Ross Neil Williams is an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

computer scientist and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

who has made significant contributions to

data compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compressio ...

and data deduplication technologies. He is best known as the inventor of the and the founder of ''Rocksoft Pty Ltd''. Ross Williams gained his PhD in

from the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

in 1991 and his thesis was subsequently published as ''Adaptive Data Compression''. Williams conducted research into Lempel–Ziv lossless compression techniques during which he developed the SAKDC algorithm, the LZRW range of algorithms, and created the newsgroups ''comp.compression'' and ''comp.compression.research''. In 1996 Williams submitted a patent, , for a variable-length data partitioning system that has since become the basis for data deduplication technology in the

computer data storage Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central processing unit (CPU) of a compute ...

industry. In 2001, Williams founded the data integrity and data storage company Rocksoft Pty Ltd. With Williams as chairman and chief architect, Rocksoft developed the deduplication technology to a commercial product. In 2006, Rocksoft was sold to ADIC which was in turn immediately acquired by

Quantum Corporation Quantum Corporation is a data storage, management, and protection company that provides technology to store, manage, archive, and protect video and unstructured data throughout the data lifecycle. Their products are used by enterprises, media and ...

. In 2007, Williams' patent became the subject of

legal action In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...

between

and

Riverbed Technology Riverbed Technology is an American information technology company. Its products consist of software and hardware focused on Unified Observability, Network Visibility, End User Experience Management, network performance monitoring, application pe ...

. Since exiting Rocksoft, Williams founded, along with associate David Sag, ''Carbon Planet Pty Ltd'', a

carbon credit A carbon credit is a generic term for any tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit a set amount of carbon dioxide or the equivalent amount of a different greenhouse gas (tCO2e). Carbon credits and carbon markets are a compo ...

s auditing, origination, and retailing company.

References

External links

Ross Williams's compression website

Carbon Planet Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Ross Australian businesspeople Australian computer scientists Computer programmers Living people 1962 births People from Adelaide University of Adelaide alumni