Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun Microsystems

"It's one of the few technologies that may outlast the century," Schwartz continued. "I'm not worried about its permanence."

The backlash on his blog hadn't taken him by surprise: "I knew ahead of time changing a ticker to which a generation had become accustomed would be hard. And that it'd draw out the cynics." he wrote, before continuing:

"We've been driving a lot of changes recently, and change is hard. Every decision has adherents and detractors (from moving to free software, to signing deals with former competitors - even getting rid of styrofoam in our cafeteria). Change is also the primary ingredient in progress. I'm committed to our decision - our ticker, and one of the highest volume equities on NASDAQ, is now JAVA. (And in response to the obvious question, the symbol SUN was unavailable, and plenty of companies name their ticker after their highest value brand, COKE among them.)" 

Schwartz also responded to those who had asked him whether as CEO he expected a ticker change to have any impact on Sun's share price. "None," he answered, adding: "No rational investor would buy on a ticker symbol. Investors buy on financial results or expectations (or trading patterns)."

"I do expect the change to drive greater awareness of the Java brand," he noted - something every Java partner has asked Sun for, for years, he wrote. 

• 'SUNW' Is No Longer Valid; Today It Has Changed To 'JAVA'
• Blogosphere Continues Reacting to SUNW-to-JAVA Stock Ticker Change
• Father of Java Admits That His Brainchild Was Named, Erm, Chaotically