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Most notable tech industry deaths of 2013

The Microsoft judge, a PC pioneer and a young Internet innovator among those who have passed in 2013

By Bob Brown, Network World
June 20, 2013 04:11 PM ET

About midway through 2013, the computing and network world has already seen the passing of a handful of people who had larger-than-life influences on the industry.

Here’s a look back at some of these memorable people (and here’s a look back at 2012’s most notable deaths in science, technology and inventions):

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Network World - About midway through 2013, the computing and network world has already seen the passing of a handful of people who had larger-than-life influences on the industry.

Here’s a look back at some of these memorable people (and here’s a look back at 2012’s most notable deaths in science, technology and inventions):

Ed Iacobucci: Citrix founder and more (Died June 21, age 59)

Born in Argentina and schooled in systems engineering at Georgia Tech, Iacobucci got his career start in 1979 at IBM, where he held architecture and design leadership roles involving PC operating systems OS/2 and DOS, working closely with Microsoft in doing so. Iacobucci was also heavily involved in IBM's development of Systems Network Architecture and NetView net management technology. He left IBM 10 years later to start Citrix, the multifaceted company that started out with OS/2-based products and carving out a niche in the thin-client market.

Iacobucci retired from Citrix in 2000, and two years later started DayJet, an on-demand jet travel company with sophisticated back-end technology to optimize scheduling and routes. The business, which operated in Florida, shut down in 2008. But Iacobucci popped back up on the tech scene in 2009, forming VirtualWorks, a company dedicated to containing the sort of data sprawl that some of his earlier companies enabled their customers to create.

In a press release issued by VirtualWorks is included a quote attributed to Iacobucci during an award ceremony in 1998: "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."

More on Iacobucci here.

*Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson: oversaw Microsoft antitrust trial (Died June 15, age 76)

Jackson, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was involved in many high profile cases, some involving politicians (such as Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, Jr.) and others involving businesses (including GM).

But he made his mark in technology circles as the presiding judge in the United States vs. Microsoft antitrust case in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The main issue was whether Microsoft was monopolistic in bundling its Internet Explorer browser with its Windows OS, and Jackson did rule that in order to conduct business fairly, Microsoft needed to be split up into a Windows company and another that included the rest of Microsoft’s software offerings. The New York Times obituary on Jackson included this description of his style: “A technological novice who wrote his opinions in longhand and used his computer mainly to e-mail jokes, Judge Jackson refuted Microsoft’s assertion that it was impossible to remove the company’s Internet Explorer Web browser from its operating system by doing it himself.” Jackson’s judgment was later appealed and the Department of Justice later settled the case.