Ray Noorda Dead at 82 41
HaeMaker writes to tell us that Ray Noorda passed away today at the age of 82. Noorda was best known for his leadership role at the helm of Novell Inc. Known to some as the "father of network computing" Noorda took the then small Novell from around 17 employees to well over 12,000.
His obituary (Score:5, Informative)
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"Raymond John Noorda, age 82, passed away in his home in Orem, Utah on October 9, 2006 after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's disease."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean he died?
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I'm amazed that nobody said (Score:2)
His involvement with the UniXware purchase? (Score:4, Interesting)
As a UnixWare administrator at the time, I had had great hopes for it. It was the premiere UNIX for x86 computers at the time, and the sale to Novell brought a lot of hope to a lot of people. Linux was just becoming strong, and the BSDs had just resumed again after the lawsuit. We were thinking that Novell would really push UnixWare, and attempt to make it become one of the most widely-used PC operating systems.
Unfortunately, that did not happen. In many ways, that may have been a good thing. I personally think it was a bit saddening, as UnixWare was a rather fantastic system at the time.
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http://www.sco.com/products/unixware714/ [sco.com]
Since the lawsuits and the 1500 letters they sent out to major Linux users threatening them with lawsuits and Darl saying "Contracts are what you use against your customers," the market for UnixWare has dwindled to nothing. Your treasured UnixWare is attached to something that stinks like dead skunk, amorphophallus titanum, GAPO, rotten eggs, sewage, and th
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The dream was to combine UNIX wi
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How much of that can be laid at the feet of Drew "I know how many clock cycles a file i/o takes" Major's [wikipedia.org] death grip on Netware's kernel code?
Very little: Univel was a joint venture (Score:2)
Ray was already pretty much out by then; he was still chairman of the board, but even then he was known to write himself notes when travelling so that he'd know what city he was in when he woke up in the morning.
Novell's day to day operations were handled by "the office of the pr
Uh, who died...? (Score:1, Troll)
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Canopy && Caldera (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry to hear of Ray's death at age 82, but y'know, with an average lifespam of 80, that means that some poor schmuck is condemned to die at age 78.
Re:Canopy && Caldera (Score:1)
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RIP (Score:5, Interesting)
An old Ray Story (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a shame that, IMHO, certain people took advantage of him as his intellect started to slip, and no parent should have to outlive his own daughter. Still, he was a giant in his day, and he funded a lot of startups while never being personally greedy (at least that I saw).
I am glad to have known him.
Networking (Score:1, Funny)
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Best wishes to Mr. Noorda's family, friends, and colleges.
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Vaya con Dios, Ray (Score:2)
Ray Noorda, chaos demon (Score:3, Informative)
I can't believe these obituaries for Ray Noorda highlight his supposed business skill, when he rode Novell straight into the ground and singlehandedly destroyed both Digital Research [ctyme.com] and WordPerfect. Noorda's Novell bought WordPerfect for $855 million [findarticles.com] in June 1994, when its word processor, formerly the industry standard, was struggling and needed smart management. After Noorda left the company, Novell promptly sold WordPerfect to Corel in January 1996 for 10 million shares of Corel stock and $11 million in cash -- that's right, an $800 million loss in 18 months. Meanwhile, WordPerfect's market share had totally collapsed.
An October 2000 article in Computer Business Review Online, "Why Companies Fail" [cbronline.com], discusses Noorda's reign:
Of course, Noorda also found the Canopy Group [wikipedia.org], of which the less said the better.
Noorda achieved some great things, but for much of his latter career he was a force for chaos and destruction.
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Don't worry Ray (Score:2)