The news that iiNet supremo Michael Malone is departing the business he built from scratch marks the end of an era. He’s a young man and we haven’t seen the last of him, but his resignation closes chapter one of the story of retail internet access in Australia. We’ll leave it to the finance writers to chronicle iiNet’s stellar commercial performance. For us, it’s a time to reflect on the technical dream that Malone and his contemporaries turned into reality.In 1993, internet access in Australia was basically confined to academia. Telstra hadn’t given a thought to it and Optus didn’t even exist. It was the likes of Malone on the west coast and Netspace founder Stuart Marburg on the east who saw the potential in making the internet available to the general public.
http://www.afr.com/p/technology/how_michael_malone_kickstarted_the_8STyeEp5PbGnsdV4VML8TL