Remembering Ray

STEVEN BURKE

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Dolan had just left a minicomputer reseller business and was excited about the prospect of the coming LAN boom being driven by Noorda. Westcon was one of 42 exhibitors at that NetWorld show, and at the time it consisted of little more than Dolan and his partners working out of a van. "Ray walked down the aisle and talked to every exhibitor about how we were going to leverage the PC marketplace," Dolan said. "He was down-to-earth, mature, very easy to talk to and sincere."

It's a telling story given that Noorda, a CRN Hall Of Fame alumnus who passed away last week after a long battle with Alzheimer's, built the first broad and deep networking solution provider community. Noorda certainly was a technology visionary. But he was also a channel visionary. Dolan, who at one time oversaw a thriving Novell training business that included the entire 68th floor of the Empire State Building, said Noorda had a "vision" for a partner and third-party community that was unprecedented. Microsoft and others have copied that model.

"All the things we consider typical today like building a dealer distribution network and an independent developer channel were really started by Novell and Noorda in the late '80s," Dolan said. "You think about what a pioneer does and he does it because it is a natural thing, because it makes sense for him. And then he succeeds and MBAs study that example. Ray was a pioneer. He understood having great partnerships was important. He knew he had a unique product that could stand on its own, but he knew he needed more and more people to bring that product into the marketplace."

Dolan, who was elected president of the New York region of the Local Area Network Dealer's Association (LANDA), recalls monthly meetings that attracted some 250 resellers. One has to think long and hard to find any vendor driving that kind of partner touch today.

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