Sean Martin Howard is an Australian entrepreneur, founder of OzEmail, at one time Australia's largest Internet company. In the 1980s Howard founded '' Australian Personal Computer'', Australia's top-selling computer magazine. He also developed the Microtex 666 service that ran on the Viatel system. In 1988 he became an original investor in ISYS Search Software, one of the pioneer search engine products. In 1992 he sold his Computer Publications business, including Microtex, to Australian Consolidated Press. Howard founded the pioneering public email service Oz-E-Mail. In 1994 businessmen

Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as Liberal Party of Australia, leader of the Liberal Party an ...

and Trevor Kennedy invested and the business was relaunched as internet service provider OzEmail. In 1996 OzEmail was listed on the

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

stock exchange. In 1997 OzEmail Phone was launched and in 1998 the company was listed on the

Australian Stock Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or confused within Australia as, ...

. In December 1998 American telco

WorldCom MCI, Inc. (formerly WorldCom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second-largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. WorldCom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunicatio ...

took a 14.9% stake in OzEmail and in March 1999 WorldCom completed the acquisition for a total of $520 million. In July 2002 WorldCom declared bankruptcy and sold the Australian ISP business to

iiNet iiNet Limited is an Australian internet service provider and telecommunications company that sells NBN plans, 4G and 5G Home Wireless Internet and services on its ULTRA Broadband Cable, FTTB and VDSL2 networks. iiNet also sells mobile pho ...

in 2005 for $110 million. In 2000 Howard joined the board of the telco

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiar ...

as a non-executive director. He was a director of the WebCentral Group, a web and application hosting company when it was taken over by

Melbourne IT Webcentral, is an Australian digital services provider. It is a publicly-traded company that was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in December 1999. It provides internet domain registration, email/office applications, cloud hosting ...

in 2006. At the 2015 Australia Day Honours, Howard was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to a range of charitable organisations, particularly youth welfare and medical research, as a major benefactor and supporter, and to business.

References

Living people Australian company founders Officers of the Order of Australia Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) {{Australia-business-bio-stub