Computer networking pioneer Ray Noorda died Monday at the age of 82. Often called the “Father of Network Computing,” Noorda served as CEO of Novell, Inc., from 1982 to 1994, where he took the company from fewer than two dozen employees to over 12,000, and made it one of the most important technology companies in the 1980s and early 1990s.
As CEO of Novell, Noorda spearheaded Novell’s NetWare, which linked together desktop computers with servers, printers, and other network services in an era when Microsoft and other operating system vendors were largely ignoring the potentials of network services. Noorda was one of the first to challenge Microsoft Corporation for dominance in the personal computing world, and for years Microsoft’s products played second-fiddle to Novell’s NetWare offerings. Noordia also pioneered the use of a reseller approach to software marketing, and coined the term “coopetition” as a way of describing the win-win scenarios used to propel many inter-business relationships.
In a statement issued by Noorda’s venture capital firm the Canopy Group, Dell founder Michael Dell noted, “He helped drive the extension of the PC by building a successful file sharing system for the newly introduced PC that is now the de facto standard in Local Area Networks. [..] And, he created many friends, including us, who will have fond memories of his contribution, his leadership in our industry and his drive to succeed.”
