29
Fri, Nov
0 New Articles

Marcus Dee, looksoftware Founding Partner, Dead at 50

Channel News
Typography
  • Smaller Small Medium Big Bigger
  • Default Helvetica Segoe Georgia Times

Industry mourns loss of charismatic leader and visionary of global Australian midrange modernization firm. 

Marcus Dee, one of the founding members of looksoftware, and among the most colorful and best liked technology leaders in the IBM midrange industry died Tuesday in Melbourne, Australia, after a year-long battle with cancer. 

Although Dee's death was inevitable based on his prognosis, news of his passing sent ripples of shock through an aging AS/400 community whose members have seen too many high profile and energetic leaders pass away during the last two years. Dee was only 50 when he died, and he leaves behind his wife, Helen, and their four school-age children, Elizabeth, Lucy, Jacob, and Joseph, as well as his mother, Helen, and father Brian Dee. 

marcus.deeAs chief executive officer of looksoftware, Dee had a profound effect on creating a worldwide brand for the company known for its catchy logo and down-under color scheme. The firm was one of the first to embrace IBM's Rational Open Access: RPG Edition in its relentless quest to modernize clients' legacy IBM i green-screen systems. looksoftware was actually started by Brendan Kay and Gavin Rogers a few months before Dee joined them as director of sales in 1995, but he was always considered a founding partner. 

"Marcus was the guy that everybody loved," said longtime friend and business associate Trevor Perry, IT consultant and COMMON director. "Even though we all knew that it was coming, at the end it was quite a bit of a shock." 

Dee and Perry were close friends for 28 years having met in 1983 at a Sydney solutions provider called JBA, which was to become one of the largest midrange consulting firms in the Asia Pacific region during the 1980s. 

"He taught me RPG," says Perry describing how Dee first taught himself the language after joining the firm in 1982 and then began teaching it to others. "I spent about five weeks training with Marcus and we became fast friends." 

After leaving JBA, Dee went to work for Strategic Information Systems, and Perry joined him there later, both teaching RPG. Strategic was a Synon business partner, and the two men saw a potential teaching business users how to program. "We were going to teach computing to non-computing people," Perry recalls with amusement. "We had a history professor, a civil engineer, and a philosophy student, and we taught them IT. Then we taught them RPG and Synon."

Strategic became a branch of Synon in Australia, says Perry, and Dee eventually became the general manager of the Synon branch there.

In 1995 Dee teamed up with Kay and Rogers as a partner in looksoftware, and the three men made what some might think was an ideal match. With Rogers' creative technical prowess and Kay's application skills along with Dee's dynamic personality, the company grew to a worldwide staff of 25, a size that belied its large impact on today's modernization technology. 

Perry had left Strategic to move to the U.S., but the two men kept in touch. "I would see Marcus every time he was in the U.S., and we'd catch up," says Perry. "He would lean on me to go to work for him, which I did in 2000 for three years full time. Since then, we've been doing projects together on and off and have worked closely together for the past 10 years in one form or another." 

Until a few years ago, Dee was a smoker, and his friends used to chide him about the risks. Ironically, smoking had little or nothing to do with the skin cancer, so common in Australia, that eventually metastasized and claimed his life. Perry said an operation on a skin lesion four years ago is thought to have spread the disease throughout his system. It eventually went to his lungs and brain, and Dee underwent surgery, but it was a futile fight. 

"We always gave him grief about his smoking, which he ended up stopping about three years ago for the last time," Perry said. "We kept telling him it would kill him, however, it didn't, and, as it turned out—we were wrong." 

Perry said he also would tease Dee about his Australian colloquialisms including his most famous—"horses for courses." 

"It means having the right horse for the right racetrack, or basically, use the right tool for the job," Perry said. "But anytime Marcus would give a talk in the U.S., I always had to explain to to people afterwards what he meant. Eventually he got it and would make a joke about it... He loved to be telling stories and connected to everybody; everyone felt comfortable around Marcus." 

Dee was born Dec. 20, 1960, and he was 40 when he and wife, Helen, started a family. He was philosophical about his age when the first of four children arrived, but neither he nor his wife imagined that he would be gone before reaching his 51st birthday. 

During the past year, Marcus stepped back from the business to concentrate on his health, and Brendan Kay filled in performing many of Marcus' regular duties as CEO. Paul Hodgkinson, marketing director for the company, said that Kay will continue in the role as acting CEO for the immediate future, and there are no plans at the moment to put any changes into place.

"Marcus inspired and led the company's growth into a global brand in the IBM i marketplace," said Hodgkinson. "Colleagues, partners and customers alike will remember Marcus for his vision and passion for the business and the platform. His good humor and effervescent personality will be sadly missed by the community, as will his ability to inspire and motivate those around him. 

"The thoughts and prayers of all of us at looksoftware are with Marcus' family during this difficult time," said Hodgkinson.

