Professor Roger Needham

Pioneering computer scientist in charge of Microsoft's UK research laboratory

Roger Michael Needham, computer scientist: born Sheffield 9 February 1935; Senior Assistant in Research, Computer Laboratory, Cambridge University 1963-64, Assistant Director of Research 1964-73, Reader in Computer Systems 1973-81, Head of Computer Laboratory 1980-95, Professor of Computer Systems 1981-98 (Emeritus), Pro-Vice-Chancellor 1996-98; Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge 1967-2003; FRS 1985; managing director, Microsoft Research Ltd 1997-2003; CBE 2001; married 1958 Karen Spärck-Jones; died Cambridge 28 February 2003

Roger Needham will be remembered both for his work on early computer operating systems and for his more recent work on computer security. He was Head of the Computer Laboratory at Cambridge University for 15 years before running Microsoft's UK research laboratory based in the city.

Needham was brought up in Sheffield and educated at Doncaster Grammar School. In 1953 he went up to Cambridge and spent two years studying pure and applied mathematics, switching to philosophy in his third year. The benefits of the training in marshalling and presenting arguments received during that year were apparent in his later life.

Needham took a PhD in 1961, his thesis being on the classification of data. He then started working on computer systems at the Computer Laboratory (of which I was then Head), becoming a Senior Assistant in Research in 1963. The laboratory was engaged in a major project to develop an operating system for a special computer built for it by ICT (later ICL) and eventually marketed under the name Atlas 2.

This was originally intended to be a batch-processing system. However, in 1963 time sharing broke on the world, and I took the decision to reorient the project so as to develop a time-sharing system (one that allows multiple users to access a single computer at the same time). This presented a huge challenge to the team. Needham made a major contribution to the work and helped to carry the project through to a very successful conclusion. In particular, he invented a system of password scrambling that has become generally adopted in the industry.

Needham served with equal success as leader for a number of succeeding projects. The last of these in my time as head of the laboratory was the Cambridge Model Distributed Computing System, which was based on the Cambridge Ring, a pioneering wide band local area network. The Cambridge Model Distributed System was a very early client-server system, and foreshadowed thin client computing.

Needham was appointed head of the Computer Laboratory in 1980 on my retirement. I had come to rely greatly on him, not only as a project leader, but also for the help he gave me with strategic research planning for the whole laboratory. The handover took place in a seamless manner.

Soon after Needham took over the laboratory, the British Government decided to put extra money into computing, or IT, as they called it. Not only did this make significant staff increases possible, but it also made more money available for research. The laboratory also grew on the teaching side, and became one of the major teaching departments in the university.

In addition to his work on laboratory projects, Needham found time to engage in other activities. He was a non-executive director of Computer Technology Ltd, a British minicomputer company. He was also a member of the Real Time dining club composed mostly of people in industry who were interested in real time applications.

He also established a close relationship with the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Parc), on the West Coast of the United States, working as a visiting consultant from 1977 to 1984. This gave him an opportunity to observe and participate in work with the Alto and Dorado personal computers, giving him a taste of what it would be like at a time in the future when personal computers of great power had become generally available at low cost. When a number of research workers at Xerox moved over to the Systems Research Center of Digital Equipment Corporation, also in Palo Alto, Needham went with them.

At Palo Alto, Needham met Mike Schroeder and others who shared his interest in encryption as an aid to computer security. Needham and Schroeder jointly published an important paper on encryption and authentication in 1978. He also worked with Mike Burrows and Martin Abadi on a formal logic of authentication. This could be applied to the authentication of security protocols, a matter to which Needham devoted much attention.

Needham became interested in administration at the university level. He was a member of an important committee whose deliberations led to far-reaching changes in the way Cambridge University was run. These included changes in the role of the Vice-Chancellor, and the way in which he was appointed. It also provided for the establishment of two Pro Vice-Chancellorships. These changes took effect in 1992. In 1996, when the new system was well established, Needham was appointed a Pro Vice-Chancellor with special responsibility for research, and was thus enabled to play an important part in the management of the university at the highest level.

Needham enjoyed these activities but he always liked new challenges. Moreover, a time was approaching when he would reach the age limit for employment within the university. Therefore in 1997, when he was invited to set up and run a new research laboratory for Microsoft in Cambridge – the first research centre outside America – he seized the opportunity with alacrity.

The object of establishing the Microsoft Research Laboratory was to undertake long-term research, and Needham concentrated on the appointment of first class people with the intention of giving them a free hand. Under Needham's vigorous leadership, the laboratory made rapid progress. It is now in its sixth year and has 60 research workers on its staff, many of them leading people in their respective fields.

Needham was made a professor in 1981 shortly after he had taken over the headship of the Computer Laboratory. In 1965 he was elected a Fellow of Wolfson College. In 1985 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1993 a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. The latter distinction gave him great pleasure, since he regarded himself as an engineer rather than a scientist. He was appointed CBE in 2001.

In 1958 Needham married Karen Spärck-Jones whom he had met when they were both research students. They developed the habit of discussing their work together and of reading each other's drafts. They continued to do this until the end. She is now Professor of Computers and Information in the Computer Laboratory.

Maurice Wilkes

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