Drew Major

Chairman, Move Networks

Technometria
65 minutes, 30mb, recorded 2007-07-30
Drew Major

Drew Major is one of the true pioneers in the computing industry. He first worked with early CP/M computers but really expanded his programming activities when IBM unveiled the IBM Personal Computer. His initial work revolved around resource sharing and networking. As part of his work with Novell he attempted to get the company to expanding into video sharing. He joins Phil and Scott to discuss both his history and his current projects.

While discussing his background, Drew talks about his initial work with video and reviews an interesting timeline of the problems of delivering video over the internet. He assesses Move Network's work on streaming video, including dealing with the internet issues and the player the company developed. He also talks about the future of media and how programming and materials will be distributed.


Drew Major was one of the founders of Novell and the lead architect and developer of NetWare for over 15 years. In 1981 Drew and his partners Kyle Powell, Dale Neibaur and Mark Hurst saw the value of enabling PCs to share files and other resources via local area networks (LAN). By 1991 NetWare was the “killer app” that was driving PC and most LAN deployments. Novell created and owned 75% of the market for network operating systems. One magazine estimated that NetWare’s $1 billion in yearly sales was driving another $40+ billion in network and server hardware, PCs, consulting, and other value added sales.

Drew continues to be a passionate developer of high performance network server software. He enjoys designing and coding software that squeezes the maximum performance out of microprocessors, disk drives and networks. In 2000 Drew started Move Networks, which recently has built technology that reliably streams high quality video over the Internet. Drew left Novell in 2003 and, with Paul Sherer (ex-3Com CTO responsible for Ethernet’s success), founded Arroyo Video Solutions. Arroyo builds high performance video servers for the cable industry and telcos. Arroyo was purchased in 2006 by Cisco Systems, where Drew currently works as a Cisco Fellow.

In 1995 BYTE magazine named Drew one of the 20 Most Influential People for the previous 20 years of the computer industry. He was inducted into the National Computer Industry Hall of Fame in 1999. He was inducted into the Utah Technology Hall of Fame in 2005.

Drew received his Bachelor of Science degree from Brigham Young University in 1980, graduating with high honors in mathematics and computer science. He was born in California but has lived most of his life in Utah. He currently resides in Orem with his wife, Mary, and their four sons.

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