Ray Noorda Dead at 82

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.

Comments

His obituary

[Kangburra]

is here

His involvement with the UniXware purchase?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone happen to know what his involvement was, if any, with Novell's purchase of UnixWare from AT&T?

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.

Re:His involvement with the UniXware purchase?

[bmo]

"Does anyone happen to know what his involvement was, if any, with Novell's purchase of UnixWare from AT&T?"

http://www.sco.com/products/unixware714/

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 the Devil's own brimstone combined. The next thing _less_ revolting than SCO is a pedophile rapist cannibal terrorist.

--
BMO

Re:His involvement with the UniXware purchase?

[eer]

Recall that Novell had also promoted the GEM desktop as an alternative to Windows, and purchased DRI to get an alternative DOS operating system. I joined Novell in '94, before Ray left, after the Unixware deal. So I think adding UNIX to the mix, along with WordPerfect, was part of Ray's idea of how to build an across-the-board competitor to the Microsoft dominion. Later, after Ray left the reigns to Bob Frankenberg (moved over to Novell from HP), I think we over-reached.

The dream was to combine UNIX with NetWare to create a kick-ass application server to counter the emergent Windows NT vision. Recall that UNIX had split into two camps - ATT/SUN and IBM/DEC/HP - but they were starting to work together better.

Novell had great ties to IBM. Novell got along okay with HP. Novell got along great with AT&T.

This was also the period in which Chorus and MACH micro-kernels were making great strides in getting attention from OS vendors.

Well, there was one proposal to bring things together around a micro-kernel. There was even a chance to bring OS/2 into the grand unification effort.

But it was too much - too many conflicting performance / security / legacy issues to deal with. The technologists couldn't bring themselves to make all the compromises necessary for such a combination to succeed.

In the end, Novell realized the unification wouldn't happen, and split up UNIX, selling part to HP and the distribution rights to the old SCO, who needed it to upgrade their OpenServer products (I think).

The rest, as they say, is history - Linux ascendent, SCO sold their name and UNIX distribution rights to Caldera (a Novell spinoff, funded by Ray Noorda). Caldera management changes then led to their ill-advised resurrection of the SCO name and disasterous law suit against IBM and Novell.

Canopy && Caldera

[Russ Nelson]

I think that Ray saw that Novell's future was in Linux. That's why Canopy put money into Caldera. Unfortunately, the Novell culture couldn't make use of Linux, so Caldera got cut off and had to sink or swim on its own.

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.

RIP

[BrynM]

For all of the bad things that could be said of Netware (there were many), let's not forget that without it MS may have never advanced networking and infrastructure to the point they have (keep reading before you say "bah!"). Novell was THE competition for MS during the 90s. I worked in a blended NW/NT environment during the late 90s and from my vantage point the competition was fierce. For that, I say thank you. To those in doubt: Think of MS security then think of what it could have become without Novell as a competitor - shudder if you must. Rest well Ray.

An old Ray Story

[Rey Willie]

I'm sorry to see Ray go. I knew Ray back in the mid to late 1990s when he was still very active as Chairman of a company for which I once worked. A couple of little things come to mind. I remember one time when he came in for a board meeting very excited. He just made the last mortgage payment on his house, which, to my information, was worth about $150K. Yet, this billionaire was thrilled. He also used to like making the execs take him to Sizzler (the old steak house chain), where he could get the senior citizen discount. This was not designed to make the Southern California sales suits happy, but he sure seemed to enjoy it.

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.

Ray Noorda, chaos demon

[Allen Varney]

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 and WordPerfect. Noorda's Novell bought WordPerfect for $855 million 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", discusses Noorda's reign:

"[M]anagement monomania is perhaps the most insidious and avoidable trap. The company that has shown damagingly obsessive behaviour has been network operating system company, Novell. CEO and founder Ray Noorda, after failed takeover talks with Microsoft, became obsessed with the fact that Microsoft was trying to destroy his company - a focus that became so intense, ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myrvold dubbed him 'Captain Ahab' in 1993.
"Even though Novell had successfully fought off Microsoft in its core network operating system business for five years, Noorda decided that he had to take direct aim at the industry's Moby Dick. He bought 20 companies, including Digital Research (an operating systems company), Unix System Laboratories and office suite developer WordPerfect (subsequently sold to equally mismanaged Corel) over a three-year period. Even after Noorda retired in 1994, and his successor had divested most of his acquisitions, Novell was damaged beyond repair. [...] Novell fatally lost direction under Noorda, let its core products lapse and ceded market dominance. Since then it has suffered a steady decline."

Of course, Noorda also found the Canopy Group, 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.