Simon stayed in San Francisco for a week, only to find that in order to roll out his plan for the Internet industry, he needed to deal with many more problems than he had imagined.
Just as the founders of AOL's predecessor came up with the idea of online music and online games in the early 1980s, in the Internet field, ideas are actually not that valuable. The mature Internet industry model in Simon's memory was not developed before the rise of this industry. , there are probably many people who have had countless similar thoughts.
The key is execution.
Therefore, whether it is Ygritte or AOL, apart from Simon, who is at the helm of the general direction, what they need most is a management team with truly efficient execution capabilities.
Speaking of which, many of the companies Simon invested in based on his prophetic advantages were, in the final analysis, investments in management teams.
More accurately, it is an investment in people.
Simon invests in Microsoft because Microsoft has Bill Gates; in Nokia because Nokia has Jorma Ollila; in AOL because AOL has Steve Case.
Within a week in San Francisco, Simon also sent an invitation to John Chambers, who brought Cisco to its peak in the original time and space, hoping that after Westeros Company achieved absolute control of Cisco, he would let him take charge of the company.
Because of this concept, Simon could easily find that Tim Berners-Lee, who was in charge of Eaglet at this time, might be very suitable as the chief technology officer of Eaglet, but as a person similar to the founder of Apple, A technical business executive like Wozniak is not qualified for the overall management of Ygritte.
In addition to Tim Berners-Lee, Simon also urgently needs a 'Steve Jobs' from Igret.
Of course, this is just a metaphor. Simon would never invite Jobs, who he had absolutely no control over, to manage Ygritte. It is hard to imagine which direction Jobs, with his own distortion field, would take the company.
On the plane back to Los Angeles from San Francisco, it was Sunday, April 29.
Simon did not go to the suite in the forward cabin. He sat casually by a porthole in the middle of the cabin that could be illuminated by the setting sun. He was thinking about finding a manager for Ygritte Company and looking through the results of this week's work.
The main reason is that after achieving absolute control of AOL, the development plans of the two companies Igret and AOL have been readjusted.
As for Cisco, Simon plans to hand it over to John Chambers, who has already confirmed that he will join. The two have discussed in detail the future development direction of Cisco. Chambers’ business philosophy of customer first and rapid expansion through mergers is basically the same as that of Cisco. The information in Simon's memory matched, so Simon did not make any adjustments without authorization.
Of course, in order to facilitate Cisco's expansion, the company must also conduct an IPO as soon as possible.
After acquiring absolute control of both Igret and AOL, Simon wasted no time in segmenting the businesses of the two companies, insisting that AOL divest itself of its content business and focus on its role as an Internet service provider.
Ygritte is responsible for the content.
The online games and other content that AOL originally provided to customers were originally value-added services based on basic access services. Because the current user base is too small, only more than 60,000, it cannot make up for the expenditure through embedded online advertising. Being able to divest these would actually save AOL money.
Of course, Steve Case didn't think so, especially after seeing many of Simon's ideas for the content arranged by Ygritte Company.
However, Simon did not give Case too many choices.
A large part of the reason why AOL in the original time and space declined rapidly after the Internet bubble burst was that its business coverage was too large and comprehensive, but it had no core competitiveness. In terms of content, it cannot compare with Yahoo, which came from behind. In terms of access services, it is easily surpassed by traditional operators with infrastructure advantages. As a result, the market value of US$100 billion at its peak has shrunk by more than 90% in just a few years.
This time, Simon's positioning of AOL is to be a precise Internet service provider. In the early stage of the development of the Internet industry, this business will be maximized, and then it will closely follow the general trend of the integration of telecommunications network, TV network and Internet around the new century. Choose the right time to annex an established traditional telecommunications operator to completely consolidate its industry position.
In addition to long-term planning, considering its own scale, in the next few years, AOL will first expand its business in the coastal metropolitan area from California on the west coast and Boston to Washington on the east coast. The vast central region includes the Great Lakes region and the equally prosperous The southern coast of the country can only be given over to other enterprises for the time being.
Most of the population in the United States is concentrated on the east and west coasts, and these two regions are the essence. As long as it can gain a foothold in these two regions, AOL can easily expand to other regions.
In order to save money, in addition to the top-level servers, AOL will temporarily rent line networks from traditional operators as much as possible in terms of terminal networks.
Of course, this must be temporary.
If you want to avoid being choked by traditional operators such as AT-T, you must gradually build and improve your own network. However, this obviously means billions of dollars in huge expenditures, and it is simply unrealistic to achieve it in the short term.
Another reason for the rapid decline of AOL in the original time and space is that it believed too much in its own content advantages. Until traditional operators began to provide ISP services, they still rented other people's lines and were slow to improve their own networks or even follow up on high-speed broadband. promotion, the consequences can be imagined.
In addition to these major plans, among the confirmed plans, AOL will open 100 Internet cafes in cities such as Los Angeles, Boston, and New York in the next few months.
This plan was naturally proposed by Simon.
Simon's first contact with the Internet in his previous life was at an Internet cafe.
However, the Internet cafe industry has not become popular in North America.
The main reason is the difference in spending power.
Just like video recorders, video parlors across the ocean should be popular now, but in North America, this is not necessary at all, because the penetration rate of video recorders in North American households has exceeded 70%.
Similarly, since its birth in the 1970s, PC ownership in American households has also increased rapidly. The reason why it has not become as popular as video recorders in just ten years is mainly because PCs in this era lack enough entertainment. More Prefer office work.
PC ownership in American families began to explode, which happened to be in the 1990s when the Internet was rapidly spreading.
