Hollywood Hunter

After dinner, I chatted with Janet’s parents about some recent events. After nine o'clock, the Simon and his wife did not go back to their villa nearby, and stayed directly in the mansion.

In the bedroom upstairs, Simon took a shower and came out of the bathroom. He saw Janet, who had changed into pajamas, holding a pillow in her arms, standing by the bed and staring at him intently, saying: "I will sleep with my aunt tonight. "

Simon paused for a while, and quickly continued to wipe his wet hair with a towel, smiled and nodded: "Okay, I have been squeezed by you for so long, I happened to take a rest for the night."

Janet did not move, still staring at Simon steadily.

Simon nonchalantly pulled the towel on his head a little forward, blocking his eyes and continuing to wipe.

Janet wrinkled her nose. Seeing the man came to her and hugged her, she subconsciously greeted her. Because there was a pillow in the middle, she leaned her face forward and was kissed cooperatively by him.

"good night."

"OK, good night."

She agreed, but her heart was even more distressed.

little bastard.

Really let me go with my aunt.

Even if you lie to me.

Or, if I just mess around and press someone on the bed, I think I don't know anything.

Simon said goodnight and released Janet and hung up the towel. Seeing that she hadn’t moved, he didn’t say anything. He just reached out and took the pillow in the woman’s arms and threw it on the big bed. The woman was also thrown on the big bed, and then jumped on.

However, after more than an hour, Janet took off the arms of the man who had already fallen asleep and quietly left the bedroom of the two.

The next day is February 3, Sunday.

Since leaving Los Angeles on January 20th, the couple have been resting for two weeks.

In the cabin of the Boeing 767, after the plane took off, Simon had been sitting in the study room of the front cabin looking through the documents accumulated during this period. Janet was sitting opposite and watching her husband with her chin, and all kinds of emotions floated in her bright eyes. .

Simon actually knew about Janet leaving quietly last night.

I just don't know what Veronica and Janet said.

Now that the woman doesn't speak, Simon doesn't take the initiative to pick up a topic.

I really don't know how to deal with it.

On the opposite side of the desk, Janet looked at her man for a long time, and finally sighed softly, not understanding what was going on.

The aunt was obviously bullied, but she was still facing him.

It was the same as myself.

Is it just because of the last time?

Janet couldn't help but touch her wrist.

Little bastard.

You are such a devil.

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

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

This is the incremental statistical report of AOL free trial users in January.

Janet is also aware of the free trial program launched by AOL, but looking at the 2.3 million user reservations in the folder and the actual number of official installations of only 810,000, Janet couldn't help but be a little surprised, and raised her to Simon. Folder, asked: "Why is there so much difference?"

Simon raised his head and glanced. He had just read the document and said: "The main problem is manpower. For this trial, AOL has prepared a total of 5,000 formal and temporary installers on the east and west coasts. According to the initial expectations, Approximately 1 million user installations per month can be completed. However, things are actually more difficult than imagined and there are many problems encountered. You can look at a more specific number. Of the 810,000 installed users, 390,000 are from The area where Bell Atlantic operates is mainly Bell Atlantic actively cooperating 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.

AOL just signed a 10-year exclusive agreement with three major regional operators last year, and Bell Atlantic was therefore unable to get involved in Internet access services.

A few months later, seeing a sudden explosion of Internet access users, the number of booking users in one month exceeded 2.3 million. The three major operators obviously began to regret signing the original agreement.

You should know that for users to try this kind of activity for free, all major telecom operators have actually been involved, but no one has experienced such a crazy amount of user reservations. The number of reservations in just one month is equivalent to one-tenth of the total number of users of the three major operators.

The users of the three major operators have only realized it after decades of accumulation.

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

The U.S. telecommunications industry has a very open competitive environment, and a city may have several telecommunications operators.

Of course, the main thing is to lease the giant line network of AT-T, and then develop its own telephone business. Regional telecom operator giants such as Bell Atlantic, Bell Pacific and NYNEX have always hoped to squeeze these small operators out of the market, only because the counterparties often have lower charging costs than themselves, which is usually difficult to achieve.

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

The top executives of the three major operators probably understand that, as far as possible to cooperate with the expansion of AOL, it will also be very conducive to the increase of their own users.

However, the truth is to understand that it is not so easy to really push it.

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

Of course, after the formal completion of the takeover of Bell Atlantic in January, this 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 not so willing.

It was stated in the agreement that in addition to developing the circuit network, if you want other additional support, AOL will need to pay more.

Because of the huge amount of capital investment, AOL’s management even implemented the free trial plan with a mentality of being unsuccessful. Naturally, it is impossible to invest more additional budget for these operators.

