Everyone had just finished dinner when Brandon Johnston eagerly left the Dume Pont estate.
Janet had arranged a Hollywood party for him.
Although he was a fan of the Batman series, Brandon was not particularly a fan of Simon, and he clearly felt uncomfortable being around his young uncle in law.
Obviously, because they were the same age, Brandon had probably heard quite a few "why can't you be more like so and so" comments in private.
Betty Johnston and her two daughters did not go out. Janet was giving them a tour of the Shell Villa.
Simon and Anthony stayed in a sitting room on the first floor of the villa to discuss business.
"The Australian telecommunications company has made some concessions after seeing the rapid growth of the internet industry in North America. They're willing to reduce their stake in the joint venture to 30 percent. On our side, Dad says 20 percent is enough for us. If you're willing, there is still 50 percent that can be allocated."
Since last year, Simon had been preparing to enter the Australian telecommunications market, including legal lobbying to ease restrictions on the industry and cooperation with local Australian telecom companies.
Before the 1990s, Australia's telecommunications industry had always been controlled by state owned enterprises.
The largest company, Telstra, was very similar to AT&T before 1984 in the United States. It held a near monopoly over fixed line telephone, cable television, and mobile communications across Australia. Other smaller telecom companies were also mostly state owned.
Because of the enormous profits involved in the telecommunications sector, capital forces had been continuously lobbying the Australian government for years to open the industry to private investment.
Thanks to these collective efforts, in January this year the Australian government finally lifted the regulatory ban, allowing private investors to participate in the local telecom sector. This enabled the Westeros system to begin its own expansion.
Simon's plan for Australia mainly involved mobile communications and internet access services, coordinated with Ygritte portal website business.
The fastest way to launch ISP services was naturally to partner with a local operator, just like America Online had done in the United States.
Telstra, which monopolized Australia's telecommunications network, was essentially the only choice.
Telstra was well aware of its advantage and did not repeat the mistake Bell Atlantic and the other two companies had made when partnering with America Online. It firmly demanded 50 percent of the shares in the Australian version of America Online that Westeros would register.
Over the past few months, the Johnston family, which had confirmed it would invest in the Australian online service, had been negotiating with Telstra.
Simon had already learned about what Anthony mentioned and had given it consideration. He said, "I've thought about it. Since things have reached this point, we should simply bypass Telstra entirely. Both internet access services and mobile communications are still emerging industries in their early stages of development. Even if we cooperate with a company like Telstra, we will still face issues with infrastructure upgrades later. The initiative in that area lies with Telstra, and we would face significant constraints in the future."
Because of the exclusive agreements they had signed, preventing them from directly taking a share of the emerging internet sector, Pacific Bell and NYNEX had become increasingly passive in their cooperation with America Online recently. This had greatly restricted America Online's expansion in the regions served by those two companies.
Simon's decision not to partner with Telstra was largely for the same reason.
Due to the passive obstruction from Bell Atlantic and NYNEX, America Online was now forced to accelerate the construction of its own network infrastructure in the service areas of Pacific Bell and NYNEX.
Simon was not concerned about Telstra's demand for 30 percent equity. He simply did not want to face similar constraints again.
Relying on another company's network, no matter how cooperative they were, was ultimately inferior to building one's own.
Moreover, even if they partnered with Telstra, they could not roll out services nationwide in Australia at once. They would still need to conduct trial operations in certain regions and expand gradually.
In that case, the advantages of cooperating with Telstra were not particularly obvious.
After all, with Bell Atlantic and America Online under their control, the Westeros system did not lack operational expertise or technical teams.
The only real investment required was in building the basic operational network.
If they started in a limited area, such as Melbourne or the state of Victoria, the costs would not be too high.
Building their own network would also give them complete control.
"Dad actually feels the same way," Anthony nodded after hearing Simon's words. "However, even if we don't plan to partner with Telstra, I think we should still give away some shares to reduce future resistance in Australia. After all, our family's influence is mainly in mining and resources."
Simon nodded, then shook his head. "For the next year or two, it will just be the two of us in the joint venture. Once the situation opens up, we can release some shares through financing. Also, since we're not partnering with Telstra, we don't need to establish two separate companies for internet access and mobile communications. We can directly set up a Bell Atlantic Australia branch. Oh, right. I've been planning to rename Bell Atlantic to Verizon Communications recently. This company can be called Verizon AU."
AU was the country code abbreviation for Australia.
