hunt hollywood

What a devil you are.

Silently made up his mind to come to Melbourne as little as possible in the future, at least not let him come alone.

With a helpless sigh of relief, Janet picked up a folder on the desktop and looked down.

This is the January AOL free trial user incremental statistical report.

Janet also knew about the free trial plan launched by America Online, but seeing the 230 million user subscriptions in the folder and the actual 81 official installations, Janet couldn't help being a little surprised, and raised her eyebrows at Simon Folder, asked: "Why is there such a difference?"

Simon glanced up, he had read the document just now, and said: "It's mainly a manpower problem. For this trial, America Online has prepared a total of 5000 formal and temporary installers on the east and west coasts. According to the original expectation, It can roughly complete the installation volume of 100 million users per month. However, in fact, things are more difficult than imagined, and there are many problems encountered. You can look at the more specific figures. Among the 81 installed users, 39 are from In the area where Bell Atlantic operates, mainly Bell Atlantic actively cooperates with us to solve problems such as line equipment, and also seconded some employees for this.”

Simon said with emotion in his heart.

The early acquisition of Bell Atlantic has now proved to be completely correct.

America Online just signed a 10-year exclusive agreement with the three major regional operators last year, so Bell Atlantic is also unable to get involved in Internet access services.

A few months later, seeing the sudden explosion of Internet access users, the number of subscription users in one month exceeded 230 million. The three major operators obviously began to regret signing the original agreement.

You must know that all major telecom operators have actually been involved in this kind of activity for users to try for free, but no one has experienced such a crazy number of user reservations.It is only the number of reservations for one month. If all of them are transferred to official users, it is already equivalent to one-tenth of the total number of users of the three major operators.

The users of the three major operators have been able to realize it after decades of accumulation.

In the past month, the three major operators have even discovered that some users have deliberately transferred accounts from other small telecom operators in the region to their own in order to get a free trial opportunity, which is even more surprising.

The US telecommunications industry has a very open competitive environment, and there may be several telecommunications operators in a city.

Of course, the main thing is to rent the giant line networks of AT&T, and then develop their own telephone business.Regional giants such as Bell Atlantic, Bell Pacific and NYNEX have always wanted to squeeze these small operators out of the market, but it is often difficult to achieve this goal because the other party often has lower charging costs than itself.

Now, America Online, which is also attached to them, accidentally promoted this matter.

The executives of the three major operators probably understand that trying to cooperate with the expansion of America Online will also be very beneficial to the increase in the number of their own users.

However, the truth is clear, but it is not so easy to really promote it.

No one wants outsiders to build a villa that is more beautiful than their own house in their own yard. Even if it cannot be stopped, even if the other party pays, even if such a villa in their own yard may attract many tourists who pay to visit, the head of the household probably It is also difficult to convince myself to cooperate without any grudges.

Of course, after the official completion of the takeover of Bell Atlantic in January, the company has become a member of the Westeros system, but management such as Raymond Smith can do this.

The other two, Bell Pacific and NYNEX, are less willing.

It was stated in the original agreement that in addition to the development of the line network, if you want other additional support, America Online needs to pay more.

Because of the huge amount of capital invested, the management of AOL implemented this free trial plan with a mentality of success or failure. Naturally, it is impossible to invest more budget for these operators.

In the end, 81 of the 39 installed users in the first month came from Bell Atlantic's active cooperation area.

After listening to Simon's explanation, Janet continued to flip through the information in her hand, and quickly asked: "The budget of 100 US dollars per household is too low. Can it be realized?"

Simon said: "100 US dollars, 20 US dollars are labor costs, 30 US dollars are network costs, and the last 50 US dollars are equipment and software costs. However, this is based on the expected data that will eventually be converted to official users."

For this free trial plan, AOL mainly hired and trained 3000 part-time temporary installation employees from some university campuses. According to the piece-rate charging standard, the installation fee for one household is 20 US dollars.

The household telephone penetration rate in the United States exceeds 90%. This trial plan is also selected. It must be a user of the three major operators. There is no need to set up additional lines. It is only necessary to install equipment on the user's home phone terminal to connect to the computer. .

