George Moore, co-founder of TARGUSInfo
George Moore, an Irishman who was one of the founding fathers of the decision analytics industry and who foresaw the rise of cloud computing and big data, has died.
We interviewed Moore last year, just weeks after he sold his company TARGUSInfo to Nuestar for an estimated US$850m.
As we said at the time, if data is the oil of the 21st century, then George Moore helped build the refineries. TARGUSInfo may be considered one of the first real cloud computing companies and certainly paved the way for the new IT industry revolution known as big data.
TARGUSInfo’s technology is used by companies like Facebook and Fortune 500 companies, like airlines, to ensure firms can analyse customer behaviour and anticipate their needs.
Louth native Moore left Ireland in the 1970s after winning a Ford Foundation scholarship and soon after that began working in Silicon Valley.
He founded TARGUSInfo with Jim Schaffer in the early 1990s to provide intelligent information services to businesses, ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.
Moore, a graduate of University College Dublin, was a board member of the Ireland Economic Advisory Board and the New Ireland Fund. In 2007, he received an honorary CBE from Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to the Northern Ireland economy and his international work for all of Ireland.
He was also a member of the Irish Technology Leadership Group.
Moore (62) died of a heart attack at his home in Great Falls, Virginia, on Wednesday. He is survived by his wife Angela, children Kerla, Gareth and Ashlyn, and granddaughter Fiona.
