After dinner, Simon and Janet spent some time chatting with Janet's parents about recent events. A little after nine o'clock, the couple decided not to return to their nearby villa and stayed the night in the main mansion instead.
In the upstairs bedroom, Simon emerged from the bathroom after his shower to find Janet already in her nightgown, hugging a pillow and standing by the bed, staring at him intently. "I'm sleeping with Auntie tonight," she said.
Simon paused for a brief moment, then continued drying his wet hair with the towel and smiled. "Sure. I've been squeezed dry by you for so long. I could use a night of rest."
Janet did not move. She kept staring at him.
Simon casually pulled the towel a bit lower over his eyes and continued drying his hair.
Janet wrinkled her nose. When the man came over and wrapped his arms around her, she subconsciously leaned into him. Because of the pillow between them, she even tilted her face forward slightly to meet his kiss.
"Good night."
"Mm, good night."
Even as she said this, her heart grew more troubled.
Little rascal.
He really wants me to go sleep with Auntie.
At least pretend to coax me.
Or just act shamelessly, pin me down on the bed, and I could pretend I didn't know anything.
After saying good night, Simon released Janet, hung up the towel, and saw she still had not moved. He said nothing more, simply reached out, took the pillow from her arms and tossed it onto the big bed, then wrapped an arm around her waist and gently threw her onto the bed as well before pouncing on top of her.
Yet, more than an hour later, Janet still slipped out of the sleeping man's embrace and quietly left their bedroom.
The next day was Sunday, February 3.
From leaving Los Angeles on January 20 until now, the couple had been resting for two full weeks.
Inside the Boeing 767 cabin, after takeoff, Simon sat in the forward study flipping through the accumulated documents from the past period. Janet sat across from him, resting her chin on her hand and watching her husband. All kinds of small emotions flickered in her bright eyes.
Simon actually knew that Janet had quietly left last night.
He just did not know what Veronica had said to her.
Since the woman was not speaking, Simon did not bring up the topic himself either.
He really did not know how to handle it.
Across the desk, Janet studied her man for a long time before finally letting out a soft sigh. She truly did not understand what had happened.
Auntie had clearly been taken advantage of, yet she was still siding with him.
Just like me.
Was it only because of last time?
Janet unconsciously touched her wrist.
Little rascal.
You really are a devil.
She silently made up her mind to come to Melbourne as little as possible in the future. At the very least, she could not let him come alone.
Letting out a helpless breath, Janet picked up one of the folders on the desk and began reading it as well.
It was the January statistics report on America Online's free trial user growth.
Janet was aware of the free trial plan America Online had launched. However, seeing the 2.3 million user reservations versus the actual 810,000 formal installations, she could not help feeling surprised. She lifted the folder toward Simon across from her and asked, "Why is there such a big gap?"
Simon glanced up. He had already reviewed the file earlier. "The main issue is manpower. For this trial, America Online prepared a total of 5,000 full-time and temporary installers on both the East and West Coasts. According to initial expectations, they should have been able to complete about one million installations per month. In reality, however, things turned out to be more difficult than anticipated, with many problems encountered. You can look at the more detailed numbers. Of the 810,000 installed users, 390,000 came from the regions operated by Bell Atlantic. This is mainly because Bell Atlantic actively cooperated with us to resolve line and equipment issues and even loaned us some of their staff."
As Simon spoke, he felt a sense of satisfaction in his heart.
The move to acquire Bell Atlantic early had now proven to be completely correct.
America Online had signed exclusive ten-year agreements with the three major regional operators the previous year, which meant Bell Atlantic was also barred from entering the internet access service market.
Several months later, seeing the sudden explosion in internet access users, with over 2.3 million reservations in a single month, the three major operators were clearly beginning to regret signing those original agreements.
After all, free trial activities were something the major telecom operators had dabbled in before, but none of them had ever experienced such an insanely high volume of reservations. Just one month's reservations, if all converted to formal users, would already equal one-tenth of the three operators' total user base.
The three operators had accumulated their users over decades.
Over the past month, the three operators had even discovered that some users were deliberately switching from smaller local telecom providers to their networks just to get the free trial opportunity. This was even more surprising.
The American telecom industry had a highly competitive and open environment. A single city could have several telecom operators.
Of course, most of them rented backbone network lines from giants like AT&T and then ran their own telephone services. Regional giants like Bell Atlantic, Pacific Bell, and NYNEX had long wanted to squeeze these smaller operators out of the market, but because the smaller ones often had lower pricing, it had been difficult to achieve.
Now, America Online, which relied on their networks, had unexpectedly helped push this along.
The senior executives of the three operators probably understood that cooperating as much as possible with America Online's expansion would also greatly benefit their own user growth.
However, understanding the principle was one thing. Actually implementing it was not so easy.
No one wanted an outsider to build a villa prettier than their own house in their backyard. Even if they could not stop it, even if the outsider had paid, even if such a villa might attract paying tourists, the homeowner would still find it hard to cooperate without any resentment.
Of course, after the official takeover of Bell Atlantic was completed in January, the company had become part of the Westeros system. Raymond Smith and the other executives were able to cooperate fully.
The other two, Pacific Bell and NYNEX, were far less willing.
The original agreement had clearly stated that any additional support beyond network line development would require America Online to pay extra fees.
Because of the enormous capital investment, America Online's management had approached this free trial plan with an all-or-nothing mindset. They naturally could not afford to inject even more budget into these operators.
This resulted in the situation where, of the 810,000 installed users in the first month, 390,000 came from the regions actively cooperating with Bell Atlantic.
After listening to Simon's explanation, Janet continued flipping through the materials and soon asked another question. "The $100 per household budget seems a bit low. Can it actually be achieved?"