Although Simon's trip to San Francisco this week has attracted many media attention to the new technology companies he is planning to build, such as AOL, Eagle, and Cisco, at the moment, most American people do not have the concept of the Internet.
When Simon proposed the idea of an Internet cafe, he did not intend to make a profit. He mainly wanted to promote Igrit and AOL to the public, as long as people could experience online news, e-mail, online games, online forums, personal homepages, etc. in the Internet cafe. With the various benefits of Internet applications, it is natural to consider connecting to the Internet at home.
100 Internet cafes, even if each Internet cafe has a minimum budget of US$100,000, will require a total expenditure of US$10 million.
If paid entirely by AOL, this fee would be equivalent to 20% of the US$50 million capital injection from the Westeros Company, not counting the development and later operating expenses of the Internet cafe management system.
AOL cannot afford such a huge 'marketing expenditure'.
When Simon left San Francisco, Steve Case was already contacting various PC manufacturers to find partners. These 100 Internet cafes that did not plan to make money would also be operated separately as AOL subsidiaries, or even packaged and sold at the right time. go.
Simon also personally called Damen and asked him if he was interested in sponsoring a batch of the latest Windows 3.0, or he could ask Apple.
Then I successfully got 1,000 sets of free operating system software.
For the project initiated by Simon himself, there must be many manufacturers willing to participate. The most expensive PC equipment expenses should be eliminated, and even the Internet cafe operating system software can be handed over to interested software companies. All AOL expects to pay are Internet access expenses for Internet cafes and production site rental fees.
The money saved can be used by AOL to develop its core business.
As for Ygritte Company, most of Simon's thoughts this week have been on this. This is why he is eager to find another suitable manager for Ygritte. Even the self-aware Tim Bo Nas Lee himself agreed with Simon's decision.
The most important thing for Yigret Company is to confirm the revenue model.
Still the same point of view, any company that wants to grow and develop must have a sustainable revenue and profit model.
Portal membership, e-mail charges, online news subscriptions, etc., have all been considered by the team at Igret.
Simon rejected them all without hesitation.
To quickly attract users, basic content services such as portals, e-mails and online news must be free.
Although the soon-to-be-opened Daenerys Movie Theater in Malibu has installed an enterprise email system, Simon also rejected the idea of developing the email system that Yigrit has patented into the enterprise market. This matter may be handed over to other companies through technology licensing and equity participation, but Ygritte must adhere to Simon's popular development route.
Simon's positioning of Yigrit in the next ten years is as an Internet technology company disguised as an online media platform.
Internet media is a new technological concept that was very able to stimulate corporate stock prices in the 1990s.
However, we can know from the fate of Yahoo and AOL in the original time and space that online media is not sustainable. The core of the Internet giants that eventually survived and grew, whether Amazon, Facebook or Google, are technology companies.
Creating platforms through technology and attracting a large enough user base to produce 'content' on their own is the way for Internet companies to dominate.
In comparison, the business model of online media is to produce content on its own to meet user needs. This was still feasible in the early 1.0 era of the Internet. However, in the 2.0 and 3.0 eras after the explosion of Internet users, if you want to satisfy the needs of millions of users on your own, The content demands of billions of Internet users are simply impossible.
Since it is impossible to obtain revenue from services such as portals and e-mails in the short term, everyone's attention naturally turns to software again.
The server software, web design software and other applications developed by Igret based on World Wide Web technology have been confirmed to be commercialized.
Simon's original idea was that the IE browser with a graphical interface would be promoted free of charge. This idea was not accepted by the team at Igret. Most employees believed that the software the company had invested heavily in developing was excellent. , even has the value of creating a new era, and should not be free.
After several discussions and even arguments, Simon had to make a compromise.
In other words, Simon admitted that his idea was too radical.
Just like he hopes that AOL's network access services should be billed monthly instead of hourly. At least in recent years, this idea is not realistic. Before the user scale develops to a certain level, AOL's network access services , still billed on an hourly basis.
On the other hand, the server software, web design software and other applications developed by Yigrit have a very small market capacity in the short term, and are even more limited to the use of Yigrit's own team.
Therefore, IE, a terminal application software that is expected to have a wide audience, is crucial.
The final solution is that IE browser will also adopt a charging model.
This is also the most practical way for Yigrit Company to obtain real revenue as soon as possible.
However, compared to Simon's memory of Netscape's browser pricing of up to US$50, the team finally confirmed that the retail price of IE browser is US$15, and the installation fee of these network service providers on AOL is lower, charging US$10 per set. .
The price of $10 per set is actually very affordable for AOL.
Moreover, Igret will not only authorize AOL to be a service provider. After all, AOL's expansion focus in recent years will only be limited to a few densely populated states on the east and west coasts, and most areas of the United States are still inaccessible. , seeing the growth of AOL, there will definitely be other Internet service providers emerging.
Although Igret will open most of the World Wide Web technology licenses for free, for the core website and terminal application software, Simon will not allow a second manufacturer to appear for a long time in the future. As long as the World Wide Web can reach the same popularization speed as in the original time and space, the software revenue alone will be enough to cover most of the expenses required for the development of Ygriet Company.
In the short term, that's all it can do for the time being.
Igret has completed the construction of two data centers on the east and west coasts that can accommodate 100,000 users, and internal testing has also been completed. Although it is shabby compared with the large data centers in Simon's memory, it is enough to cope with the current situation. Internet user access.
At the same time, a simplified version of the World Wide Web application software only for students will also be released to major universities in North America.
Next, only AOL and Igret need to work together to fully promote the World Wide Web.
The coming May of 1990 is destined to be the beginning of an era in many people's memories.