Chapter 344

Simon stayed in San Francisco for a week, only to find that he had to deal with more problems than he imagined in order to lay out his own layout of the Internet industry.

Just as the founders of AOL's predecessor came up with the idea of online music and online games in the early 1980s, in the Internet field, the idea is not so valuable. Simon's memory of the mature Internet industry model, before the rise of this industry, probably many people have had countless similar ideas.

The key is implementation.

Therefore, whether it's igritte or AOL, besides Simon, the helmsman of the general direction, what we need most is a management team with real efficient execution.

In the final analysis, many companies Simon invests in according to his advantages are actually investments in the management team.

More accurately, it's an investment in people.

Simon invests in Microsoft because Microsoft has bill gates; Nokia because Nokia has yoma Ollila; AOL because AOL has Steve case.

Within a week in San Francisco, Simon also sent an invitation to John Chambers, who brought Cisco to the top in the original time and space. He hoped that westero would let the other party take charge of the company after it realized its absolute control over Cisco.

Because of this idea, Simon can easily find that Tim Berners Lee, who is in charge of igrit at this time, may be very suitable to be the chief technology officer of igrit, but as a technology-based enterprise executive like apple founder Wozniak, he is not competent for the overall management of igrit.

Besides Tim Berners Lee, Simon urgently needs a "Steve Jobs" from igritte.

Of course, this is just a metaphor. Simon will never invite jobs, who is totally out of his control, to manage igritte. It's hard to imagine where jobs with his own distortion field will lead the company.

On the plane from San Francisco back to Los Angeles, it's Sunday, April 29.

Simon didn't go to the front cabin suite. He sat at a window in the middle of the cabin where the sun could shine. He thought about looking for a manager for igritte company, and looked at the results of this week's work.

It is mainly the re adjusted development plan of igrit and AOL after the absolute holding of AOL.

As for Cisco, Simon plans to give it to John Chambers, who has been determined to join. They have discussed in detail the future development direction of Cisco. Chambers's business philosophy of customer first and rapid expansion through merger is basically consistent with Simon's information in his memory, and Simon has not adjusted it without authorization.

Of course, in order to facilitate Cisco's expansion, the company must also conduct an IPO as soon as possible.

After getting absolute control of igrit and AOL, Simmons subdivided the businesses of the two companies without any hesitation, insisting that AOL divest its content business and focus on the role of Internet service provider.

Igritte is responsible for the content.

The online games and other content that AOL originally provided to customers were originally value-added services based on basic access services, because the current user base is too small, only more than 60000, and it is unable to make up for the expenses by implanting online advertising. It can strip these, and actually save expenses for AOL.

Of course, Steve Case doesn't think so, especially after seeing Simon's idea of a lot of content arranged by igritte.

However, Simon did not give Keith too many choices.

in the original space and time, the reason why AOL was rapidly declining after the burst of the Internet bubble was largely due to the fact that its business scope was too large and too large to have core competitiveness. Content can't be compared with Yahoo, which comes from behind. Access services are easily surpassed by traditional operators with infrastructure advantages, so the market value of $100 billion at the peak has shrunk by more than 90% in just a few years.

This time, Simon's positioning of AOL is an accurate Internet service provider. In the early stage of the development of the Internet industry, he made this business to the extreme. Then, following the trend of the integration of telecom network, TV network and Internet around the new century, he chose the right time to annex an old traditional telecom operator and thoroughly consolidate his position in the industry.

In addition to long-term planning and considering its own scale, AOL will first expand its business in the coastal metropolitan area of California on the west coast and Boston on the east coast to Washington in the next few years. The vast central region, including the Great Lakes region and the equally prosperous southern coast, can only be transferred to other enterprises for the time being.

most of the population in the United States is concentrated on the East and west coast. These two regions are the cream of it. As long as they can take a firm foothold in these two regions, AOL can easily expand to other regions.

In order to save money, in addition to the top-level server, AOL will temporarily rent the line network of traditional operators as far as possible in terms of terminal network.

Of course, this has to be temporary.

It is necessary for traditional operators such as at-t to build and improve their own network step by step. However, it obviously means billions of dollars of huge expenditure, which is unrealistic in the short term.Another reason for AOL's rapid decline in the original time and space is that it believes in its own content advantages too much. Until the traditional operators have started to provide ISP services, they still rent other people's lines, and they are slow to improve their own network, or even fail to follow up the promotion of high-speed broadband.

In addition to these major plans, AOL will open 100 Internet cafes in Los Angeles, Boston, New York and other cities in the next few months.

This plan is naturally put forward by Simon.

Simon's first contact with the Internet in his previous life was in the Internet bar.

However, the Internet bar industry is not popular in North America.

The main difference is the consumption ability.

Just like video recorders, video halls on the other side of the ocean should be popular now, but in North America, this is not necessary at all, because the penetration rate of video recorders in North American families has exceeded 70%.

Similarly, since its birth in the 1970s, the number of PCs owned by American families has also increased rapidly. The reason why video recorders have not been popularized in a short period of ten years is that PCs in this era lack enough entertainment and tend to work more.

The PC ownership of American families began to explode, just in the 1990s when the Internet was rapidly promoted.

Simon's trip to San Francisco this week has made many media notice the new technology companies he is setting up, such as AOL, igritte and Cisco. But at present, most Americans do not have the concept of Internet in mind.

