After seeing off Martin Davis, Simon had dinner with Robert Iger, who had come to the West Coast especially for the afternoon meeting, and shared some strategic advice over the meal.
Following the merger with MCA, Robert Iger retained his position as the CEO of Daenerys Entertainment Group, but his responsibilities significantly increased.
In the next few years, while maintaining Daenerys Entertainment's dominance in television program production, Robert Iger's focus would shift towards cable television services, with USA Network being a major priority.
Although MCA ultimately fell into the hands of Daenerys Entertainment, traditional Hollywood studios like Columbia and MGM had already been purchased by foreign investors, and now, Canadian Seagram and French Vivendi were eyeing other Hollywood studios.
As a result, the US government and media were becoming aware of a trend: to prevent further acquisitions of Hollywood studios by foreign capital, lifting the ban on mergers between domestic television networks and studios was inevitable.
Simon remembered the year the legal restriction was lifted, around 1994.
Subsequently, Disney acquired ABC, and later, CBS and NBC were also taken over and merged with major Hollywood studios. News Corporation's FOX Network also managed to free itself from many legal restrictions, eventually growing to compete with the traditional three major networks.
Speaking of which, if Simon now leveraged the power and connections of the MPAA and his own resources to lobby, lifting the ban a year or two early was not impossible.
However, doing so did not align with Simon's planned pace of development for Daenerys Entertainment.
Daenerys Entertainment's next step was certainly to merge with a national television network, fully expanding its horizontal layout in the media and entertainment sectors, but this needed to be on the back of digesting MCA and completing an IPO.
For the next phase of mergers and acquisitions, Simon still preferred cash purchases. Most acquisitions expected to be cashed out, but Daenerys Entertainment, already burdened with substantial debt, couldn't afford to increase its liabilities on a large scale and would have to opt for a combination of cash and stock purchases.
Even if, by then, Daenerys Entertainment's market value was considerable, using stock for acquisitions could be very cost-effective.
As for the shares issued, once the company had sufficient funds, it could buy back its stock.
After dinner, Simon returned to the Dumont Cape Manor by 8:00 PM.
It was Tuesday, and Janet had been busy on the East Coast with Cersei Capital in recent days.
The Gulf War was nearly concluded, essentially in the cleanup phase, and Cersei Capital's hedge operations around this conflict were also wrapping up.
Deciding to forego further opportunities like the upcoming pound crisis, this operation was arguably the last time the Cersei Fund Management team could operate without restrictions during a major market event.
According to preliminary statistics from New York, from the outbreak on February 17, in about a month, Cersei Capital had already achieved over $1.6 billion in book profits, mainly from the 25% surge in S&P 500 index futures in just a month.
After this operation, Cersei Capital would focus more on Apollo Management and BlackRock Asset Management.
With the US economy's improvement, this was conducive to the development of business mergers, asset management, and similar activities. Of course, Cersei Fund Management would still exist but would lean more towards specific stock and securities portfolios.
After a busy day, having showered and changed into a sweatshirt and casual pants, Simon noted it was past eleven in New York; Janet would have gone to bed, so he didn't call her. Women, especially those asleep, never liked to be disturbed by phone calls.
Simon, however, was a night owl. With Los Angeles barely past dinnertime, he wasn't sleepy at all, so he headed to the villa's ground floor PC room.
The room, like a mini personal computer museum, wasn't as comprehensive as a real museum.
Simon had set up such a room mainly to check the compatibility of various versions of Internet Explorer developed by Igritte across different operating systems and computers.
Speaking of which, Simon disliked the coexistence of numerous operating systems at the time and was somewhat resistant to the more minimally configured personal computers. Still, given the era's generally high prices for personal computers, it was not yet feasible to frequently update them. To capture the broadest customer base in the short term, Igritte had to ensure compatibility with as many platforms as possible.
However, Igritte's development of the Internet Explorer browser was beginning to show a clear preference for Microsoft's Windows system, which was timely in its feature updates compared to other operating systems.
In the spacious room of over 200 square meters filled with various personal computers, Simon randomly turned on three different-configured IBM compatible machines side by side, sat down, and connected to the internet to check his email after the computers booted up.
He opened an email from Carol Bartz.
As expected
, this executive in charge of Igritte's software business discussed raising the price of the IE browser software.
With the explosive growth of internet users in recent months, Igritte estimated that the increase in internet users in 1991 would far exceed 5 million. The installation base of the IE browser, boosted by free trial programs launched by American Online and other internet service providers, would only be higher, potentially reaching tens of millions.
At an ISP pricing of $10 per IE browser software suite, a tens of millions level installation base meant revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
From bringing Tim Berners-Lee to America to creating a software company with sales revenue breaking a billion within just two years, this was quite an achievement. However, Carol Bartz believed that the commercial potential of IE browser software was far from tapped.
Simon was well aware of IE's massive commercial potential.
Yet, apart from Simon, most of Igritte's executives felt the IE browser was underpriced. At $10, it offered richer content and features than most operating systems, almost like giving it away.
Especially now, as Igritte had a complete monopoly on the patent for the graphical interface browser on the World Wide Web.
In the original timeline, Netscape was just one of several licensors of graphical interface browser technology for the World Wide Web. Even such a company's market value easily exceeded $1 billion on the day of its IPO.
Now, Simon had no intention of opening up the World Wide Web browser patent for licensing. Thus, at least on the World Wide Web, there would be no other browser software.
Even developing other versions of browsers that bypassed Igritte's browser core was impossible, as the patents for the underlying technology of the World Wide Web were also in Igritte's hands. Other software manufacturers wanting to develop browsers would have to choose other network technology platforms.
