Ernest (Lee) E. Keet

Founder of Turnkey Systems, Inc. (TSI) and founding director of both the Charles Babbage Foundation and the IT History Society, Keet helped launch one of the pioneering commercial software firms of the early computing era.

TSI was founded as a contract programming firm specializing in developing large online systems. Gaps in the functionality provided by the software supplied by IBM led the founders to see an opportunity to market software products that would fill those gaps. In January 1970, TSI released Task/Master, the first commercial telecommunications monitor that was launched on a full worldwide basis.

TSI was sold to Dun & Bradstreet in late 1978 and formed part of the Software Products Group that Keet ran until 1983. In 1985, the venture firm founded by Keet and others bought the assets formerly owned by TSI and other D&B divisions, reconstituting TSI International Software and four other companies. In 1999, TSI Software changed its name to Mercator Software and continued operating successfully under that name.