Looking at the darkened monitor screen, Eric's mood did not relax at all.
In the original information industry alliance plan, Eric hoped that Cisco, America Online, and Yahoo would play the roles of Internet equipment providers, Internet service providers, and Internet content providers respectively, forming an alliance similar to the Intel-Microsoft Wintel alliance in the PC industry. A strong united camp.
Now, without America Online, the information industry alliance plan that was formulated at the beginning is tantamount to being truncated in the middle.
This is the biggest setback that Eric has encountered in recent years. Even if he can cash out 10 to 20 billion U.S. dollars in cash from AOL stock, it will not be able to make up for the loss of the destruction of the information industry alliance plan.
You know, if you can successfully merge one of the three major operators in North America and consolidate your market position in communication and network services, even if the Internet bubble bursts, with the doomed arrival of the mobile communication and Internet era, AOL's future The market value can still easily reach a scale of one or two hundred billion US dollars.
But now, although AOL is temporarily the largest Internet service provider in North America, the rise of AOL is entirely due to the opportunity of several major traditional operators ignoring this part of their business.
At the beginning, the major telecom operators in North America were not optimistic that users would spend dozens of dollars a month to purchase high-speed broadband access services, which allowed America Online to take the lead.
However, America Online's flaws are also very obvious. Not to mention that it is doomed to have no future. It is just an Internet media business with a bubble technology concept. It involves a very simple basic telecommunications business, only high-speed broadband access service. America Online has not had time to get involved in fixed-line telephone, mobile communication, cable TV and other businesses. At the same time, America Online’s layout in infrastructure construction is also very weak. Some access equipment and line networks even rent AT-T. operator's.
It is conceivable that once AT-T, Verizon and even Sprint, these powerful traditional telecom operators react, relying on their own strong user base accumulation and infrastructure network far surpassing AOL, they only need to adopt some disguised bundles and the like. Measures can easily snatch Internet users away from AOL.
During this process, AOL's only chance is to take advantage of the high stock price to annex one of the old telecom operators through equity mergers and acquisitions, so that it can maintain its own industry in the next few years under the background of the bursting of the Internet bubble. status.
However, all these plans are now doomed to fail.
AOL chooses to follow the development path of an Internet media company. In the next two years, once the Internet bubble bursts, this company is destined to fall into the abyss.
Although AOL and Yahoo will continue to cooperate in the next two years, such a deep gap has formed, and the two sides are destined to be in harmony.
It will be difficult for Yahoo to find another partner who can cooperate tacitly in the field of basic services in a short period of time.
However, some things must still be done.
Because the traditional telecom operators in North America have a history of dozens or hundreds of years, the big companies are very sick, and the promotion speed of new technologies and services is shockingly slow. Otherwise, AOL would not have the opportunity to achieve its current market position .
The only way for these traditional operators to keep up with new technology companies like Yahoo is to completely control it.
Picking up the folder on the desktop, in addition to the files used in the video conference just now, there are also several documents of AT-T, Verizon and Sprint, the three major North American telecom operators in the folder.
After browsing in silence for a while, Eric's attention finally fell on Sprint.
AT-T and Verizon are actually companies that split off from the original Bell system.
With Eric's current capital accumulation, AT-T doesn't even think about it.
The current market value of this old telecom giant has exceeded 100 billion U.S. dollars. Compared with the Internet companies blown up by the new technology bubble, it does not seem too high, but in the next few years, with the rise of mobile communications and Internet business , AT-T's market value will rapidly increase exponentially. Even if the Internet bubble bursts, the market in this area has already formed, and AT-T's market value will not fall too much.
Moreover, since AT-T has occupied nearly 70% of the telecom market share in North America for a long time, AT-T will encounter antitrust investigations almost every once in a while, and the possibility of acquiring it through regulatory approval is very low.
More importantly, AT-T's diversification is very serious, and its business covers everything from mobile phones to communication base stations, from fixed phones to cable TV. Such a company does not meet Eric's needs.