Simon does not intend to make a profit, but mainly to promote igritte and AOL to the public. As long as people can experience the benefits of Internet applications such as online news, e-mail, online games, online forums and personal home pages, they will naturally consider accessing the Internet at home.

100 Internet cafes, even according to the minimum budget of $100000 per Internet cafe, will cost a total of $10 million.

If it's completely paid by AOL, only this cost is equivalent to 20% of the $50 million injection of westero company, which does not include the development and later operation costs of the Internet bar management system.

AOL can't afford such a huge sum of "marketing expenses.".

When Simon left San Francisco, Steve case was already in contact with various PC manufacturers to find partners. The 100 Internet cafes that do not intend to make money will also be operated as AOL subsidiaries, or even packaged and sold at the right time.

Simon also personally called Damen and asked if he was interested in sponsoring the latest batch of windows 3.0, or he could ask apple.

Then we got 1000 sets of free operating system software.

Simon personally initiated the project. Many manufacturers are willing to participate in it. The most expensive PC equipment should be saved. Even the Internet bar operating system software can be handed over to interested software companies. AOL is expected to pay only for the Internet bar's network access expenses and origin rental fees.

The money saved can be used for the development of AOL's core business.

As for igritte, Simon has focused most of this week on it, which is why he is eager to find another suitable manager for igritte. Even Tim Berners Lee, who is quite self-conscious, agrees with Simon's decision.

The most important thing for igrit is to confirm the revenue model.

It's still the same view that any company that wants to grow must have a sustainable revenue and profit model.

Portal members, e-mail charges, online news subscriptions, etc. have all been considered by igritte's team.

Simon did not hesitate to veto them one by one.

In order to attract users quickly, the basic content services such as portal, e-mail and online news must be free.

Although the upcoming Malibu Danieli studio has installed the enterprise e-mail system, Simon also rejected the idea that igritte's e-mail system, which has mastered the technology patent, will develop into the enterprise market. This may be done by other companies in the form of technology licensing and equity participation, but igritte must adhere to Simon's popular development line.

Simon's positioning for igritte in the next decade is an Internet technology company with a network media platform.

Internet media is a new technology concept that can stimulate the stock price of enterprises in the 1990s.

However, from the end of Yahoo and AOL in the original time and space, we can see that the Internet media is not sustainable. The core of the Internet giants that survive and grow, whether Amazon, Facebook or Google, are technology companies.

Through technology creation platform, attracting enough users to produce "content" by themselves is the way for Internet enterprises to dominate.

In contrast, the business model of network media is to produce content to meet the needs of users, which is OK in the early 1.0 era of the Internet. However, in the 2.0 and 3.0 era after the outbreak of Internet users, it is impossible to meet the content needs of billions of Internet users on its own.Since we can't get revenue through portal website, e-mail and other services in the short term, our eyes naturally turn to software again.

Igrit's server software, web design software and other applications based on the world wide web technology have been confirmed to be commercialized.

Simon's original idea was that Internet Explorer with graphical interface would be promoted free of charge. This idea was not accepted by the team of igritte. Most employees thought that the software developed by the company with huge investment was excellent, and even had the value of creating a new era. It should not be free of charge.

After several discussions and even arguments, Simon had to compromise.

Or Simon admits that his ideas are too radical.

Just as he hoped that AOL's network access service should be paid monthly rather than hourly, at least in recent years, this idea is not realistic. Before the scale of users has reached a certain extent, AOL's network access service still needs to be charged hourly.

On the other hand, the market capacity of the server software and web design software developed by igrit is very small in the short term, and even more limited to the use of igrit's own team.

Therefore, ie, a terminal application with a wide audience, is very important.

The final solution is that Internet Explorer will also adopt the charging mode.

This is also the most practical way for igrit to get real revenue as soon as possible.

However, compared with Netscape's $50 browser pricing in Simon's memory, the team finally confirmed that the retail price of IE browser was $15, and the installation cost of AOL's Internet service providers was lower, at $10 per set.

The price of $10 per set is actually very affordable for AOL.

Moreover, igrit will not only authorize AOL as a service provider. After all, the expansion focus of AOL in recent years will only be limited to a few densely populated states on the East and west coasts, and most areas of the United States are still unable to set foot in. Seeing the development of AOL, there will certainly be other Internet service providers.

Although igritte will license most of the world wide web technologies free of charge, Simon will not allow a second company to appear in the core website and terminal application software for a long time in the future. As long as the world wide web can reach the speed of popularization in the original time and space, only the software revenue will be enough to make up for most of the expenses needed by the development of igrit.

In the short term, it can only be so for the time being.

Igrit has completed the construction of two data centers on the East and west coasts that can accommodate 100000 users, and the internal test has also been completed. Although it is poor compared with the large data centers in Simon's memory, it is also enough to cope with the Internet users' access at this time.

In addition, igritte has also compiled a complete set of World Wide Web technical materials, which will be published on igritte portal‘ www.ygritte.com ’The team also plans to publish physical books related to World Wide Web technology as a supplement.

At the same time, simplified version of the world wide web application software for students only will also be launched to major universities in North America.

Next, only AOL and igritte need to work together to promote the world wide web.

The coming May of 1990 is bound to be the beginning of an era in many people's memory.