After leaving the EA headquarters in Redwood City, Simon rushed to the Igret headquarters in Palo Alto to attend a project meeting on the spin-off of the online software store Ystore.
This matter is actually still related to video games.
In order to carry out further refined operations, Ystore, Ygret's online software sales platform, plans to split into two parts in the near future. The original Ystore online software store will continue to provide sales and download services of various types of paid or free application software, while the game software business will Split it off separately and establish a dedicated game sales platform.
Simon has already named this website based on his long-term personal habits: Steam.
Ystore is the first Eagleite project that Simon's housekeeper Alice Ferguson is responsible for. The housekeeper's current focus has shifted to the Amazon online mall, but the software store business is still in charge of her. She also attended the split meeting. .
The purpose of Simon's participation in these meetings was just to have a more intuitive understanding of the business development status of Yigrit Company. The one-hour meeting was mainly for independent discussions among the teams in charge, and he did not express too much of his own opinions.
After the meeting was over and the others were sent away, Simon looked at the housekeeper opposite who subconsciously picked up the coffee and took a sip, and asked: "You don't have any rest on the weekend?"
Alice Ferguson put down her coffee cup and said, "I went to Chicago over the weekend to discuss the planning of a new batch of distribution centers."
Simon nodded, he also knew this.
Amazon's online mall is preparing to build a number of new large-scale logistics and distribution centers. The total investment in all seven distribution centers will reach 350 million U.S. dollars. The average investment in each distribution center is 50 million U.S. dollars. Even after many years, it will be a large sum of money. Once completed, It will also provide more than 10,000 new jobs across North America.
After these logistics and distribution centers are completed and put into operation by the end of this year and early next year, Amazon will also further increase the variety of products in the online mall in addition to books, video tapes and movie peripherals. Therefore, it is a very important step for Yigret's e-commerce business. layout.
Looking at the obvious tiredness on the housekeeper's delicate and pretty face, Simon said: "You have to know that Igret Company's business has very clear product priorities in my mind. Among the businesses you are responsible for, the online mall is absolutely The top priority that cannot be lost is that even if it completely fails, I will start over and invest again. In comparison, if necessary, I will not hesitate to abandon the software store.”
Simon has actually emphasized this more than once.
Alice Ferguson disagreed somewhat and retorted: "In the past year, the software store has provided us with very considerable revenue and profits."
"But you also need to see the development trend of online software sales," Simon immediately added: "At this stage, Yigret's Ystore does have unparalleled advantages in technical support, payment tools, website traffic, marketing promotion, etc. If software and game manufacturers choose to sell their products in software stores, they can sell 10 million units, but if they build their own websites, they may only be able to sell 1 million units. In this way, a 30% commission is very cost-effective. However, the Internet is A very open platform. Not only Microsoft and AOL, but also some other independent Internet companies are also trying to enter this industry. Moreover, with the continuous development of Internet technology, marketing channels, payment tools and their own brand awareness, etc. , once manufacturers find that building a separate platform to sell products can bring more substantial benefits than paying a 30% commission from a software store, they will definitely be inclined to do so. At that time, what are you going to do?"
Alice frowned slightly.
In fact, this trend has already appeared, or has always existed.
Oracle's database software and Microsoft's series of flagship software products have never been launched in Ystore, because these manufacturers already have their own very mature distribution channels and can achieve a higher gross profit ratio than the Ystore store.
It is not that the housekeeper has not considered lowering the bill sharing ratio to attract these top software manufacturers to join, but the current network transmission speed is not friendly to large-scale software with a scale of hundreds of megabytes. Instead of spending several hours downloading a software, the housekeeper It's better to drive out and spend ten minutes to buy a set of physical CDs.
After AOL completed the ADSL network upgrade, the Internet speed of most Internet users in North America has been greatly improved, and Internet data transmission technology and online payment tools have become more mature. When Ystore wanted to promote these cooperation, Microsoft had already launched Its own software store has recently decisively abandoned Ypay and launched its own online payment tool Microsoft-Wallet in cooperation with American Express.
