuters has a story hot off the business wire that should serve as a remedy:

Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA.O: Quote, Profile, Research) will release its fiscal first-quarter results on Nov. 5, later than usual for that period, due to complications in installing a new computer accounting system, its chief financial officer said on Wednesday.

CFO Michael Lehman said at Sun's financial analyst meeting in New York that the company wants to make sure the complex system is working properly before it releases results for the quarter.

Reading this evoked one of the classic adages from my student days: "To err is human; to really screw things up, it takes a computer!" I sold my Sun shares quite a long time ago, so I have no personal stake in this story. However, I hope that at least some of the shareholders are wondering whether or not the launch of the new accounting system was scheduled with the quarterly deadline in mind. If it was, then those "complications" must be pretty massive (and, if it was not, then, by all rights, CFO Lehman has, in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, "some 'splainin' to do"). Whatever the case may be, there is nothing like a hardware company beset with software problems to let us know that irony is alive and well (and apparently living quite comfortably in Boston these days)!

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