However, with the World Wide Web technology already having a head start, other types of networks had virtually no room for development.
Ultimately, this was a monopoly.
Simon had already rejected Carol Bartz's suggestion to raise prices; the low-price strategy had been set from the beginning. After all, if a sudden price hike in IE browser made the industry feel the threat of Igritte's monopoly over World Wide Web technology, it could not guarantee that other manufacturers wouldn't suddenly support a standard based on other technology.
While other technical standards would hardly threaten the World Wide Web technology, it would still be a nuisance.
Simon simply replied to an email, instructing Carol Bartz not to bring up this topic again, and began browsing other unread messages.
As he was busy, the sound of high heels approached, and Simon looked up from the computer screen as Claire, a female employee, placed a glass of water by his side, holding a folder.
Simon smiled and gestured her to join him online.
Claire set the folder on the computer table and sat beside him. A pleasant scent wafted over, refreshing the senses.
Simon took a sip of water and gestured towards the folder Claire had set down, asking, "What's this?"
Claire handed over the folder, saying, "This is a business plan I've put together recently, boss. Could you take a look first?"
Simon nodded and opened the folder.
Claire explained, "The inspiration for this business plan comes from some documents you showed us, including a scrapped Igritte blog activity proposal. It was a photo-sharing event that was rejected because uploading images to the network was too difficult and the process too cumbersome. Plus, digital cameras that could upload pictures directly to personal computers using floppy disks as carriers are too expensive. I thought, why not develop an affordable card camera specifically for sharing photos on the internet? With the rate at which internet users are growing and most people's desire to showcase themselves, I believe this business plan has a lot of potential."
When Sandra first joined the Igritte personal homepage platform, Simon had given her a digital camera for photo sharing.
He vaguely remembered that the Panasonic digital camera had a resolution of just over 700,000 pixels but cost $6,000, more expensive than most mainstream personal computers at the time, definitely not affordable for the average person.
Moreover, most personal computers at the time did not support high-quality image display. Only the latest computers in the past two or three years, combined with Igritte's IE browser software, could achieve a decent image display quality, but in reality, the display effect was only comparable to the pixel level of newspaper prints, nothing like the 1080 displays Simon remembered.
To accommodate lower-end computers, IE had specially developed a no-image mode.
This was an inspiration Simon had from using mobile phones in his past life.
His first semi-smartphone had a 2.5-inch screen that supported touch and used 2G networks; the online connectivity was, naturally, not optimal. The built-in browser of that phone supported a no-image mode when connecting to the network.
Used to more advanced smartphones, browsing the internet
on a candy bar phone was quite a shift. But for Simon, who was experiencing a mobile phone for the first time, browsing news, reading novels, and logging into forums through the small phone screen, even with images turned off to save data and speed up the connection, felt like discovering a new world.
The content-rich Igritte portal, for current users, was similar.
Even without images, Igritte's offerings of information, blogs, email, and even games were sufficiently rich.
After all, newspapers read by people in this era were not packed with pictures on every page.
However, although Igritte's IE browser performed excellently in no-image mode for low-end computers, image display was definitely a trend.
In the next few years, personal computers were bound to support increasingly rich multimedia functions, and image content, before the internet evolved to the streaming media era, was destined to be a crucial category of content on the internet platforms.
Plus, with Igritte advancing into social network services early, it would certainly increase users' desire to share images online, making Claire's proposal highly feasible.
Simon flipped through Claire's business plan, his thoughts inadvertently drifting further.
Not just the limitations of image uploads, but the current personal computers, whether in terms of operating system software or personal computer peripherals, were simply inadequate.
Igritte's ongoing online software store project could greatly enrich the software ecosystem for personal computers in the coming years.
However, in terms of hardware.
Just looking at the interfaces on the motherboards of personal computers at the time was telling.
Current mainstream personal computers typically had only two types of hardware interfaces: serial and parallel. Whether it was monitors, printers, or keyboards and mice, they could only connect through these two interfaces. The network RJ45 interface, USB interface, PS/2 interface, and even audio interfaces that Simon remembered, were all absent at this time.
The lack of interfaces also meant a lack of an ecosystem for personal computer peripherals.
American Online, for instance, had to provide users with a hardware modem due to the lack of hardware and interfaces, which was directly plugged into the motherboard and included a network cable interface.
Claire's business plan proposed developing a digital card camera that used a 3.5-inch floppy disk as a picture carrier, probably the only viable option for widespread adoption of this camera.
After all, apart from the floppy drive, which was as common as serial and parallel interfaces on personal computers at the time, there weren't many other ways to quickly and conveniently transfer images from a digital camera to a computer and further upload them to the internet.
As for flash memory and USB, which later became commonplace, what were those?
Since they didn't exist yet but there was an inevitable huge market demand, this clearly indicated a potential business opportunity of immense value.
And for interfaces, there wasn't a need to develop many, just one USB would suffice.
By developing USB or a similar interface solution ahead of time, it was possible to attempt to create a complete hardware ecosystem around this interface, similar to Microsoft. Later, not just digital cameras, but also keyboards, mice, MP3 players, phones, speakers, and other hardware could extend to use this interface.
Don't underestimate just a small interface. If the annual installation reached hundreds of millions, not to mention the profits from the surrounding hardware ecosystem, just the patent licensing fees for the interface would be enough to make the technology developer immensely wealthy.
Simon remembered that the WiFi technology patent was held by an Australian university.
Just from licensing fees applied to various types of WiFi chips, that university could easily enjoy over a billion dollars in net profits each year.
By comparison, the widespread application of USB technology would definitely far exceed that of WiFi.
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