Drew Major (born June 17, 1956) is a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

. He is best known for his role as one of the principal engineers of the

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The final update release was ver ...

operating system from early in Novell's history.Drew Major Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum Hall of Fame
/ref> Major received a Bachelor of Science degree from

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

in 1980, and graduated with honors in mathematics and computer science. He was born in California but has lived most of his life in Utah.

SuperSet Software

SuperSet Software was a group founded by friends and former Eyring Research Institute (ERI) co-workers Drew Major, Dale Neibaur, Kyle Powell, and later joined by Mark Hurst. Their work was based on classwork that they started in October 1981 at

, Provo, Utah, USA, and upon previous work experiences at Eyring Research Institute working with the

Xerox Network Systems Xerox Network Systems (XNS) is a computer networking protocol suite developed by Xerox within the Xerox Network Systems Architecture. It provided general purpose network communications, internetwork routing and packet delivery, and higher level ...

(XNS) protocol which led to the development of the Novell

IPX Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) is the network-layer protocol in the IPX/SPX protocol suite. IPX is derived from Xerox Network Systems' IDP. It also has the ability to act as a transport layer protocol. The IPX/SPX protocol suite was very ...

and

SPX SPX can refer to: * S&P 500, a stock market index * Sequenced Packet Exchange, a networking protocol * IATA code of Sphinx International Airport, an airport in Giza, Egypt * Small Press Expo, an alternative comics convention * SpaceX (SpX), a roc ...

networking protocols, and the NetWare operating system. In 1983,

Ray Noorda Raymond John "Ray" Noorda (19 June 1924 – 9 October 2006) was a U.S. computer businessman. He was CEO of Novell between 1982 and 1994. He also served as chairman of Novell until he was replaced in 1994. Early life Noorda was born in Ogd ...

took over leadership of

and engaged the SuperSet group to work on networking products. The team was originally assigned to create a

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...

disk sharing system to help network the CP/M hardware that Novell was selling at the time. Under Ray Noorda's leadership, the group developed a successful file sharing system for the newly introduced IBM-compatible PC. The group also wrote a text-mode game called

Snipes Snipes may refer to: * Snipe A snipe is any of about 26 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic/ camouflaging plumage. '' ...

and used it to test the new network and demonstrate its capabilities.

Novell

Major joined Novell in 1983, and his partners Kyle Powell, Dale Neibaur, and Mark Hurst began to work in enabling PCs to share files and other resources via a local area network (LAN). Major was the lead architect and developer of the

operating system for over 15 years. Major left Novell in 2003. In 1995, ''

Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

'' named him as one of the twenty people with the greatest impact on

microcomputing A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...

Move Networks

After leaving Novell, Major co-founded video networking company Move Networks, Inc. The company began to experience financial problems in 2010 for failing to deliver on key technologies, which resulted in some of its larger customers abandoning the company's technology. The company was subsequently acquired for 45 million dollars by EchoStar, Inc. in January 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Major, Drew 1956 births Living people American Latter Day Saints Brigham Young University alumni Novell people