Ross Neil Williams is an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

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 ...

who has made significant contributions to

data compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compressi ...

and

data deduplication In computing, data deduplication is a technique for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data. Successful implementation of the technique can improve storage utilization, which may in turn lower capital expenditure by reducing the overall amou ...

technologies. He is best known as the inventor of the and the founder of ''Rocksoft Pty Ltd''. Ross Williams gained his PhD in

from the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

in 1991 and his thesis was subsequently published as ''Adaptive Data Compression''. Williams conducted research into Lempel–Ziv

lossless compression Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statisti ...

techniques during which he developed the SAKDC algorithm, the

LZRW Lempel–Ziv Ross Williams (LZRW) refers to variants of the LZ77 lossless data compression algorithms with an emphasis on improving compression speed through the use of hash tables and other techniques. This family was explored by Ross William ...

range of algorithms, and created the newsgroups ''comp.compression'' and ''comp.compression.research''. In 1996 Williams submitted a patent, , for a variable-length data partitioning system that has since become the basis for

technology in the

computer data storage Computer data storage or digital data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and Data storage, recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The cent ...

industry. In 2001, Williams founded the data integrity and data storage company Rocksoft Pty Ltd. With Williams as chairman and chief architect, Rocksoft developed the deduplication technology to a commercial product. In 2006, Rocksoft was sold to ADIC which was in turn immediately acquired by

Quantum Corporation Quantum Corporation is a data storage, management, and protection company that provides technology to store, manage, archive, and protect video and unstructured data throughout the data life cycle. Their products are used by enterprises, media ...

. In 2007, Williams' patent became the subject of

legal action In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the part ...

between

and

Riverbed Technology Riverbed Technology LLC is an American information technology company. Its products consist of software and hardware focused on Unified Observability, Network Visibility, End User Experience Management, Network monitoring, network performance mon ...

. Since exiting Rocksoft, Williams founded, along with associate David Sag, ''Carbon Planet Pty Ltd'', a

carbon credit Carbon offsetting is a carbon trading mechanism that enables entities to compensate for offset greenhouse gas emissions by investing in projects that reduce, avoid, or remove emissions elsewhere. When an entity invests in a carbon offsetting p ...

s auditing, origination, and retailing company.

References

External links

Ross Williams's compression website

Carbon Planet Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Ross Australian businesspeople Australian computer scientists Australian computer programmers Living people 1962 births People from Adelaide University of Adelaide alumni