Quotes from Ray Noorda

"Computer scientists tend to make everything too difficult, and that locks a lot of people out of getting the best use out of their computers."
“Scripting Sidesteps Object Model of Distributed Computing,” Internet World June 9, 1997

"Software is the element that makes it all work.  Hardware is the property of a few large companies; the people who control the chips are pretty much in control of that. Software is really where there is no limit."
“Novell Looks for Big Things From Austin,” Austin Business Journal June 11, 1990

“You don’t win all the time.  What you want to do is make sure what you’re doing is useful to the world.  I think a lot of my commitment to this principle comes from having gone through the Depression and World War II and seeing what people suffered through.  Obviously, you have to make enough money to be viable, but in the end you should make the money to be useful instead of the other way around.”
Noorda Family

“My earliest encounter with Novell Data Systems was in the first part of 1983. I had been introduced to the company by Jack Messmer (of Safeguard Scientific, an early investor in networking companies).

That's not quite accurate; actually, I knew the folks because it had been founded by others who had worked for me-a fellow by the name of Jack Davis in particular. He'd worked for me at General Automation.

I had started a company called Reliable Data Systems. I had grown fascinated with the need in the manufacturing environment for fault-tolerant systems. I started that company with another man who had done some consulting work for me. My idea was to put together a configuration, at that time, of minicomputers, two Altos boxes, with a box we were building in between that we called the "fault-tolerant connector" that would keep small companies "up."

I had been doing that for several months. About the time that we thought we were moving ahead quite well-in the latter part of 1982-the Safeguard Scientific people called me and asked me if I could meet them at what is now Comdex, in Las Vegas. So, I met some of the folks at the company exhibit, which had (networked) PCs and some terminals. But they had it operating, and I asked some of the key people if they ever considered doing a fault-tolerant configuration of these things, could they do it, and could their software be ported from their server into other environments. They said "yes, yes and who knows?" That was in November 1982.

Then the Safeguard people, namely Jack Messmer, called me and said they had another guy who was going to do this, so don't bother. I said, "Oh fine, I got plenty to do." Then just before the holidays they called me and said the other guy decided he wasn't going to do it, couldn't do it or something, and could I come back to see him and talk about the possibilities (of Ray working with Messmer's company).

I didn't have any information on the business, so before I went back, I talked to him a little bit. I said that based on what I'd heard and seen, if what they said can be done, I'd be willing to come back and take another look at it to figure out if it was worthwhile doing. So I did, right after the holidays. It was the second, third or fourth day of January 1983.

I went over (to Safeguard) and took this guy with me who was helping me out at Reliable Data Systems. I went into this room where they'd gathered all the employees, and they introduced me as the president! I guess they assumed that since I was president of three or four other companies, why couldn't I be president of another one?

Of course, there was absolutely no reaction from the 20 or so people who were there, because they'd already had three or four of them (presidents). That sort of started the process more seriously (of my involvement with the company). Then, I went to the Safeguard people

and structured a deal. I went on a crapshoot, said I'd put some money in and take an interest in the business, and we'd work out the plan later.

They had to consider what kind of financial organization it would be, who should own what. I wasn't really all that excited about all of that. I'm not a detail man when it comes to doing a deal. So, we structured a deal, and I started spending two or three days a week there while I was winding down some of these other companies. Eventually, my wife and I sold our house in Cupertino (Calif.), and moved to Utah.

I had to shut down Reliable Data Systems. We actually had some real progress going, but it wasn't moving ahead as fast as I thought this other (effort at NDS) could. I tried to keep them both going for a while, but I just ran out of funds.

They (Craig Burton, Drew Major and NDS' original SuperSet programming team) were all young people who had been Mormon missionaries. They had some common feelings for what to me was the real key part I wanted to focus on because of my interest in system fault tolerance: Can we get to system fault tolerance based on standard equipment and a simple but extensible operating system that can take us into broader areas than pure local area networks?

It was clear, even as I was running some of these other companies, that multiplant, multilocation, multisystem management was going to be a necessity. There were other people already doing some local area networks. I got involved in and briefly was president of Bridge Communications Inc. (an early networking vendor).

I recognized that sooner or later, Unix was going to be a very significant part of this portability issue. I saw what the interconnectivities could be if we just got all the Unix guys to work together-a fairly simple thing!

It was going to be Unix, or it was going to be something else that would provide the capability to have portable software and interconnectivity among different platforms. From that standpoint, I always had this interest, (but) it's a vision that I and other people have had. It's certainly not exclusive to me.

It (my connection to Novell) was purely luck. It wasn't one of these traumatic things. It was another of my little, speculative, "Who knows what's gonna happen" deals.

You may have heard that management is a bunch of four-letter words-"make cash," "ship fast," "hard work," "play some." When you make a list of them, the only ones that matter are "good luck."

I like change a lot. If I wasn't involved in change, I wasn't happy. If it wasn't possible for somebody else to make a change, I would cause a change. I'm just a restless kind of a person.

I'm not that deeply attached (to Novell). I could have gone three or four years ago. My wife often wonders how it is so easy for me to move from one company to another. I move typically when the job is done. But in this networking business, you don't know when it's done. It's been just continual changes.

The decade of the mainframe was the '60s. The decade of the minis was the '70s. The decade of the PCs was the '80s. The decade of all this coming together is still ahead of us. There will be changes in who participates, but networking is forever. It's only a question of where the emphasis is going to be at any particular time.”
“Ray Noorda - President. Chairman and CEO, Novell Inc.” InternetWeek January 3, 1994