Sun Microsystems earned a piddly $88 million on $3.78 billion in sales for the second quarter. The company is still trying to recover from a $5 billion loss after the dot-com bust killed the market for its servers. Massive layoffs and restructuring have run up additional charges. But there's an upside: Analysts had expected worse. The Valley's former destination of choice for overachieving young engineers may yet save itself.

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