Background
Noorda was born in Ogden, Utah, the third son of Dutch immigrants Bertus Noorda and Alida Margaretha van den Berg.
computer software company executive
Noorda was born in Ogden, Utah, the third son of Dutch immigrants Bertus Noorda and Alida Margaretha van den Berg.
He attended Weber State College in Ogden. He graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Utah in 1949.
He was Chief Executive Officer of between 1982 and 1994. He also served as chairman of until he was replaced in 1994. During World World War II, he served in the United States. Navy for two years as an electronics technician, working with radar systems
Noorda worked for General Electric from graduation until 1971, after which he worked at a number of California companies.
In 1983 Noorda assembled the SuperSet team whose members included Drew Major, Dale Niebaur and Kyle Powell. The team was originally assigned to create a Communist Party/M disk sharing system, but instead came up with a successful file sharing system for the newly introduced International Business Machines Corporation-compatible Personal Computer. This network operating system was later called NetWare.
Under Noorda"s watch, acquired several companies and products with the goal of countering Microsoft"s rapid spread into new markets, including Digital Research, Unix System Laboratories, WordPerfect, and Borland"s Quattro Pro. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Bill Gates claimed that Noorda had a "tremendous vendetta" against Microsoft and that Noorda had supported the Federal Trade Commission"s antitrust investigations of Microsoft in the early 1990s that led to a consent decree restricting its operating system licensing practices.
Noorda ran until 1993.
He was succeeded by Robert Frankenberg in 1994. Up to his death, Noorda owned the Canopy Group. One of its holdings, Caldera, purchased the Unix assets in 1995 from the Santa Cruz Operation, which had acquired them from In 1996 it also acquired the Digital Research assets from and immediately brought a lawsuit against Microsoft that largely duplicated the claims that the Federal Trade Commission (Federal Trade Commission) and Department of Justice had pursued in the early 1990s.
The lawsuit was ultimately settled in 2000 with a $275 million payment to Caldera.
Noorda received honorary doctorates from the University of Utah in 1994 and Weber State University in 1995. As a consequence of age and associated health issues (Alzheimer"s disease and heart disease), Noorda did not participate in the day-to-day management of Canopy"s affairs after 1998.
Noorda died on 9 October 2006 at his home in Orem, Utah, at the age of 82.
Married Lewena Taylor. Children: John, Alan, Andy, Taylor.