In Remembrance of Ray Noorda

Posted on October 22nd, 2006 mitch  Print No comments

On October 9th, Ray Noorda, former CEO of Novell, passed away at 82 years of age.

While many in the audience may never have heard of Ray, you have benefited greatly from the efforts of Ray and his company, Novell.  After all, they created something called the Network Operating System ( NOS ) and forever changed the way people used computers.

I encountered Novell and their Netware product at version 2.0a, way back in 1988 ( if I recall correctly ).  People don't give any thought of connecting to a server to share files and printers, or access their CRM system, or connect to the Internet to read this blog, but way back then, it was just the coolest thing happening.

With Netware, Novell created a set of standards that would allow hardware and software vendors to create components that could be plugged into the network and play nicely with other vendor's products.  Useful things like network cards, backup devices, etc.

One of the most fascinating things about Netware 2.0a was that fact that it was not delivered ready to install.  You had to build it.  And I mean build.  Since Netware was an open architecture, it shipped with a stack of 5 1/4 inch floppies about a foot high.  You actually created the NOS by selecting the hardware components installed in your server and using the appropriate object modules from the various floppies, created the executable that was Netware.  I still find this process fascinating.

It was a whole new world and one of the most exciting times of my professional life.  People who were not working with computers at that time may not be able to imagine how hard it was to get things done sometimes. Netware solved many issues we encountered in our daily professional lives and opened up new avenues of productivity that have resulted in the computer networking we know today.

Ray also coined the term coopetition, which is shorthand for cooperative competition, and is also responsible for the creation of the Reseller model of product distribution.

I don't think people gave Ray and his team enough credit for what they accomplished. Just about every single system and company that followed used many of the same approaches pioneered by Novell.

So anyway, thanks Ray.  I can say with very little doubt, that had you and SuperSet not created Netware, all of our lives would have been drastically different.  And that little software company based in the Pacific Northwest would not have had anyone to compete with and that would have made things even more interesting.

References

The Canopy Group press release.

Ray's page at the Canopy Group.

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