Although Verizon's strength lags behind AT-T by a large margin, its current stock price and profitability are very impressive. When a company's operating conditions are very good, the company's board of directors and management are willing to accept mergers or acquisitions The possibility is very low. Moreover, Verizon also suffers from over-diversification similar to AT-T.
In comparison, among the three traditional telecom operators, the possibility of winning Sprint is the highest.
First of all, Firefly Investment already owns 10% of Sprint's shares. In the future acquisition process, as a shareholder, Firefly can directly exert influence on Sprint's board of directors.
Secondly, due to betting on mobile communications at the beginning, Sprint spent huge sums of money to take photos of more than half of the mobile communications spectrum in North America from the Federal Communications Commission. The company's future business development focus also meets Eric's expectations. In the future, Sprint will only Being able to focus on the business development of the two major areas of mobile communications and broadband services, even if it cannot catch up with AT-T, it is not too difficult to surpass Verizon.
Finally, because of betting on the mobile communications business, Sprint invested too much in the early stage. In recent years, its operating conditions have been unsatisfactory, and the company's stock price has often fluctuated sharply.
Sprint's current market capitalization has just reached $30.2 billion amid a surge in the stock prices of new technology companies.
Moreover, it will take a few years for the mobile communication business to rise completely. This also gives Eric enough preparation time. Eric also needs to wait another one to two years before making a move. Affected by the wave, the stock prices of all companies connected with the new technology field are ridiculously high.
Eric doesn't plan to buy any companies until the new tech bubble bursts.
After the dot-com bubble burst, it would be easier to acquire Sprint. Winning Sprint will not only re-establish the information industry alliance plan, but also take into account Eric's layout of the mobile communication industry by the way.
Both Nokia and Qualcomm have begun to test the third-generation mobile communication network, that is, the later 3G. According to the progress of various aspects, it is estimated that around 2000, the 3G network in Europe and the United States will enter the stage of practical application, even if the planned Smartphones are still years away, but Firefly Electronics could use Sprint's network to try and launch a 3G version of the tablet.
Eric sat in the study thinking about these things, and in the living room downstairs of the villa, Caroline sat on the sofa and casually flipped through a magazine, looking up at the stairs from time to time.
Mayer came out of a nearby living room, holding a folder in his hand, and came to the living room, just in time to see Caroline turning her head to look at the landing of the stairs.
Sitting down next to Caroline, Mayer followed Caroline's gaze and said, "It's almost nine o'clock, isn't Eric down yet?"
Caroline nodded, saw the blue folder in Mayer's hand, and asked, "Last week's North American box office data?"
"Yeah," Mayer handed over the folder and said, "Why don't you go up and give it to Eric."
Caroline took it and opened it, and there were several pages of bound data files in the folder.
After three days of the first weekend plus $83.65 million in the midnight show, entering the working day, "The Matrix 2" received another $30.11 million in box office in four days, and finally reached a box office of $113.16 million in the first week.
Although it barely surpassed the box office of $111.74 million in the first week of "The Day After Tomorrow" two weeks ago, the weekday box office of "The Matrix 2" was nearly $7 million lower than that of "The Day After Tomorrow", which is probably the same as "The Day After Tomorrow". The disadvantage of strong fan attributes. With the support of a large number of fans, the box office of "The Matrix 2" was very strong in the midnight show and the first three days of the weekend, but entered the working day, and the box office boom quickly cooled down.
Considering the polarizing reputation of "The Matrix 2", the film will definitely drop more than "The Day After Tomorrow" in the next few weeks. Since there is no obvious gap in the first week, it is not so easy for the total North American box office of "The Matrix 2" to exceed that of "The Day After Tomorrow".
After reading the document in her hand and thinking about it, Caroline said, "Today, today, don't show these to Eric, he is in a bad mood."
Mayer also acknowledged that in recent days, although Eric has not lost his temper with anyone, everyone can feel Eric's strong anger and disappointment.