Simon did not wait for the housekeeper's answer, nor did he ask further questions, and continued: "You must be thinking that maybe you can use methods such as limiting the exposure of these websites on the Yigrit portal or refusing to provide them with the Ypay payment interface to force them. Putting products on the Ystore platform for sale will only make it cheaper for our competitors. Among Yigret’s product priorities, Ypay is also in the first echelon. A decision, if it is beneficial to the development of Ypay, will If it hurts Ystore, then this decision should still be passed. You think those manufacturers will completely escape Ygrit Company in this way, but it is not the case. Although they lose the commission from the software store, they still have to use our Ypay tool , and pay for it. Without the official promotion of Ystore, they still need to put in a lot of online advertising to promote their website, and the Yigret portal happens to be an advertising platform that they absolutely cannot bypass. Similarly, the priority of online advertising business It also surpasses Ystore. Online payment and online advertising businesses can easily form the Matthew effect of the strong getting stronger. This is a trait that Ystore does not have, and it is also the key to why their priority is higher than other products."
Simon said this, tapped his fingers on the conference table a few times, and said: "It seems that we need to hold a serious meeting for this, just tomorrow." Then he looked at Girl A next to him: "Let's make arrangements, tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock, everyone in the Bay Area must be there on time."
Alison nodded in agreement and took up a pen to write down the matter in the memo.
After Simon finished his instructions, he looked at the housekeeper opposite and said to Girl A again: "You don't have to go to Mountain View with me later. Take Ally to a beauty spa or something. Anyway, it's all kinds of maintenance for you women. , and then sent her to my villa in Woodside."
The housekeeper was about to refuse, but when she heard Simon's last words, she protested with a blush on her face: "I still have a job."
"it's gone now."
After Simon finished speaking, he stood up. He had to rush to the construction site of the Ygritte Park in Mountain View to take a look.
Alice sat still, stared at Simon with a stubborn expression, and repeated: "I still have a job."
Simon also glared over: "Be obedient, or I will make you take a compulsory leave."
Alice looked at the man across from him for half a second, dodged for a moment, looked over again, and bargained: "I won't go to your place tonight."
"Okay, I'll go to your place."
“…”
When Simon went out and disappeared, Alice's stiff body softened.
Alison, who was left behind by Simon, smiled and said: "Let's go, Ellie, you really need to relax."
The housekeeper still had a cold face, but the person involved had left, and she had no stalemate with Alison. The relationship between the two parties was not actually good. The housekeeper still clearly remembered being tricked by the four ABCD girls when they first met in Greenwich. A handful of the past.
The two women walked out of the conference room, and Simon, who had already left, specially left a driver for them.
The housekeeper now has her own full-time driver, but she did not refuse the kindness of a certain guy. Girl A was not familiar with San Francisco, but she called Girl C and arranged everything in less than five minutes.
The time is approaching twelve o'clock noon.
The two women first found a restaurant to have lunch, and then rushed to a beauty salon near Atherton in northern Palo Alto. They spent a whole afternoon doing a complete set of treatments.
After leaving the club in the evening, Lady C also drove over.
The two women stood at the door of the club and saw Claire getting out of the car. Girl A subconsciously looked inside the car and asked with a smile, "Where's that little goblin?"
"At school, I've been very busy studying recently," Claire hugged Alison and said with a smile, "How about I call her and ask her to come over."
Allison just rolled her eyes.
Claire hugged Alice affectionately again and praised: "Ally, you seem to be beautiful again. Even I am moved."
Knowing that Claire was teasing her sexual orientation, the housekeeper simply rolled her eyes.
After greeting, Claire left her car, and the three women took a car to a nearby French restaurant. Girl C had reserved a seat in advance.
"Sony refused directly. Panasonic asked for 30% of the equity. It was blackmail. The most irritating thing was Kodak. They would rather their technology be rotten than cooperate with us. If we want to participate in the digital camera project, we can only It’s up to you.”
On the table.
The topic discussed by the three women who are all very ambitious is still inseparable from work.
Tinker Bayer will release its third-generation iCam digital camera during Easter this year.
With the further popularization of the Internet and the rise of social networks, more and more users tend to express themselves on the Internet platform, and the demand for digital cameras has also increased significantly.
While established electronics manufacturers such as Sony and Panasonic have launched their own digital camera products, iCam, which is not considered high-end, has firmly occupied the digital camera market in the past year with its advantages in brand, price and network adaptation. Accounting for 60% of the market shipments, the full-year shipments in 1993 reached 2.76 million units, an increase of 350% compared to the full-year shipments of 610,000 units in 1992.
