Many companies say their employees are their most prized assets, but perhaps only a few of them believe it when they say it. The experiences of employees demonstrate the reality of the message, and as I joined Sun Microsystems in July 1989, I was cynical, but willing. However, around the same time that this young company was saying publically, "The network is the computer", Scott McNealy, founder and long-time CEO, was enthusing internally a more personal ethic, reflecting a positive attitude for employees of all abilities.

He said: "Work hard, play hard, change the rules, and win". This typified the culture of the brash, fast moving Californian workstation company from the 1980s that eventually became the cheerleader for open systems, IP networking, 'the dot in dotcom' and the inevitable inventor of something like Java. Quite an attitude and in the 1990s even Oracle described itself as the second most arrogant IT company. It meant, after Sun. Ironic, eh?

With an acerbic (some would be less charitable) CEO, who famously laid into Microsoft (the dark side), IBM (the big blue whale) and many other companies (nobody wants to get Wang'd or DEC'd), what else could Sun be described as, but arrogant?

At many times, especially in the first fifteen years, it looked rightly so. It was relentlessly successful at inventing cheaper, faster hardware, capitalising on its channel and partners, and reasonably successful at developing software. It pioneered open platforms, trying to create competitive suppliers for its SPARC processor chips, encouraging Sun clones while SPARCstation workstations were booming and of course the Java platform.

While other companies stumbled, the similarly once great DEC in particular, Sun soared, and then started to believe it was something other than an innovative technology company. It moved into services, attempted solution selling and drifted from another of McNealy's famed comments: "All the wood behind one arrow" to more of a prevaricating quiver.

Had the 'prized assets' lost their belief? In a way, yes: employees were less focused, the company had expanded, the gene pool diluted. It wasn't that Sun stopped recruiting good people or that everyone was slacking, but something was missing. It was a loss of belief in being the underdog, taking on the world, making a difference. The focus turned inward, not outward.

Some of that change was good and necessary—sorting processes, maturing of attitudes and so on—but there was a loss of competitive spirit and a lack of focus on the needs of the customer. Cost centric replaced customer centric, and with external pressures mounting from the collapse of the dotcom boom and new brash, fast moving competitors, the internal focus intensified and Sun followed DEC down the route of a death of a thousand cuts.

Much of the energy dissipated as long-serving employees left or were cut over the years, leaving technology designs, patents, brands and trademarks floundering behind, along with manufacturing capabilities and several important pieces of software. But this is intellectual property, not intellect, and the spark of Sun had long dimmed before the embers were poked over by IBM, and were finally acquired by Oracle.

So, did Oracle buy a whole Sun? Well, it has acquired some valuable technology assets, but not the Sun belief and attitude of old. That had already been spread elsewhere into the ecosystem, with some former solar particles (employees) expending their energies on other technology challenges and others ready to commit time to very different activities. Oracle may have bought the mass, but perhaps not the energy of the dying star.