In private, Mayer even had a little more admiration for Eric because of this. He, who is in a high position and should be young and vigorous, can always maintain restraint and not anger anyone. This is definitely not something ordinary people can do. did it.
Of course, I always think of that night in London in my mind, and then I can't help feeling a little bitter.
Nasty guy.
Saying something in his heart again, Mayer looked at Caroline again. Although the frustrating result that night was ultimately caused by the girl in front of him, Mayer couldn't vent his anger on Caroline at all. It's not that she has the same restraint as Eric, but, for such a girl who treats people with extreme sincerity, probably no one would have the heart to blame her for any mistakes.
The two women were sitting in the living room chatting. After a while, footsteps were finally heard on the stairs. Eric walked down, and they stood up together.
Eric didn't say anything to the two women, and said directly: "Let's go, Peter should be waiting for us."
Today is Saturday, but New Zealand is far from as harsh as California’s labor protection laws. The weekend’s shooting did not stop. Of course, it was the weekend after all, and the crew did not go out on location. Scattered interior scenes of characters.
A few days ago, the crew had been on location. Due to the AOL incident, Eric couldn’t spare time to visit the location with the crew. He just waited until Peter Jackson returned to Queenstown at night, and Eric discussed with him. I checked out the progress of the trilogy and threw a little party with some of the "Lord of the Rings" cast in New Zealand.
The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy has a total of nearly forty filming locations, all over the north and south islands of New Zealand.
At present, the scenes in the North Island have been basically completed, and the crew moved from Wellington to Queenstown last month.
Although it happened to be winter in New Zealand at this time, due to the temperate marine climate facing the sea, the low temperature in the South Island did not affect the shooting. There are not many signs of winter in the entire South Island. Except for the nearby snow-capped mountains all year round, the plains of Queenstown are still green.
The crew set up several small-scale studios in Queenstown as shooting bases, mainly to match some scenes in the South Island. The main filming base of the film is still in Wellington, North Island, including Firefly's digital field New Zealand branch established in Wellington.
The special effects of "The Lord of the Rings" are mainly in charge of the Digital Domain Australia Branch and New Zealand Branch. The Australia Branch is mainly responsible for the CG special effects, and the New Zealand Branch is mainly responsible for the production of a large number of props and models for the film. As for the former Weta Digital, it will naturally not appear again now. However, the Australian branch and New Zealand branch in the digital field basically enjoy the treatment that Weta Digital used to enjoy.
The reason why Weta Digital in the original time and space can stand shoulder to shoulder with Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Domain is not because of how good the special effects technology of this company is. The main reason is that Weta Digital is cheap enough, and the price/performance ratio is very high on the basis of ensuring the quality of special effects. .
Eric took Caroline and Mayer to leave the residence of the resort together, and arrived at the crew's studio in Queenstown in less than ten minutes by car.
Entering the busy studio, Peter Jackson is directing the filming of a fight scene between the Fellowship of the Ring and the orcs. The studio is surrounded by a combination of green screen and props.
The "Lord of the Rings" series actually pays great attention to real shooting. The crew basically does not use CG special effects unless it is absolutely necessary. This can be easily distinguished from the content of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Many people like to ridicule Peter Jackson and pile up CG.
What's more, as long as it can be done well enough, CG can give people a more shocking visual sense.
Without disturbing the busy Peter Jackson, Eric chatted casually with the British actor Ian McKellen who played Gandalf, and several other resting actors gradually gathered around, only Nicole and Diane K Ruger's two female roles have already been completed, and they are not in New Zealand now, and most of the crew are men.
After waiting for about ten minutes, Peter Jackson ended the filming, announced a short break, and walked towards Eric.
After saying hello, Peter Jackson asked with concern: "Eric, how is the situation over there?"
"It's a temporary solution," Eric said simply, not wanting to talk about it.
Eric is in New Zealand, everyone knows what happened on AOL, and Eric is in New Zealand. Although Peter Jackson is focusing on the filming of "Lord of the Rings", it is impossible not to notice this.