WSJ.com - Sun Microsystems Co-Founder Returns

WSJ.com - Sun Microsystems Co-Founder Returns: "Sun Microsystems Inc. agreed to buy a start-up company run by departed co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim -- a deal that returns one of the one of the most celebrated computer designers to a strategic position at the company.
Sun said it would buy Kealia Inc., a closely held company formed by Mr. Bechtolsheim before resigning from a senior position at Cisco Systems Inc. in December. Terms weren't disclosed, though Sun characterized the deal as a stock-for-stock transaction.
Mr. Bechtolsheim, 48 years old, designed Sun's original computer workstations more than 20 years ago, while he and Chief Executive Officer Scott McNealy were at Stanford University. He was a longtime force in hardware design at the company before leaving Sun in 1995 to form Granite Systems Inc., a maker of networking equipment that Cisco purchased the next year for $220 million. At the time he left Cisco, he was vice president in charge of a unit that was making devices using a technology called gigabit switching.
Kealia's plans were closely guarded, though people familiar with the matter said it was working on computer servers to help distribute movies and other digital content. Significantly, Mr. Bechtolsheim disclosed Tuesday that the 58-employee company's computers were based on an Advanced Micro Devices Inc. chip called Opteron that has become a major part of Sun's strategy since last fall."