Tech Entrepreneurial Mover, Shaker Edward E. Iacobucci Passes Away

Edward E. Iacobucci, co-founder of Citrix and co-founder and chairman of VirtualWorks Group, passed away Friday morning, June 21, at the age of 59. Iacobucci's passing came after a 16-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

"He was more than just a technical visionary. He created his own vision and he followed it, always leading by example. He was truly an inspiration," said Steve Kaplan, vice president of Channel and Strategic Sales at Nutanix. Kaplan credited Iacobucci and Citrix with being life-changing influences on both a personal and corporate level.

"All of us who work in any way with virtual desktops owe a debt to Ed for his initial vision," said Kaplan.

[Related: Citrix Brings XenServer Back To Open-Source Community ]

A graduate of Georgia Tech Institute, Iacobucci began his career in technology at IBM before parting ways with the company in 1989 in order to co-found Citrix Systems, Inc. Citrix was born from Iacobucci's idea to build a server with multi-user support. With Iacobucci as chairman and chief technology officer, Citrix quickly rose to occupy spots on both the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500. Most recently, Iacobucci co-founded VirtualWorks Group in 2009, further extending his influence in virtualization and data storage.

After receiving the Ernst & Young "International Entrepreneur of the Year Award," Iacobucci made a statement that has since become one of the most rewritten quotes of Iacobucci's career.

"Every human being has his own vision of what's happening in the future. I was lucky in that what I thought would happen did happen. When we know we can do it and the rest of the world doesn't -- that's when things get interesting," Iacobucci said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Born on Sept. 26, 1953, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Dr. Guillermo and Costantina Iacobucci, Iacobucci is survived by his wife, Nancy Lee (Iacobucci); his three children, Marianna (Eden), William (Iacobucci) and Michelle (Iacobucci); mother, Costantina (Iacobucci); brother, Billy (Iacobucci); and three grandchildren, Sophia, Haven and Estelle.

PUBLISHED JUNE 25, 2013