I'm having a conversation with "Virtual Scott" as I fly east from Sun Microsystems Inc.'s annual analyst conference last week, a two-day Sun fest for financial and industry analysts. Virtual Scott is my mind's image of Scott McNealy, Sun's CEO, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt with a Sun logo. He's smiling, witty, disarming, and an unswerving champion of all things under his Sun (sorry, I couldn't resist).