In terms of equipment and software, mainly modems, interface cards that plug into the motherboard, network card drivers, and browser software.

This set of equipment and software is actually very expensive, and the total cost is roughly close to 200 US dollars.Once the trial users do not become full, AOL will take back these devices.Even if it is a user who cancels after becoming a regular, it will be the same in the future.

Because the returned equipment can be reused, AOL gave an average budget of $25 based on a conversion rate of 50%.

Strictly speaking, this is actually a bit of a book game.

In the final analysis, the financial pressure faced by AOL is too great.

It is also because of this that AOL management has no intention of increasing the number of workers despite the terrifying number of subscribers of 230 million.On the one hand, it is not easy to achieve, even those temporary employees are trained, on the other hand, it is naturally because of the cost.

Moreover, it is also necessary to consider whether this enthusiasm is just a moment.

Rush to increase the team of workers, once the user's enthusiasm for free trials cools down, it will be troublesome.

Next, AOL plans to achieve the expected monthly installation volume of 100 million households through more reasonable screening and deployment of reserved users.Then, after three months of IPO, the market will give AOL a very good valuation.

On the other hand, feeling the difficulty of queuing up to get a trial opportunity can also promote the conversion of trial users to a large extent.

After all, people don't always cherish things that are too easy to get.

If you have waited in line for more than a month and finally become a trial user, after one month expires, look around and see that some people are still waiting hard, and the desire to give up will definitely be much less.

Strictly speaking, this is actually a kind of alternative hunger marketing.

After a 17-hour flight, when we arrived in Los Angeles, due to the time difference, it was still Sunday morning, February 2rd.

Continue to rest until the next day, Simon flew to San Francisco again early on Monday morning.

This time it's for work.

After the housekeeper Alice Ferguson continued to squeeze Simon in various ways during this period, she finally came up with two business plans, two business plans that Eaglet, AOL and even Bell Atlantic attached great importance to.

Two business proposals, one is an online payment system and the other is an online software store.

The former is actually similar to the later PayPal, and the latter is equivalent to the APP Store of the Apple mobile phone in Simon's memory.

Moreover, the two business plans actually complement each other.

Eaglet has always been exploring a reliable business profit model. World Wide Web software is one aspect, and it has achieved initial results under the management of Carol Bartz in the past year.

In terms of portal websites, besides the advertising business, Jeff Bezos has also been considering other ways to make money.

Although the cooperation between the software department and the network department has been smooth under Simon's forceful reconciliation and suppression, it is simply unrealistic to rely on the software department to feed back the network department in the short term.If dependence is really formed, the portal is doomed to be unsustainable.

The housekeeper got inspiration from Simon, and the continuous improvement of the online payment system and online software store made Jeff Bezos see hope, and even Raymond Smith of AOL and Bell Atlantic saw the potential contained in it. Great business potential.

Eaglet headquarters near Stanford University.

In the conference room, Simon, Jeff Bezos, Carol Bartz, Steve Case, John Chambers, Raymond Smith and other company executives sat together on both sides of the conference table, listening The female housekeeper introduced her business plan in front of the projector and answered everyone's doubts.

"...If you want to build an online payment system, you can't do without corresponding products. Therefore, we must build a complete online consumption ecosystem. Online software stores are the most important part of it. The market for computer application software Potential, just from the development of Microsoft and Oracle in the past few years..."

"...Moreover, there is never a shortage of excellent commercial software in the market, especially some small application software with a relatively strong professional nature. The main restriction for their development is the sales channel. The same is true for PC games with an increasing market size. Many In private, only one or two professional software designers can produce a product of the same quality as a professional game company, but because commercialization is too difficult, they also cannot distribute and sell the game..."

"...Ygret has an unparalleled channel advantage. Using the World Wide Web platform, we can cross the mainstream operating system platforms such as Apple's Macintosh system, Microsoft's Windows system, and traditional DOS systems. With this online Advantages, we can easily distribute and sell products such as application software and PC games to users of these platforms at a very low cost, and the company can draw a share from it..."

"...In addition, after the online payment system is completed, we can use this system to further promote online bill payment, online retail and other businesses..."

The housekeeper kept switching the PPT, talked continuously for 10 minutes, and finally stopped.

