Robert Metcalfe

Ethernet and 3Com. At Xerox PARC in 1973 Metcalfe and David Boggs designed Ethernet to link the lab's experimental computers and printers. Xerox did little with it, so in 1979 Metcalfe founded 3Com to sell network cards, and persuaded Digital, Intel and Xerox to publish Ethernet as an open standard that any maker could build to. That openness is why it still wires offices today. He received the Turing Award for it.