Hubert Zimmermann
Hubert Zimmermann was a French software engineer and a pioneer of computer networking.Biography
Zimmermann was educated at École Polytechnique and École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications.
His career began at Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique in Rocquencourt from 1972 through 1979, where he led research into what became ChorusOS series of distributed operating systems. He participated in the International Networking Working Group from 1972, initially chaired by Vint Cerf. He was acknowledged by Bob Kahn and Cerf in their 1974 paper on internetworking, "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication". In 1977, he was an early member of the International Organization for Standardization as it developed the Open Systems Interconnection protocols.
He then worked for France Télécom in 1980 through 1986.
He developed and promoted the OSI reference model which became a popular way to describe network protocols, and published a paper on the model in 1980 and one with John Day in 1983.
He founded Chorus systems in 1987, purchased by Sun Microsystems in 1997, where he was director of telecom software engineering for 5 years. Then he invested in entrepreneurial high-tech companies such as Arbor Venture Management, Boost Your StartUp, Gingko Networks and UDcast.
In 1991, Zimmermann was awarded the SIGCOMM Award for "20 years of leadership in the development of computer networking and the advancement of international standardization".
On 9 November 2012, Zimmermann died in France.