Simon replied, "$100 total: $20 for labor, $30 for network costs, and the final $50 for equipment and software. However, this figure was calculated based on the expected conversion rate to formal users."
For this free trial program, America Online had mainly recruited and trained 3,000 part-time temporary installers from university campuses. They were paid on a piece-rate basis of $20 per household installation.
America's household telephone penetration rate exceeded 90%. This trial program was also selective: it was limited to customers of the three major operators. No additional lines needed to be installed. They simply needed to install equipment at the user's telephone terminal to connect to the computer.
The equipment and software mainly consisted of modems, network interface cards for the motherboard, NIC drivers, and browser software.
This set of equipment and software was actually quite expensive, with a total cost close to $200. If trial users did not convert to paid subscribers, America Online would reclaim the equipment. The same would apply to users who canceled after converting.
Because reclaimed equipment could be reused, America Online had budgeted an average of $50 per household based on an expected 25% conversion rate.
Strictly speaking, this involved some accounting creativity.
Ultimately, it came down to the enormous financial pressure America Online was facing.
For the same reason, despite the terrifying 2.3 million reservation volume, America Online's management had no intention of increasing the number of workers. On one hand, it was not easy to scale up quickly, even with trained temporary workers. On the other hand, it was naturally due to cost concerns.
They also had to consider whether this level of enthusiasm was only temporary.
Rashly expanding the workforce, only for user interest in the free trial to cool down afterward, would create another problem.
Next, America Online planned to achieve the expected one million installations per month through more reasonable screening and allocation of already reserved users. That way, when they went public in three months, the market would give America Online an excellent valuation.
On the other hand, experiencing the difficulty of waiting in line for a trial opportunity would also, to a large extent, encourage trial users to convert to paid subscribers.
After all, people never treasured things that came too easily.
If someone had waited in line for more than a month and finally become a trial user, after the one-month period ended and they saw others still waiting desperately, their thoughts of giving up would naturally weaken considerably.
Strictly speaking, this was also a form of alternative hunger marketing.
After a seventeen-hour flight, when they arrived in Los Angeles, it was still Sunday morning, February 3, due to the time difference.
They continued resting until the next day. On Monday morning, Simon flew to San Francisco again.
This time it was for work.
After continuously applying various small pressures on Simon during this period, the housekeeper Alice Ferguson had finally produced two business proposals, both of which were highly valued by Ygritte, America Online, and even Bell Atlantic.
The two business proposals were: an online payment system and an online software store.
The former was similar to what would later become PayPal, while the latter was equivalent to the App Store for iPhones in Simon's memory.
Moreover, the two proposals were complementary to each other.
Ygritte Company had been exploring reliable monetization models. Web software was one aspect, and under Carol Bartz's management over the past year, it had already begun showing results.
On the portal side, aside from advertising revenue, Jeff Bezos had also been considering other monetization methods.
Although the software and network departments were cooperating smoothly thanks to Simon's forceful mediation and suppression, relying on the software department to support the network department in the short term was simply unrealistic. If such dependency formed, the portal site would never be sustainable.
The online payment system and online software store, which the housekeeper had continuously refined after drawing inspiration from Simon, gave Jeff Bezos hope. They had even allowed America Online and Bell Atlantic's Raymond Smith to see the enormous commercial potential within them.
Igret headquarters near Stanford University.
In the conference room, Simon, Jeff Bezos, Carol Bartz, Steve Case, John Chambers, Raymond Smith, and other senior executives from several companies sat on both sides of the long table, listening as the housekeeper personally presented her business plan in front of the projector and answered everyone's various questions.
"...To build an online payment system, we need corresponding products. Therefore, we must create a complete online consumption ecosystem. The online software store is the most important part of that. The market potential for computer application software can already be seen from Microsoft and Oracle's development over the past few years..."
"...Moreover, the market has never lacked excellent commercial software, especially some highly specialized small application software. What constrains their development is mainly distribution channels. The same applies to the increasingly large PC gaming market. Many professional software designers working alone or in pairs can produce games whose quality is in no way inferior to those from professional game companies. However, due to the difficulty of commercialization, they are unable to distribute and sell their games..."
"...Ygritte, however, possesses an unparalleled distribution advantage. Using the World Wide Web platform, we can transcend mainstream operating systems such as Apple's Macintosh, Microsoft's Windows, and the traditional DOS system. With this online advantage, we can distribute and sell application software, PC games, and other products to users of these platforms at extremely low cost. The company can take a commission from each transaction..."
"...In addition, once the online payment system is completed, we can use this system to further promote online billing, online retail, and other businesses..."
The housekeeper continuously switched through her PPT slides, speaking for twenty minutes straight before finally stopping.
Everyone waited patiently as the short-haired woman with delicate features picked up the water glass on the desk and took several sips. Raymond Smith was the first to raise a question. "Alice, you mentioned earlier that user accounts for the online payment system would be linked to physical credit cards. Have you considered the difficulty of achieving this goal? For years, commercial banks have racked their brains trying to enter the American Express payment system without success. 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 let her gaze rest on Simon for a moment before answering, "The entire Westeros system, including the recently acquired Bell Atlantic and MCA, generates hundreds of billions of dollars in annual cash flow. Our demand for commercial loans is also considerable. I believe this is a client that any commercial bank would desperately want to secure. If such a client requests that they open an online payment interface, I do not think it would be particularly difficult."
Everyone was momentarily stunned by this answer, then broke into smiles.
They had not expected the answer to be so simple and direct.
It was almost crude.
Indeed, if it were a small company with no background trying to build such an online payment system, just the banking aspect alone would be enough to kill the business plan in its cradle.
Ygritte was different.
With the entire Westeros system as backing, getting banks to agree was indeed very easy.