Everyone patiently waited for the delicate-faced short-haired girl to take a few sips of water from the water glass on the table before Raymond Smith was the first to ask: "Alice, you just said that users of the online payment system The account is tied to a physical credit card. Have you thought about the difficulty of achieving this goal? Over the years, commercial banks have racked their brains to enter the American Express card payment system, but have not succeeded. Similarly, how do you ensure that Commercial banks will open payment interfaces to us?"

When Alice Ferguson heard this question, she scanned the conference room, and finally landed on Simon for a moment, saying: "The entire Westeros system, including Bell Atlantic and MCA, which just completed the acquisition, has an annual cash flow It has reached tens of billions of dollars, and the demand for commercial loans is also very considerable. I believe this is a customer that any commercial bank needs to strive for. If such a customer asks them to open an online payment interface, I don’t think there will be too much Great difficulty."

Everyone was taken aback when they heard this answer, and then all smiled.

I didn't expect the answer to be so simple and direct.

Even a little rough.

Indeed, if a small company with no roots wants to build such an online payment system, just the bank is enough to make the business plan of these small companies aborted.

Ygritte is different.

Relying on the entire Westeros system as a backing, it is indeed very easy to make the bank let go.

Chapter 398 Housewife (Revision)

In addition to the bank's problems, the housekeeper's two business plans still need to face various challenges if they want to succeed.

Simon's attitude remains unchanged. Ideas are worthless, and the key is the ability to turn ideas into reality.

However, after nearly a day of meetings, the two business plans were quickly finalized.

The two plans this time will still be attached to Eaglet, using Eaglet's IE browser platform and e-mail user group as the promotion carrier.

At the same time, the female housekeeper will serve as the team leader of the online software store, and will temporarily assume the title of project manager of Eaglet Company, but will report directly to Simon personally, and will continue to help Simon manage his private property.Because of his experience in Wall Street banks, Jeff Bezos will be personally responsible for the development of the online payment system.

Both AOL and Bell Atlantic will provide all necessary support for these two business proposals.

Not to mention other things, as long as the online payment system can be implemented and users turn to online payment, both AOL and Bell Atlantic can save a lot of operating expenses in the future.

When the meeting was over, the names of the online payment tool and the online software store were finalized.

Everyone didn't get too entangled in this issue, and named them Ypay and Ystore respectively.The 'Y' in it is naturally the initials of Ygritte.

I will stay overnight in San Francisco tonight. After get off work, I will send the housekeeper back to Woodside’s mountain villa to prepare dinner. Simon will bring along the female assistant who came to San Francisco as usual, as well as Jeff Bezos and Tim Berners. Li, Carol Bartz and others rushed to another office building near Ygritte's headquarters.

The size of Eaglet has been increasing, but unless the company is profitable or undergoes an IPO, Simon has no idea of ​​​​building a company headquarters for it.

Because there is not enough office space at the headquarters, Eaglet's various teams are now scattered all over Silicon Valley.

The cloud computing development plan team that was finalized and implemented last year is located in this ordinary white two-story office building where Simon and others arrived.

After entering the door, Simon's first impression was that the temperature inside the building was obviously higher than outside, giving people a feeling of heating.After listening a little, Simon quickly understood that this was probably due to the continuous long-term operation of dozens of large and small computers in the building.

Signaling the employees in the office compartment on the first floor to continue working, Simon and the others walked towards the stairs by themselves.

On the second floor, the buzzing sound of the computer is even more obvious. This is also a simple office cubicle. At the end of the cubicle, there is a row of servers with flashing lights against the wall.

Ralph Goodale, lead engineer on the cloud computing team, has his cubicle next to that row of servers.

Ralph Goodell is a top software engineer recruited by Jeff Bezos from IBM. He graduated from MIT. Before leaving IBM, he had already achieved the position of vice president of the R&D department and was mainly responsible for the development of Unix server systems.

Although a giant company like IBM has at least dozens of vice presidents, Bezos still spent a lot of trouble in order to recruit Ralph Goodell. Offered a high annual salary of 250 million US dollars for the other party.

