If you’re familiar with Novell NetWare and GroupWise, or hold a Novell Certification, Raymond Noorda was the man who helped make network computing possible.
Noorda, 82, is also credited as one of first high-tech executives to take on Microsoft Corp. over its dominance on the desktop and with helping to create the reseller approach to boost sales by allowing partners to offer its software.
Noorda served as president and chief executive of Utah-based Novell from 1983 to 1995 where he spearheaded Netware, the network operating system linking desktop computers to printers, file servers and directories.
“He helped drive the extension of the PC by building a successful file sharing system for the newly introduced PC that is now the defacto standard in Local Area Networks,” computer maker Dell Inc. Chairman Michael Dell said in a statement issued by Noorda’s venture capital firm.
Under Noorda, Novell grew from 17 employees to more than 12,000 and became one of the most important technology companies to come out of the 1980s.
After retiring from Novell, Noorda founded the Canopy Group, a venture capital firm through which he invested in start-up companies based mostly in his home state of Utah.
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