As a CTO, and as every developer is thier own CTO, we make bets on what technologies are going to make it.  Its terrible to toil for months and find out no one wants your great new app, built on technology "that is soooo last year". And in part, you are betting on the personalities of Ballmer, Ellison, and McNealy when you make some of those bets.  I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the industry leaders.....and I bet on McNealy - and here is why

Full disclosure - I have met McNealy roughly 10 times in settings of 20 or less (a few time 4 or less) people, and a couple of times we have dialogued 1on1 - it was pretty nerve wracking the first time I realized he knew me by name.  I have met Ballmer three times in person, groups of 50 ish.  I have never met Ellison in person.  I have viewed interviews of all of them, perhaps you have too.

So why do I prefer McNealy?  Is he a nutcase?  Isn't everyone at that level of earnings and success a bit different than the rest of us?  I hear the critics - and he shares some of thier jokes about his living in his own "reality distortion vortex".    I think Scott M could be a LOT less acerbic when talking about the competition.

So why do I like him?  First, he is transparent.  He talks about where the industry is, how his company fits in that,  where they are headed, and why.  Ballmer talks about things that may never happen. (Mostly he talks about his company, not the industry forces and dynamics)  Ballmer explodes - - and rants, but does not inspire me with any insights as to where the industry is headed.    Ellison is a modern day Sun Tzu,  but he is in a land war with china when he goes up against MSFT.

Frankly, given how pervasive Java is - from cell phones to applications - we should all be glad SUN does not practice predatory tying and lock in approaches to thier technologies - sure they try to sugar coat you into thier other technologies - but those are not lock in either. 

I don't know many developers that think Ballmer is dialed in on technology.  Most of them think of the  monkey-boy videos and send them to each other.  McNealy makes off color remarks, but its part of his transparency, and frankly entertaining - when you sit thru an 8 hour analyst briefing, the occaisional frank remark helps keep you awake.  But Scott does have a way of simply describing what is going on, and what will go on, in this industry.  So do his staff, from Greg Papadopoulos  <Greg Matter blog>  and Schwartz <JSchwartz blog>on thru.  At times I think they are orders of magnitude optimistic on how-fast all this may occur - and at times they prove me wrong.

In fact, props to SUN the company - to a person SUN has brilliant, upbeat people working for them.  Yes, I am impressed.   Its a rare combination to have in a staff - admittedly I have it in mine as well - which could bias me into a self affirming judgement.

Ellison goes for the dark and mysterious approach, and while I love sailing, his pricing model is so complicated you can't get the same answer from any two Oracle reps as to what you should pay.  I like his product, rather parts of it - - but lets get a pricing model that fits the current market and is comprehendable.

I also give props to Scott for making Schwartz (the anti-Scott) the president of SUN - in many ways his compliment, which helps.  I as well am lucky to have complimentary skills near me in my org - and it really helps.  Schwartz really knows that developers drive this industry - and not HIS developers.  Oh and they have done the math on how many developers, servers, applications are coming from India, China, and Europe - - and those folks do not like spending hundreds on operating systems, office suites, or IDEs - so MSFT - figure out how to live without that revenue.

(Dynamics is a great idea - MSFT will kill SAP - you read it here first - its thier strong point - massive applications - it will take them 10 years to do it.  But I would not want to be SAP or peoplesoft for the next ten years).  Google wants the ad revenue and seems to have mastered it, that can drive those free applications (and thousands of others). 

Sun doesn't care who strikes gold, they know that most of the millions made during the gold rush were made by folks selling shovels and blue jeans...

I don't really think Scott McNealy is a nutjob - but many of you do.
So as CTO when you pick your STACK of technologies, you are largely picking "which nutjob" you believe.
Given 3 nutjobs, pick the one with the industry insight.

Oh, and if you are a CTO or a developer, and not a pundit - you have to pick one, you can't sit back and say they are all whack. (well, you shouldn't.  Some developers still build thier own stack, but customers are getting wise to homegrown--proprietary-- no economies of scale costs of maintaining those systems..)