Southeastern Asset Management Inc, now Sun's largest stockholder, wants on to Sun's board, which has so far failed to stop the company from imploding.

Sun has agreed to give it two seats but both companies have to agree on who sits in them. When they might be filled is unclear.

Whether Southeastern, which is known to invest in what it thinks are undervalued companies, has any fixes for what ails Sun is debatable.

Consider the public statement of its vice president and principal Jason E. Dunn:

"We fully support Sun's CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, and his leadership team in their efforts to continue driving near-term efficiencies and long-term growth. Sun product lines like Open Storage and Solaris-based Chip Multi-Threading (CMT) systems along with software infrastructure assets, including Java, OpenSolaris and MySQL, illustrate Sun's enormous growth opportunity. With the appointment of two new directors, the recently announced restructuring, over $3 billion in cash and a long history of cash generation, we are confident Sun is well positioned for long-term success."

Southeastern recently increased its position in Sun to 22%.

After losing $1.68 billion in the September quarter, including a $1.45 billion write-down believed to be largely related to its acquisition of StorageTek, Sun said it would fired 5,000-6,000 people, some 15%-18% of its staff.