Mansour A. Safai
Mansour A. Safai Memorial Fellowship Fund
Mansour was born in Tehran, Iran December 3, 1962. Mansour Safai attended the French Lycée Razi in Tehran until age of 11, when he transferred to Lycée d’Estienne d’Orves, where he graduated with Scientific Baccalaureate with honors in Nice, France 1980. He continued his education at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland where he completed his graduate study in Computer Science engineering. He finished his thesis by completing a project for Logitech Switzerland in computer languages and debugging tools (Modula 2).
Mansour Safai was the founder of M7, friend and Silicon Valley visionary.
His career started in 1987 when he accepted a position as a Senior Software Engineer in Logitech U.S. (Fremont, California). Mansour brought to Logitech, under the supervision of Stefano Cei, one of the most prized awards in software technology within 18 months: «The PC Magazine Technical Excellence Award for the Multiscope OS/2 Debugger».
He then went on to found Multiscope Inc. with the help and guidance of Logitech’s founders: Daniel Borel, Giacomo Marini and Pierluigi Zappacosta. As the CEO of Multiscope, with an outstanding team including Allen Bannon and Bernard Zysset, he continued to excel and Multiscope continued to grow and win many industry awards. Eventually Symantec Corporation acquired Multiscope.
Mansour and Bernard Zysett
Mansour continued his innovation run, under the guidance of former Symantec’s CEO Gordon Eubanks, and lead his team as the Vice President of the Language and Internet Tools Division of Symantec, to a golden era and pioneered market leading products in C++ compiler, tools, and debuggers. Mansour also recognized the significance of the Java language early on, and was the first to offer integrated Java development tools in the pioneering Café product line, which evolved to the market leading product Visual Café. Mansour was also the first to bring the Java Just In Time compiler (JIT), and debugger technologies to the market. Ultimately, BEA acquired Symantec’s Language and Internet Tools Division.
In 1999, CEO John W. Thompson offered Mansour the position of Chief Technical Officer at Symantec Corporation. Despite Mansour's profound respect and friendship for John Thompson, he left Symantec in year 2000 to pursue his dreams
Mansour decided to use his tremendous entrepreneurial talents and his unwavering commitment to advance the science of software and to found a new company, M7. His drive and passion never stopped. He started the company with the help of a close circle of talented and dedicated key contributors from his previous teams, including two of his closest friends and respected engineers: Essam Zaky and Sami Ben-Rhomdane.
At M7, Mansour envisioned a tool that integrates the development across all of the web application layers. This vision was realized with the award winning NitroX product, which became one of the most popular and innovative integrated development environments.
Ultimately, BEA acquired M7.
Throughout his career, with the help of his dedicated friends and talented teams, many throughout the world purchased and used Mansour’s products. His innovative mind, inspired the industry, and had a strong impact on the significant advances seen in it during his professional lifetime. He left a lasting impression with all he met; he changed many people’s lives for the better and no one will forget him. He was much more than a talented entrepreneur in the domain of software engineering: he was a visionary, a coach, a true friend, and a mentor.
If one could describe Mansour throughout his life, one would say his unwavering commitment to excellence in his work, his integrity and the code of ethics by which he lived his life were his defining characteristics.