Tributes pour in for 'passionate and inspirational' SoftwareONE CEO Patrick Winter

Co-founder of global software licensing giant has passed away following heart attack

Tributes were pouring in over the weekend for SoftwareONE CEO and co-founder Patrick Winter, who passed away after suffering a cardiac arrest two weeks previously.

In a mark of his standing in the industry, colleagues and partners have flooded social media to pay their respects, with one co-worker calling him a "beacon of the industry" and saying it was a "privilege" to know him.

Winter co-founded the Switzerland-headquartered software licensing giant in 1985.

A representative for SoftwareONE paid homage to Winter's entrepreneurial spirit, generosity and leadership, CRN sister publication Channelnomics Europe reported last week.

"We are deeply saddened to confirm that our co-founder and CEO Patrick Winter has passed away of the consequences of a cardiac arrest two weeks ago. Our thoughts are with his family. With Patrick we not only lose a passionate entrepreneur and an inspirational leader, but above all a generous and reliable friend.

"We're going to miss him very much. Our only consolation is Patrick's legacy: a strong SoftwareONE. In the spirit of Patrick, we will do everything to continue this unique success story. For the time being, the board of directors has decided that the executive management team will continue its work in its current composition and roles and report directly to co-founder and chairman of the board Daniel von Stockar."

Winter (pictured) led the company to become one of the world's largest software licensing specialists, boasting revenues of €6bn and a headcount of 3,000 staff.

The CEO led SoftwareONE's cloud and services push in recent years, launching its own automated cloud platform PyraCloud, which was recently expanded to include AWS support around transaction, billing and migration.

Headquartered in Stans, Switzerland, SoftwareONE claims to work with more than 9,000 software publishers but has a deep relationship with Microsoft, and was named winner of its Volume Licensing Partner Award in 2016.