Zander on Microsoft: "This is not a religious jihad"

Sun Microsystems insists it is not planning any more job cuts this year and flatly denied it is obsessed with toppling Bill Gates and Microsoft.

President and COO Ed Zander said revenues for the year ending in June were unlikely to see any growth and predicted a return to double-digit growth will have to wait until 2003.

The company laid off 3,900 employees in October 2001 - the first redundancies in the company's 19-year history.

Zander told the Financial Times that Sun was committed to its research and development budget and had no plans to make any cuts to it.

He also denied the company had an unhealthy fixation with Microsoft. He insisted that the company's attempts to limit the software giant were "pure business" and "not emotional".

Zander added: "This is not a religious jihad."