Robert Metcalfe

Robert Melancton Metcalfe ( born April 7, 1946 in Brooklyn, New York ) is considered the inventor of Ethernet.

Life

Metcalfe earned two bachelor's degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Industrial Management. In his doctoral work at Harvard University, he dealt with the topic of packet switching in computer networks.

During his PhD he worked at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center ( Xerox PARC ) and was entrusted with the task of networking the company computer together. On the basis of the first radio-based computer network ALOHANET he developed in 1973 along with David Boggs a modified wired network technology, Ethernet. In 1979 he left Xerox to found his own company, 3Com, a manufacturer of components for computer networks. He convinced the success of DEC, Intel and Xerox to work with him to make Ethernet as standard. At that time, competing technologies were proprietary systems token ring and ARCNET, both perished soon in a flood of Ethernet products. 3Com has been doing a great business.

1980 Metcalfe was awarded the Grace Murray Hopper Award, in recognition of his services to the development of local computer networks, in particular the development of Ethernet. In 1990, Metcalfe withdrew from 3Com. He was for ten years editor of InfoWorld.