Larry Singer, the senior vice president and strategic insight officer who joined Sun in 2003, is leaving the company, sources familiar with the situation said. And Stuart Wells, the executive vice president for utility computing who joined in 1988, is losing his position leading the Sun Grid project, though it's not yet clear whether he's leaving Sun altogether, sources said.

Sun is revamping Sun Grid, which has attracted more hype than paying customers. Sun is moving the grid away from its current incarnation as a stand-alone service, the sources said. Instead, it's becoming a facet of the operations of existing hardware and software business units.

The hardware and software groups will have responsibility for bringing Sun Grid to market, and the long-term hope is the move will make it easier for customers to seamlessly link to it, the sources said.

Sun declined to comment for this story.

The changes aren't the first since Jonathan Schwartz took over as chief executive in April. Schwartz named David Yen head of storage and John Fowler head of all server products in May. And shortly before that, when Schwartz still was president and chief operating officer, Sun promoted Don Grantham to lead a merged sales and services group.

At least one high-level Sun Microsystems executive is departing after a shake-up that also is affecting Sun Grid, a service to let customers pay by the hour to use its computers.

Larry Singer, the senior vice president and strategic insight officer who joined Sun in 2003, is leaving the company, sources familiar with the situation said. And Stuart Wells, the executive vice president for utility computing who joined in 1988, is losing his position leading the Sun Grid project, though it's not yet clear whether he's leaving Sun altogether, sources said.

Sun is revamping Sun Grid, which has attracted more hype than paying customers. Sun is moving the grid away from its current incarnation as a stand-alone service, the sources said. Instead, it's becoming a facet of the operations of existing hardware and software business units.

The hardware and software groups will have responsibility for bringing Sun Grid to market, and the long-term hope is the move will make it easier for customers to seamlessly link to it, the sources said.

Sun declined to comment for this story.

The changes aren't the first since Jonathan Schwartz took over as chief executive in April. Schwartz named David Yen head of storage and John Fowler head of all server products in May. And shortly before that, when Schwartz still was president and chief operating officer, Sun promoted Don Grantham to lead a merged sales and services group.