In the end, 390,000 of the 810,000 installed users in the first month came from the Bell Atlantic operating area that actively cooperated.

After listening to Simon's explanation, Janet continued to flip through the materials in her hand, and quickly asked: "The budget of $100 per household is too low, can it be achieved?"

Simon said: "100 U.S. dollars, 20 U.S. dollars for labor costs, 30 U.S. dollars for network costs, and the final 50 U.S. dollars is equipment and software costs. However, this is based on the expected data for the final conversion to official users."

In this free trial program, AOL has hired and trained 3,000 part-time temporary installation staff mainly from some university campuses. According to the standard of piece rate, the cost of installing a household is 20 dollars.

The penetration rate of home phones in the United States exceeds 90%. This trial plan is also selected. It must be a user under the three major operators. No additional lines are required. Only the phone terminal in the user’s home can be connected to the computer. .

In terms of equipment and software, it is mainly the modem, the interface network card inserted into the motherboard, the network card driver and the browser software.

This set of equipment and software is actually very expensive, the total cost is roughly close to 200 US dollars. Once the trial users have not been converted, AOL will take back these devices. Even users who cancel after being converted will be the same in the future.

Because the recovered equipment can be reused, AOL has given an average budget of $50 according to a conversion rate of 25%.

Speaking carefully, this is actually a bit of a book game.

In the final analysis, the funding pressure facing AOL is too great.

It is also because of this. Although there are 2.3 million horror booking users, AOL management has no intention of increasing the number of workers. 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, we must also consider whether this heat is only temporary.

If the enthusiasm for the free trial has cooled down, it is also troublesome.

Next, AOL plans to achieve the expected monthly installation volume of 1 million users through more reasonable screening and deployment of reserved users. Then, the IPO three months later, the market will give AOL a very good valuation.

On the other hand, feeling the difficulty of queuing to get trial opportunities can also promote trial users to become more positive.

After all, things that are too easy to get are not always cherished by people.

If you wait in line for more than a month and finally become a trial user, after one month expires, if you look around, maybe some people are still waiting, the mind of wanting to give up will definitely fade a lot.

Speaking carefully, this is actually an alternative hunger marketing.

After 17 hours of flying, when I arrived in Los Angeles, because of the time difference, it was still on the morning of Sunday, February 3.

Resting until the next day, Simon flew to San Francisco again early Monday morning.

This time it was for work.

The housekeeper Alice Ferguson has been squeezing Simon in various ways during this period, and finally came up with two business plans, two business plans that Igreat, AOL and even Bell Atlantic attach great importance to.

Two business plans, 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 APPStore of the Apple mobile phone in Simon's memory.

Moreover, the two business plans are actually complementary.

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 portals, in addition to 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 is very smooth under Simon's forced reconciliation and suppression, it is simply not realistic to rely on the software department to feed the network department back in the short term. If dependence is really formed, the portal is also destined to not last.

The housekeeper got inspiration from Simon. The continuously improved online payment system and online software store gave Jeff Bezos hope, and even allowed AOL and Raymond Smith of Bell Atlantic to see the implications. Great business potential.

Eaglet headquarters near Stanford University.

In the conference room, senior executives of several companies, including Simon, Jeff Bezos, Carol Butts, Steve Case, John Chambers, and Raymond Smith, sat at both sides of the conference table, listening The housekeeper personally introduced her business plan in front of the projector and answered everyone’s doubts.

"...If you want to build an online payment system, it won't work without corresponding products. Therefore, we must build a complete online consumer ecosystem. Online software stores are the most important part of it. Computer application software market The potential is only evident from the development of Microsoft and Oracle in the past few years..."

"...Moreover, there has never been a shortage of excellent commercial software in the market, especially some small-scale application software with relatively strong professional nature. The main constraint on their development is sales channels. The same is true for PC games with increasing market scale. Professional software designers can produce a product of as much quality as professional game companies in private with just one or two people, but because commercialization is too difficult, they also cannot distribute the game for sale..."

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

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

The housekeeper kept switching the PPT for twenty minutes, and finally stopped.

Everyone patiently waited for the delicate short-haired girl to take a few sips of water from the cup on the table. Raymond Smith was the first to ask: "Alice, you just said that users of the online payment system The account is in the form of binding with a physical credit card. Have you ever 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 without success. Similarly, how do you ensure Will commercial banks open up payment interfaces to us?"

Alice Ferguson heard this question, swept around in the conference room, and finally fell on Simon for a moment, saying: "The entire Westeros system, including the recently completed acquisition of Bell Atlantic and MCA, the annual cash flow. Reaching tens of billions of dollars, 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 is too much Great difficulty."

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

Unexpectedly, the answer would be so simple and straightforward.

Even a bit rude.

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

Igreat is different.

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