Ozemail
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| Traded as | OZM |
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| Fate | Acquired by iiNet in 2005 |
| Founder | Sean Howard |
| Defunct | 2005 |
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Key people
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Sean Howard Malcolm Turnbull |
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This article is part of a series about Malcolm Turnbull |
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OzEmail was a major Internet service provider (ISP) in Australia, until it was acquired by the iiNet ISP on 28 February 2005.
In the early 1980s, Sean Howard was the editor of the Australian Personal Computer magazine and was running a small electronic mail service called Microtex. In 1992, he sold his share of Computer Publications to ACP and concentrated on Microtex which he renamed OzEmail. At this time, OzEmail (based in St Leonards, NSW) had 8 staff members and was creating a system to integrate Lotus Software Cc:Mail, MicrosoftMail and Novell MHS Mail systems. The initial network consisted of 16 POPs around Australia.
On 28 May 1996, OzEmail became the first Australian tech stock ever to list on the NASDAQ. With the trading symbol OZEMY, over A$50 million in investment capital was raised. Two years later, OzEmail listed on the (ASX) with the symbol OZM.
Also in 1996, OzEmail was the unsuccessful respondent in a case involving the creators of Trumpet Winsock, regarding intellectual property and trade practices matters [1]. The court found that Sean Howard was "closely involved in all stages of the project". At the time this distribution occurred in 1995, Trumpet Winsock 2.0B was commonly distributed by ISPs without properly licensing it. The lawsuit alleged that OzEmail deliberately removed reference to the fact that it was shareware and required registration. Trumpet Winsock 2.1 was the first timelocked version, released in July 1995. This was too late for OzEmail, which went ahead and distributed the 2.0B version without permission, before 2.1 was released, but it did have a draft README mentioning that the new version would be time-locked to 30 days and then need to be registered. That was also just before Windows 95 was released, which has built-in TCP/IP support. Trumpet Winsock 2.1 would not work with Win32 Winsock applications.
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