One of Silicon Valley's last true characters has signed off - Sun founder Scott McNealy has sent a final goodbye memo to his staff.

In his own words McNealy is "a big mouth who is always ready with a clever quip" and his swansong email does not disappoint.

He said the last four years (since he left the company) had "not been without serious withdrawal".

He said: "So, to be honest, this is not a note this founder wants to write. Sun, in my mind, should have been the great and surviving consolidator. But I love the market economy and capitalism more than I love my company."

He said he hoped the rest of the US economy would fall in love with capitalism again soon.

McNealy said there was an interesting book to be written about Sun, but he wasn't going to write it. He said the company was sometimes better at inventing stuff than making money from its inventions like Sparc, Solaris and Java.

But it did bring in $200bn over 28 years.

The letter added: "Sun did not cheat, lie, or break the rule of law or decency. While we enjoyed breaking the rules of conventional wisdom and archaic business practice, and for sure loved to win in the market, we did so with a solid reputation for integrity. Nearly three decades of competing without a notable incident of our folks going off course morally or legally. Not all executives and big companies are bad. Really. There are good companies out there. Special thanks to all of my employees for this. I never had to hide the newspaper in shame from my children."

Finally McNealy said Sun was 'way more fun than any other company. By far. From our dress code (You must!) to beer busts to our April Fools' pranks to SunRise..."

He wished Oracle and Larry Ellison well and said they were getting a jewel of the technology industry before signing off: "Kick butt and have fun!"

The full letter is on CNet here.

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