Relying on such excellent sales performance, preliminary statistics indicate that Tinco Bayer's annual sales reached US$1.39 billion, and its annual net profit was also as high as approximately US$120 million.
As a supporting electronic product around the Internet, the rise of Tinker Bayer is undoubtedly the most intuitive confirmation of the explosion of the Internet industry.
Digital cameras provide richer picture content for the Internet platform, and the explosion of the Internet industry has also greatly increased the public's demand for digital camera products. The two parties can be said to complement each other.
While continuing to strengthen its investment in digital cameras, Tinker Bayer has not stopped developing other products.
In addition to the MP3 player iPlayer project that has been improving privately and the U disk and other products that are planned to be launched along with the promotion of USB technology, Tinker Bayer also plans to launch a digital video camera (DV) project in the near future.
Compared with digital cameras, the threshold for digital cameras is much higher, and it also involves patent barriers.
Many old electronics manufacturers around the world have long begun to invest in the research and development of digital cameras. Although most manufacturers are targeting professional-grade commercial products rather than the mass consumer products that Tinco Bayer focuses on, these old manufacturers have no matter whether they are patent layout or The accumulation of technology is beyond the reach of Tinko Bayer.
By cooperating with these established manufacturers, you can not only launch your own products faster, but also obtain relevant patent authorizations to avoid being entangled in patent litigation in the future.
However, Sony, Panasonic and other manufacturers have already given Tinco Beier the upper hand in digital cameras, and now they regret it. Naturally, they will no longer support Tinco Beyer in developing the digital camera business. Therefore, when they received the invitation to cooperate, , either directly refused, or put forward unacceptable conditions, and Tinkerber could only rely on himself.
Alison heard Claire talking about this matter, thought about it, and said: "Actually, I think that the popularity rate of home film cameras is also very high now. Tinker Bayer may consider developing a special machine for converting film to digital. There should be a huge market for everyone to convert the videos they shot on film into digital images."
Claire shook her head and said, "It's not like you've never seen Hollywood's telecine equipment. A complete set of professional equipment costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it's very large and bulky. How is it possible to achieve home-level equipment?"
Girl A said: "If you can't use it for home use, you can use it for commercial use at the level of a print lab. Hollywood's equipment is very professional and of course expensive, but you only need to get the super 8mm film for home use, and there is no need to convert the image quality. As good as it gets.”
Girl C continued to shake her head: "If you are interested, you can try this project."
The housekeeper on the other side, who had been talking very little, interjected: "Since digitization is already an obvious industry trend, the product cycle for developing this kind of machine will definitely not be too long. Perhaps digital cameras will already be popular before they are promoted in the future. .”
Girl A paused and wanted to refute that film and digital may coexist for a long time, just like digital cameras and film cameras now.
Thinking about it, he still didn't speak.
There is still a big gap between the popularity of digital cameras and film cameras. However, after the launch of digital cameras, considering the many advantages of this product, perhaps household film cameras will be eliminated faster than film cameras.
Girl C did not continue this topic, and instead asked about AlphaBeta, the company AB and AB worked together. She also regretted that she should have brought girl A into her company as a shareholder, so that she could get Simon through Alison. care.
The three women seemed to have dinner in harmony, and when they left the restaurant, they were immediately divided into two groups.
The driver drove the car over, and Alison took Claire's arm and said to the housekeeper: "C and I are going shopping, so I won't take you with us. Go back and have a rest early, and remember the meeting tomorrow morning."
The housekeeper stood by the door and did not get in the car immediately. She hesitated for a moment and suddenly said: "I'm going to Woodside. You have to open the door for me."
Girl A was a little surprised and a little disappointed: "Didn't you say you wanted to go home? The boss might go directly to your place."
"I'm going to Woodside."
The housekeeper repeated and got into the car.
The driver did not close the door in a hurry, but looked at Girl A waiting.
Seeing this situation, Alison asked Claire: "How about we go to Woodside tonight and we sleep together?"
Claire glanced at the housekeeper in the carriage, her eyes flickered, and she nodded: "Okay."