The man who built Novell into the dominant provider of LAN software in the mid-1990s has died. Ray Noorda died Monday due
to complications from Alzheimer's disease. He was 82.
Noorda joined the Orem, Utah, company when it was a 17-person operation, and was Novell's CEO from 1983 to 1995. During that
time he built the company's NetWare network operating system business into a multibillion dollar concern and embarked on a
high-profile, and ultimately futile, attempt to take on Microsoft in the operating system and desktop application space.
Even after his retirement from Novell, Noorda was a towering figure in Utah's technology industry.
From 1995 onward, Noorda ran a venture capital firm called Canopy Venture Partners (the Canopy Group), which invested in over
100 companies. Canopy's most famous investment was in The SCO Group, which has been involved in a high profile lawsuit with IBM relating to the Unix operating system.
He was also an active donor to a variety of organizations related to his church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
Noorda is survived by his wife, Tyre, four children, and 13 grandchildren.
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