The annual salary of $250 million is several times higher than the base salary of the trio of Jeff Bezos, Carol Bartz and Tim Berners-Lee.

Of course, Ralph Goodale doesn't have as generous an equity reward agreement as Bezos and others.

After entering the job, Ralph Goodell quickly devoted himself to work.

In just two months, while personally writing the basic code of the cloud computing system, he selected and formed a cloud computing development team.At this time, more than 30 employees in this two-story office building were basically selected by Ralph Goodell and Jeff Bezos through interviews all over the United States.

Right now, Eaglet's cloud computing plan has a special code name: Housewife.

This is mainly from a phone call that Ralph Goodale made with Simon before confirming his employment. Ralph Goodale asked Simon what kind of so-called 'cloud computing' system he wanted. After all, this concept has not existed before. appeared.

Naturally, Simon doesn't understand too profound technical principles, so he can only make a metaphor.

The calculation and processing method of Eaglet's existing data center is like a clumsy little woman who just got married. She can only mechanically spend an hour washing clothes, an hour cooking, and an hour cleaning, and so on.

Among them, the waiting time between washing clothes, the waiting time between making apple pies, and the waiting time between waiting for the floor to dry after mopping the floor are all wasted.

This is the case with the server operation mode of the existing data center, which will only mechanically process specific functions such as user login, data storage, and word processing in the order of confirmation.Once there is no corresponding data operation request, the processing capacity is idle.

This situation can easily lead to a strong unbalanced state where some servers are idle and some servers are full.

What Simon needs is to train this clumsy little woman into a housewife who can efficiently use time and energy to complete laundry, cooking, cleaning and other tasks at the same time.

To be more specific, it is to connect all the servers in the Eaglet data center in parallel to form an efficient computing instruction distribution system, so as to fully utilize the computing resources of each server.

Because of that conversation, the Cloud Computing Initiative got its name.

Ralph Goodell, who saw the huge development potential of this plan, also quickly chose to leave IBM.

Everyone walked over and saw a middle-aged white man with an unshaven beard and high myopia glasses staring at the computer screen. The other two engineers surrounded by the middle-aged man noticed the appearance of Simon and others. Simon raised his hand to stop.

Everyone stared at the computer screen that was constantly streaming data and waited patiently for five or six minutes. Finally, a statistic, 6%, appeared on the screen.

"Fake!"

Simon still didn't understand what happened, but Ralph Goodell, who was sitting in front of the computer, subconsciously uttered an American curse.

Tim Berners-Lee noticed the doubt in Simon's eyes, and explained in a low voice: "Ralph is testing fault-tolerant software."

Simon nodded, roughly remembering some project progress materials he had seen before.

Once the cloud computing architecture is completed, all data centers are connected in parallel to form a whole, with tens of thousands of processors and a greater number of components, failures may occur anytime and anywhere.The fault-tolerant software developed by the cloud computing team is used to detect faults and automatically transfer the computing tasks of faulty nodes to other places.

Strong fault tolerance is actually one of the important advantages of cloud computing.

In traditional data centers, once a certain server fails, it may directly cause the shutdown of certain functions.Even if there are perfect backup measures, even if engineers can handle it in time, it still takes time in the middle, which may lead to very serious consequences.

Cloud computing system can solve this problem well.

If a small number of servers fail, it will not have a great impact on the operation of the entire system.

In the office cubicle, after Ralph Goodell uttered an American curse, he woke up from the concentration just now, and finally noticed the arrival of Simon and others, and hurriedly got up to say hello.

We chatted for a few words, and went to a meeting room next door together.

Ralph Goodale personally introduced to Simon the progress of all aspects of the cloud computing plan. During the period, he also said that if Simon wants a perfect cloud computing system, he may have to wait until next year, because he has recently produced many good ideas. , need more development time.

Simon neither promised nor urged, just let Ralph Goodell do his best.

Cloud computing requires sufficient volume to form a scale effect. Therefore, Eaglet, which still has only a few million users, does not have such an urgent demand for cloud computing systems.When all aspects of the portal's business develop in an all-round way, and the number of users accessing the World Wide Web in the United States reaches tens of millions, then is the time for cloud computing to take advantage of its high efficiency and low cost.