Published on the 27/06/2013 | Written by Newsdesk

New Zealand’s software industry has lost a pioneer with the passing of Don Bowman, founder of Auckland-based global business software developer Greentree International…

“Like all industries, without the early pioneers like Don we wouldn’t have had the platform to build from,” said Greentree CEO Peter Dickinson, Bowman’s long-time colleague and friend. “A lot of other local companies have since leveraged New Zealand’s early reputation as being both technology-smart and innovative.”

Bowman entered the software industry in the early 1980s, when he began building computer programs with the aim of streamlining processes in his successful electrical contracting business. He sold that business to found a computer bureau, offering services to businesses in the days before the multi-user PC. Don Bowman Ltd used the Wang 2200, one of the first mini-computers that could perform data processing in a common computer language.

Bowman was fascinated by computer technology and could see the PC’s vast potential for small to medium-sized businesses at a time when computing was the province of large corporations and institutions, using huge mainframes.

In all-night programming sessions with co-founder John Cowan (now a Director of Naiad Marine), Bowman pursued his vision.

“They were crazy times,” Cowan recalled. “Don’s notion of a fully integrated accounting system was actually beyond the capabilities and capacity of the technology at the time. He was the inspirational rock – he never wavered, you could throw anything at him and he would work through and find the answer.”

Those all-nighters led to the launch in 1983 of CBA, the DOS-based accounting system that was one of New Zealand’s earliest and most successful software exports and one of the first multi-user PC-based products in the world aimed at the SME market.

CBA grew to capture a 25 percent share of the New Zealand market and at its peak there were 12,000 businesses using it in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. By then Bowman had reached the age when most people are considering retirement, but he still believed there was further untapped potential for business software to help lift the performance of SMEs – offering wider functionality including customer relationship management and business intelligence. CBA’s successor, Greentree, was launched in 1999.

“People told Don he was crazy – including me!” Dickinson said. “But once again, he was right. Greentree today is expanding from ANZ into the European and US markets, and competing successfully with the likes of Microsoft, SAP and Sage.”

Bowman must also be credited with building a thoroughly Kiwi product in Greentree, using the NZ-developed Jade platform as the core of Greentree’s technology.

Bowman is not a household name, nor did he ever aspire to be.

“He never sought recognition because it was never about ego or greed,” Dickinson said. “I think Don fundamentally believed that if he was doing something that was good for his customers, and it was good for his staff, then it would be successful and the outcome would be good for him.”

Despite a rapid decline following the diagnosis of cancer, Bowman continued his active involvement with Greentree and attended a board meeting a week before his death on June 21st, his 77th birthday. He is survived by his wife, Gwen, five children and 15 grandchildren.

“He didn’t just build a product or a company; he actually built an international business community,” Dickinson concluded.