Tech guru Ray Noorda dead at 82

The man who launched the state of Utah's technology sector, Ray Noorda, died after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's at 12:30 p.m. Monday at his Orem home. He was 82 years old.

Often called the Father of Network Computing, and well-known as the tech guru that drove Novell Inc. to greatness, Noorda is survived by his wife of 56 years, Lewena Tye; four children, John, Alan, Andy and Brent; and 13 grandchildren.

"All of his family were in town when he passed. We were warned that he might be close to death as of last Friday," said David Vandagriff, Canopy's spokesman. Noorda was preceded in death by his parents, Bertus and Alida Noorda; daughter, Val Marie Kreidel; brother, Bert Noorda; and sister, Marie Hopkin.

Noorda joined a bankrupt company called Novell Data Systems in Provo, reorganized it into Novell, and grew the company from just 17 employees in 1983 to more than 12,000 at its height. The company's corporate headquarters are now in Waltham, Mass., but it still maintains a work force of about 2,000 in Provo.

According to an Associated Press story on Monday, Noorda, who Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates once called the "grumpy grandfather" of technology, was bitter over Novell's failure to restrict Microsoft's power. He tried branching out in the early 1990s by investing in the Unix operating system, the WordPerfect word processor and other products to compete with dominant Microsoft products.

But those efforts failed, and Novell went into a decline from which it has yet to fully recover.

Noorda, who resigned as CEO of Novell in 1995, then founded Canopy Ventures, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in more than 100 technology companies in Utah and California, including homegrown successes such as MyFamily.com and Altiris Inc.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in a statement Monday hailed Noorda as "one of the innovators of the Utah Miracle," referring to the growth of high-tech businesses in the state. Enditem

Source:Xinhua/Agencies