The reason it was Verizon AU rather than AOL AU was mainly because Simon owned 100 percent of Bell Atlantic, while his stake in America Online was only 75 percent.
Although America Online would still participate, this time Bell Atlantic (soon to be renamed) would take the lead.
Anthony Johnston had no objections.
The two continued discussing some details. In the end, Anthony decided that after wrapping up matters with MGM, he would personally travel to the East Coast to meet with Raymond Smith at Bell Atlantic headquarters.
After finishing that topic, they moved on to MGM.
"Buying 30 percent of MGM for 300 million dollars. Although Dad agreed on the surface, he's actually somewhat reluctant. He doesn't have much confidence in this company," Anthony said with a smile. "So the next part is up to you. If we really lose money, the old man will definitely get angry."
The Johnston family had previously purchased Australia's Channel Seven television network, which was clearly an excellent investment with strong prospects. Combined with the opportunity to enter the media sector, they had been very willing to spend the 800 million dollars.
Investing in MGM, however, was basically just to support Simon's ambitions in Hollywood.
It was well known that MGM was a mess.
Reviving the company would not happen in a year or two.
Simon also smiled. "The end of the Gulf War, along with the turmoil in Europe over the past few years, will definitely drive capital from around the world into the United States. An improvement in the federal economic situation is inevitable. Even if MGM's operations remain poor, holding these shares for a few years and then selling them should still yield decent returns. Many large Japanese and European corporations are eyeing Hollywood's major studios."
Anthony chuckled. "Then tell me about your specific plans for MGM."
"My general plan starts with unlocking the potential of MGM's film library. In recent years, Disney has achieved great success by releasing classic animated films from Walt Disney's era on video, such as Cinderella, Pinocchio, and Sleeping Beauty. Each one performed very well. Cinderella alone sold six million copies in its first year, generating 180 million dollars in revenue, and that was a 1950 film. Although MGM is not known for animation, it actually has even greater potential. The studio's golden age produced a large number of outstanding films like Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain, North by Northwest, and Ben-Hur. Even decades later, they are still considered classics. Fortunately, Daenerys Entertainment currently controls Blockbuster, the largest video rental chain in North America. We can use a similar approach to Disney and release these classic films on video."
Anthony said, "I remember that during the acquisition a few years ago, Turner Broadcasting took away many of MGM's film rights?"
Simon nodded and explained, "Only the television broadcast rights for some films. Moreover, the way Turner Broadcasting handled the matter back then was not entirely clean, and the contract wasn't tight enough. Since we now control MGM, I will have Sherry Lansing reopen discussions with Ted Turner."
"Alright. And after that?"
Simon smiled. "Next is the development of merchandise and licensing of character rights. Daenerys Entertainment is planning to build a third Universal Studios in Japan. However, compared to Disney's Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and princess series, Universal Studios is somewhat lacking in classic film characters. MGM can provide a lot of support in this area, such as Tom and Jerry, the classic characters from The Wizard of Oz, and many others. Batman alone generated two billion dollars in merchandise revenue last year. MGM has such a rich library. Combined with the video releases of the classics, we can develop a lot of accompanying merchandise."
Anthony nodded again.
Without waiting for Anthony to ask, Simon continued, "Finally, of course, there is the film business itself. I'm very optimistic about this year's two major releases: A Few Good Men in July and GoldenEye at the end of the year. Daenerys Entertainment will also collaborate with MGM on several other projects going forward. Speaking of which, MGM actually has very deep foundations. The reason it has fallen so far is mainly because the company was treated as a real estate company and a tool for capital operations throughout the 1980s. If Kirk Kerkorian had patiently managed the film business, the company would never have ended up in such bad shape."
In Simon's memory, even though MGM remained in poor condition throughout the 1990s, when Sony acquired it in 2005, the transaction price was still close to five billion dollars.
Therefore, as long as MGM did not encounter major failures similar to Heaven's Gate in the early 1980s, the company's prospects would not be too bad.
With Simon present, the chances of such situations occurring would naturally be minimized.
Anthony's family did not stay overnight at the Dume Point estate. They were staying in the villa on the west side of the estate where Simon and Janet had originally lived.
Simon and Anthony talked until after ten o'clock at night. Only when Betty Johnston came over holding her sleeping youngest daughter Chloe to remind them did the two men end their conversation.
The next day, they woke up early as usual.
After the ABCD girls started working for him, Simon no longer needed to prepare breakfast himself.
