During a morning keynote presentation and a subsequent press conference, McNealy was upbeat about his new responsibilities and expressed relief about stepping down as CEO. He turned over the reigns to Jonathan Schwartz, who had been Sun's COO. Rumors had floated in recent weeks that McNealy would step aside in response to gripes about the company's poor financial performance of late.

"I'm thrilled not to have to be CEO anymore," he said. "That was a temporary thing that I took on about 22 years ago."

Although he injected a lot of humor into his presentation, including reading a "top 10" list of reasons why he was glad to exit the job, McNealy's talk had a serious side as well.

Three out of four persons in the world are not on the Internet, he said. "It's an enormous tragedy. It's also a huge economic opportunity," McNealy said. The industry must eliminate this divide through development of Java-enabled technologies, he said.

To this end, developers may need to work a little later in the night "because you're kind of cursed with the opportunity" to change the world, said McNealy.