Edward E. Iacobucci (September 26, 1953 – June 21, 2013) was an Argentine-American businessman who founded VirtualWorks and co–founded Citrix Systems. He is also known for his work as the architectural designer of the

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

and IBM DOS systems and as a

virtualization In computing, virtualization (abbreviated v12n) is a series of technologies that allows dividing of physical computing resources into a series of virtual machines, operating systems, processes or containers. Virtualization began in the 1960s wit ...

pioneer.

Biography

Early years and education

Edward "Ed" E. Iacobucci was born September 26, 1953, in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

to Dr. Guillermo and Costantina Iacobucci. His father, a biochemist, moved his family to the U.S. in 1960 to work first for E.R. Squibb & Sons (a predecessor to pharmaceutical giant

Bristol-Myers Squibb The Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, doing business as Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), is an American multinational pharmaceutical company. Headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, BMS is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and consist ...

), and then

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

Roberto Goizueta Roberto Críspulo Goizueta Cantera (November 18, 1931 – October 18, 1997) was a Cuban-born American business executive who served as the chairman, president, and chief executive officer (CEO) of The Coca-Cola Company from August 1980 until his ...

, then Chairman of Coca-Cola, became a close friend of the Iacobucci family and, subsequently, Ed's godfather. Iacobucci graduated from

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

with a BSc in systems engineering in 1975.

Career

Iacobucci began his career at

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

in 1979 where he worked on the commercial software and personal computer business. While at IBM, Iacobucci held architecture and design leadership responsibilities for IBM DOS and

, and led the joint IBM-Microsoft design for multi-tasking personal computer operating systems. In 1989, Iacobucci left IBM to co-found Citrix Systems. He led the company as chairman and chief technology officer through its market and product development phases. Citrix grew and was named to both the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indexes. In 1997, Iacobucci forged a five-year joint development agreement with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

to include Citrix's multi-user capabilities within Microsoft Windows NT Server. He served as chairman of Citrix through 2000, when he retired. In 2002, Iacobucci co-founded and served as president and CEO of DayJet Corporation, an on-demand airline service that sold individual seats via a time sensitive pricing scale and utilized the

Eclipse 500 The Eclipse 500 (model EA500) is a very light jet (VLJ) originally produced by Eclipse Aviation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. The company was founded in 1998 to develop the 1997 Williams V-Jet II demonstrator. The prototype first ...

very light jet. Dayjet built a computer system for solving highly complex optimization problems, and announced a five-year strategic agreement with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). After starting operations in 2007, DayJet ceased operations in 2008 when it was no longer able to secure its planned

growth capital Growth capital (also called expansion capital and growth equity) is a type of private equity investment, usually a minority interest, in relatively mature companies that are looking for capital to expand or restructure operations, enter new markets ...

. Between 2002 and 2007 he was a member of the

SCO Group The SCO Group (often referred to SCO and later called The TSG Group) was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation (the or ...

's board of directors. In 2011, Iacobucci founded VirtualWorks (later renamed to Ayfie), an

enterprise search Enterprise search is software technology for searching data sources internal to a company, typically intranet and database content. The search is generally offered only to users internal to the company. Enterprise search can be contrasted with web ...

engine company. for which Iacobucci served as president and CEO until May 20, 2013, when he stepped down for personal health reasons.

Awards

In 1998, Iacobucci received the

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

"International Entrepreneur of the Year" award. Iacobucci sat on the engineering advisory board for

, his alma mater. He served as a technology judge at the state and national level for the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year Awards", and he was active in the

Junior Achievement JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide is a global non-profit youth organization. It was founded in 1919 by Horace A. Moses, Theodore Vail, and Winthrop M. Crane. JA works with local businesses, schools, and organizations to deliver experiential ...

organization.

Death

He died of

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of ...

on June 21, 2013, at his home in

Boca Raton Boca Raton ( ; ) is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The population was 97,422 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and it ranked as the 23rd-largest city in Florida in 2022. Many people with a Boca Raton Address, ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, U.S.

References

External links

Ed Iacobucci - Founder of Citrix
{{DEFAULTSORT:Iacobucci, Ed American airline chief executives American computer businesspeople American computer scientists Businesspeople in software Georgia Tech alumni IBM employees OS/2 people 1953 births 2013 deaths Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Florida Businesspeople from Buenos Aires Argentine emigrants to the United States Kernel programmers