William T. Coleman

William T. “Bill” Coleman III (1947–2020) was a Silicon Valley software visionary and entrepreneur whose companies helped define enterprise infrastructure in the client-server and Internet eras. He co-founded BEA Systems in 1995 and served as its chairman and chief executive officer as the company’s middleware and application-server products became central components in large-scale enterprise systems. Under his leadership, BEA grew into a multi-billion-dollar public company and one of the fastest software firms ever to reach US$1 billion in annual revenue.

After BEA, Coleman founded Cassatt Corporation, where he served as chairman and CEO. Cassatt’s software anticipated aspects of cloud computing and data-center automation, focusing on dynamic allocation of computing resources and energy-efficient infrastructure. The company’s ideas around policy-driven resource management influenced later cloud and virtualization strategies.

In addition to his startup leadership, Coleman held senior roles at Sun Microsystems, where he led professional services and system software groups, and he began his career as a U.S. Air Force officer overseeing satellite operations. Later in his career he served as CEO of Veritas Technologies and became a partner at the venture firm Alsop Louie Partners, investing in and advising early-stage technology companies.

Coleman was widely recognized not only for his business achievements but also for his philanthropy and mentorship of entrepreneurs. His work helped shape the middleware, application-server, and data-center software layers that remain critical to enterprise computing today.