At six o'clock, Simon was jogging on the treadmill in the gym when Claire, the C girl, walked in carrying two boxes.
"Good morning, boss."
"Morning."
Simon greeted her and gestured toward the packages in her hands. "Finished?"
Claire nodded. Seeing that Simon had no intention of stopping his run, she walked over to the treadmill, opened one of the square minimalist style boxes that followed the phone packaging design Simon had personally suggested. Inside lay a card style digital camera that did not emphasize the lens.
The C girl took the camera out of the box and placed it on the treadmill console.
Simon looked over. The body was a beautiful deep blue. The camera was about 18 centimeters long, 12 centimeters wide, and roughly 3.5 centimeters thick. Compared to other digital cameras of this era, it was already very compact.
Additionally, the front of the body had a word printed on it: Tinkerbell.
This was the name Claire had chosen for her company. Tinkerbell, the name of the little fairy from Peter Pan. In Spielberg's Hook, which had almost finished post production, Julia Roberts played this role.
It had already been more than half a century since Peter Pan was published, so naturally someone had already noticed the name Tinkerbell.
To successfully register Tinkerbell Inc., the C girl had spent some extra money.
Simon had privately joked that it was also a woman's name. If the company really took off, it might be considered the "fifth woman" of the Westeros system.
Claire had generously admitted that this was exactly what she had in mind.
In addition to the company name, there was the camera's own name: iCam 10.
iCam naturally stood for internet camera, at Simon's suggestion.
In the coming internet era, any company connected to "Internet" or "Com" would attract attention.
In his memory of the tech boom around the turn of the millennium, many companies had deliberately changed their names to include "i" or "com" to ride the internet wave.
Since Tinkerbell Inc. could not add an internet identifier, they put it in the product name instead.
Besides iCam, Simon had also instructed Claire to register trademarks around the world such as iPlayer, iPhone, and iDisk.
These would not be used for now, but they served as a unique kind of reserve.
Simon switched from jogging to walking, slowed down, and picked up the deep blue iCam 10 card camera to examine it. In addition to the front camera, there was a roughly 1.5 inch LCD screen on the back. The camera used three traditional AA batteries inside. Using lithium batteries was obviously not realistic at this time.
The storage device was a 3.5 inch standard floppy disk. According to the manual, it could store about 50 photos.
The C girl beside him soon opened the other box. This one was light purple.
Electronic products of this era focused mainly on functionality and rarely considered appearance. Having seen all kinds of beautiful industrial designs later on, Simon naturally would not tolerate plain designs. The deep blue and light purple versions in front of him, targeted at male and female customers respectively, were also influenced by Simon.
Achieving these two shell colors had required the C girl to invest additional costs.
"We have ordered materials for 1,000 iCams. They should all be assembled by the middle of this month. The cost may run a bit over budget, around 320 dollars each," the C girl said while demonstrating how to operate the camera in her hands. "After finishing these, of the initial one million dollars in funding, only about 150,000 dollars will be left."
Because she was one of the girls close to him, Simon had been keeping track of this project.
Just the 1,000 cameras at 320 dollars each would total 320,000 dollars. On top of that, there were the operating costs of Tinkerbell Inc., camera development, and custom parts manufacturing, all of which required money.
Having 150,000 dollars remaining was already quite impressive.
The engineer Neil Brantley, who was mainly responsible for development in cooperation with the C girl, had originally hoped to use a custom CMOS sensor. Due to budget constraints, they had to settle for an existing off the shelf sensor.
Simply put, although they had prepared thoroughly and the C girl had been cautious enough about the project, she was probably trying to leave herself more opportunities for future ventures.
After easily mastering the controls, Simon finally stepped off the treadmill and gestured to the C girl. "Strike a pose and let me see."
Claire understood immediately. Holding the light purple camera in one hand, she leaned against the treadmill, smiled beautifully, tilted her slender body slightly like a car model, and revealed a section of her slim, fair waist between her low waisted casual pants and tight black T shirt. It even gave Simon the sudden urge to poke her navel.
He pressed the shutter and took a series of photos, then walked out of the gym while saying, "Let's go check the results. I'll give you some advice while we're at it."
Claire noticed that her boss had clearly been moved by her figure just now but had taken no action. This left her somewhat disappointed again. Still, she quickly followed him.
It was not as if this was her first failure anyway.
In fact, the girls had already started betting in private about who could make their boss interested. Even if it was not going to bed, just some other level of intimacy would count as a win.
Unfortunately, no one had succeeded yet.