Razer Co-Founder Robert 'Razerguy' Krakoff — Known as Gaming Mouse Pioneer — Dies at 81

gadgets.ndtv.com:

Razer Co-Founder and Former President Robert "Razerguy" Krakoff has died at the age of 81. The gaming mouse pioneer started his journey with gaming peripherals back in 1996. Razer became a standalone entity in 2005 — years after operating as a subsidiary of San Diego, California-based Kärna. The first flagship product of the company — the Razer Boomslang, which is considered as the world's first gaming mouse — helped Krakoff gain a huge popularity among PC gamers. Since then, Razer has become a renowned name in the world of gaming and is catering to the growing audience in the market of e-sports worldwide.

Last week, Razer announced Krakoff's death through its official social media channels. The company said that the executive's "unwavering drive and passion for gaming lives on and continues to inspire all of us."

Born on October 4, 1940, Krakoff became popular in the gaming world by formally launching the Razer Boomslang under the subsidiary of Kärna in 1999. The mouse had helped Razer gain the attention of young gamers who were looking to have high sensitivity and precision.

Razer initially did not start its operations as a company and was a brand under Kärna. However, since the California-based company had to cease its operations in 2000 due to financial constraints and went bankrupt in 2001, Krakoff co-founded Razer as a separate entity with Singaporean NUS graduate Min-Liang Tan in 2005.

According to a case study available on the Web, neither Krakoff nor Tan invented the Razer Boomslang. It was, instead, a creation of a marketing agency named Fitch that also created the Razer brand as well as its three-headed snake logo. Razer itself credited Fitch for developing the mouse in its launch press release, as noted by