Services are pending, but the family expressed a wish to send donations in lieu of flowers to Compassion Australia. Messages of condolence and remembrances may be left at www.marcusbdee.com.

Chris Smith

Chris Smith was the Senior News Editor at MC Press Online from 2007 to 2012 and was responsible for the news content on the company's Web site. Chris has been writing about the IBM midrange industry since 1992 when he signed on with Duke Communications as West Coast Editor of News 3X/400. With a bachelor's from the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in English and minored in Journalism, and a master's in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Chris later studied computer programming and AS/400 operations at Long Beach City College. An award-winning writer with two Maggie Awards, four business books, and a collection of poetry to his credit, Chris began his newspaper career as a reporter in northern California, later worked as night city editor for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and went on to edit a national cable television trade magazine. He was Communications Manager for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, Calif., before it merged with Boeing, and oversaw implementation of the company's first IBM desktop publishing system there. An editor for MC Press Online since 2007, Chris has authored some 300 articles on a broad range of topics surrounding the IBM midrange platform that have appeared in the company's eight industry-leading newsletters. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS

LATEST COMMENTS

Support MC Press Online

$

Book Reviews

Resource Center

  • SB Profound WC 5536 Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application. You can find Part 1 here. In Part 2 of our free Node.js Webinar Series, Brian May teaches you the different tooling options available for writing code, debugging, and using Git for version control. Brian will briefly discuss the different tools available, and demonstrate his preferred setup for Node development on IBM i or any platform. Attend this webinar to learn:

  • SB Profound WP 5539More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT Generic IBM announced the E1080 servers using the latest Power10 processor in September 2021. The most powerful processor from IBM to date, Power10 is designed to handle the demands of doing business in today’s high-tech atmosphere, including running cloud applications, supporting big data, and managing AI workloads. But what does Power10 mean for your data center? In this recorded webinar, IBMers Dan Sundt and Dylan Boday join IBM Power Champion Tom Huntington for a discussion on why Power10 technology is the right strategic investment if you run IBM i, AIX, or Linux. In this action-packed hour, Tom will share trends from the IBM i and AIX user communities while Dan and Dylan dive into the tech specs for key hardware, including:

  • Magic MarkTRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now!  Request Now.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericForms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericIT security is a top priority for businesses around the world, but most IBM i pros don’t know where to begin—and most cybersecurity experts don’t know IBM i. In this session, Robin Tatam explores the business impact of lax IBM i security, the top vulnerabilities putting IBM i at risk, and the steps you can take to protect your organization. If you’re looking to avoid unexpected downtime or corrupted data, you don’t want to miss this session.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericCan you trust all of your users all of the time? A typical end user receives 16 malicious emails each month, but only 17 percent of these phishing campaigns are reported to IT. Once an attack is underway, most organizations won’t discover the breach until six months later. A staggering amount of damage can occur in that time. Despite these risks, 93 percent of organizations are leaving their IBM i systems vulnerable to cybercrime. In this on-demand webinar, IBM i security experts Robin Tatam and Sandi Moore will reveal:

  • FORTRA Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAManaging messages on your IBM i can be more than a full-time job if you have to do it manually. Messages need a response and resources must be monitored—often over multiple systems and across platforms. How can you be sure you won’t miss important system events? Automate your message center with the Robot Message Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAThe thought of printing, distributing, and storing iSeries reports manually may reduce you to tears. Paper and labor costs associated with report generation can spiral out of control. Mountains of paper threaten to swamp your files. Robot automates report bursting, distribution, bundling, and archiving, and offers secure, selective online report viewing. Manage your reports with the Robot Report Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAFor over 30 years, Robot has been a leader in systems management for IBM i. With batch job creation and scheduling at its core, the Robot Job Scheduling Solution reduces the opportunity for human error and helps you maintain service levels, automating even the biggest, most complex runbooks. Manage your job schedule with the Robot Job Scheduling Solution. Key features include:

  • LANSA Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.

  • LANSAWhen it comes to creating your business applications, there are hundreds of coding platforms and programming languages to choose from. These options range from very complex traditional programming languages to Low-Code platforms where sometimes no traditional coding experience is needed. Download our whitepaper, The Power of Writing Code in a Low-Code Solution, and:

  • LANSASupply Chain is becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. From raw materials for manufacturing to food supply chains, the journey from source to production to delivery to consumers is marred with inefficiencies, manual processes, shortages, recalls, counterfeits, and scandals. In this webinar, we discuss how:

  • The MC Resource Centers bring you the widest selection of white papers, trial software, and on-demand webcasts for you to choose from. >> Review the list of White Papers, Trial Software or On-Demand Webcast at the MC Press Resource Center. >> Add the items to yru Cart and complet he checkout process and submit

  • Profound Logic Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application.

  • SB Profound WC 5536Join us for this hour-long webcast that will explore:

  • Fortra IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn: