Ray Noorda and open source

Ray Noorda has died. He was 82.

Noorda occupied an important niche in computer history. He is remembered as "the father of networked computing."

That's because, under Noorda, Novell became the leader in a new business called networked PCs during the 1980s, before PC operating systems grew to cover networks. He made PC networks the dominant business computing platform, and was eulogized by Michael Dell this way. "He was known for letting anyone make a mistake once, as long as they got it right the next time."

Unfortunately Novell ran into the Microsoft buzzsaw, and was eventually left to find its way to Massachusetts, as an open source company.

But Noorda did good. Consider that when Ray Noorda left Novell in 1995, Desert News reports, it had 12,000 employees. That's about 3,000 more than Google has today.

After leaving Novell, Noorda launched Canopy Ventures. He hoped to jump-start Utah as a technology capital. Canopy helped fund a number of other start-ups in the Utah area. One became SCO. 

I believe the lesson of Noorda's life is not what is being written by most eulogizers. Novell's path is not unusual in the high tech space, nor should it be seen as such. Tech ain't beanbag, but it's not car-making, either. Just because you have a big lead today, and are working on improving your product, does not guarantee you a future.

This is something today's proprietary software leaders might be wise to keep in mind. There but for your ability to catch the next wave go you. Open source is that next wave. Open source will write many corporate obituaries over the next decade, perhaps as many as Microsoft did in the last 20 years.