Richard Prout

{{short description|British entrepreneur (born 1967)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Richard A. Prout''' (born 1967) is a British entrepreneur.

Prout has a degree in Computing from the Victoria University of Manchester. He was the founder<ref>{{cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1999_May_13/ai_54621481/|title=Bnet article confirming Prout CEO of Intracus|accessdate=2009-07-19 | work=Business Wire | date=1999-05-13}}</ref> in 1996 of Intracus Ltd, whose innovative LDAP directory products were bundled by Novell<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.novell.com/info/collateral/docs/482EE0761.02/482EE0761.pdf|title=Novell Directory Article|accessdate=2009-07-19}} {{Dead link|date=October 2010|bot=H3llBot}}</ref> and Netscape,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_1lhRIVmXacC&q=intracus+directory+browser+netscape&pg=PA603|title=LDAP programming with JAVA by Rob Weltman|isbn=9780201657586|accessdate=2009-07-19|last1=Weltman|first1=Rob|last2=Dahbura|first2=Tony|year=2000}}</ref> and which in 1999 created SmartGroups.com,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smartgroups.com |title=SmartGroups.com web archive |accessdate=2009-07-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060101095543/http://www.smartgroups.com/ |archivedate=2006-01-01 |url-status=dead }}</ref> which by 2001 had become Europe's leading Virtual community web site with several million members, and was the precursor to today's social network services.

SmartGroups.com was bought by Freeserve for US$100 million<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/freeserve-revenue-up-36-to-pound515m-as-user-numbers-nudge-2-million-722456.html|title=Freeserve Acquire SmartGroups article in The Independent|accessdate=2009-07-19 | location=London | first=Bill | last=McIntosh | date=2000-03-17}}{{dead link|date=August 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.intracus.com/press/inthepressft3.html|title=Freeserve Acquire SmartGroups article in the Financial Times SmartGroups Press references web archive|accessdate=2009-07-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20000823030009/http://www.intracus.com/press/inthepressft3.html |archivedate=2000-08-23}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.intracus.com/press/inthepresscnnfn.html|title=Freeserve Acquire SmartGroups article on CNN Financial SmartGroups Press references web archive|accessdate=2009-07-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20000823030036/http://www.intracus.com/press/inthepresscnnfn.html |archivedate=2000-08-23}}</ref> and ran until 2006 when it was shut down by Orange, who had acquired Freeserve some years earlier.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Prout, Richard}} Category:1967 births Category:Living people