A new week.
After eating breakfast, Simon said goodbye to Janet and hurried to the airport.
Today was the release day for Ygritte's two major products, Ypay and Ystore. Simon had promised last week that he would attend today's launch conference.
Upon arriving at Los Angeles International Airport, the private jet was already parked on the runway.
Simon entered the cabin with his entourage. People were already waiting inside, namely Sandra Bullock and the female assistant Jennifer. The assistant was to accompany Simon to San Francisco. As Ygritte's spokesperson, Sandra was also attending this launch event and had specially called over the weekend to hitch a ride on the plane.
Since getting married last year, Simon and Sandra had completely shifted to a friends-only relationship. However, their bond was even closer than that of ordinary male and female friends.
After hugging and exchanging greetings, everyone moved to a lounge in the mid-cabin. The plane soon took off.
Once the Boeing 767 had stabilized in flight, Sandra unbuckled her seatbelt, stood up from her seat, and moved over next to Simon. "Simon, about The Silence of the Lambs, can it really not make a push for this year's Oscars?"
Simon casually sat down on the sofa, took the newspaper passed by the female assistant, opened it, and smiled. "Did Jonathan ask you to inquire?"
Sandra nodded. "Yes, but given the reputation of The Silence of the Lambs, I also feel it could make a run at the Oscars."
Several key creators of The Silence of the Lambs, like Robert Duvall, already had a string of nominations and awards and had achieved great success. Sandra's credentials were still somewhat lacking. This time the goal was to campaign for a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination. In the end, only Jonathan Demme remained. This middle-aged director had debuted in the early 1970s and had struggled in Hollywood for twenty years. Only by relying on The Silence of the Lambs this summer season had he finally broken into the top tier.
Few people mixed up in Hollywood did not hope to win an Oscar.
For Jonathan Demme, The Silence of the Lambs was undoubtedly an excellent opportunity to campaign for awards. Simon knew even better that this would also be Jonathan Demme's only chance at a nomination and victory.
However, Daenerys Entertainment could not easily alter the company's established strategy for any single individual.
Moreover, even if they wanted to change it, because Daenerys Entertainment had already claimed a series of major Oscar awards in the previous two years consecutively, horror films were ultimately a genre the Academy did not favor.
Therefore, even with a strategy change, it was unlikely to sweep awards like Best Picture and Best Director as it had in the original timeline. At most, there would be a series of nominations.
Simon did not hide these details from Sandra. He explained them seriously and said, "So this time we can only say it's unfortunate."
Sandra was not entirely unaware of these underlying Hollywood rules and understood immediately.
For the Oscars, a film's own quality was only the foundation for whether it could win. Too many other external factors came into play.
Since there was no hope of campaigning successfully, Sandra stopped bringing it up and switched topics. "Janet is going to be full term next month, right? How come I haven't heard anything about her throwing a baby shower? Or are you guys not planning to invite me?"
Westerners always held parties before a baby was born to welcome the little one's arrival.
If this had been a few months ago, Janet would definitely have been excited to organize all of this. Now the woman was simply not in the mood.
"Probably just didn't think of it. I'll remind her when I get back."
Sandra leaned against the sofa, turned her body to the side, and studied Simon for a few moments. She even reached out to tug the newspaper in front of him downward a bit and asked tentatively, "Depressed?"
Simon shook his head. "Of course not. Though perhaps I am a little anxious."
"Thinking about it, if there was suddenly a little one about to come out of my belly, I would feel completely at a loss too." Sandra nodded with understanding, then looked at Simon again. "What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Your son is about to be born, yet you're only, um, twenty-three years old?"
"Plenty of people become moms and dads at sixteen."
"That's other people. You're different."
Simon said helplessly, "Are you hoping I'll get depressed?"
An expression of schadenfreude appeared on Sandra's face. She continued staring at Simon and laughed. "Looks like you're not as relaxed on the inside as you seem on the surface."
Simon changed the subject. "What about you? Found a girlfriend yet?"
Jennifer, who had been sitting quietly to the side, was startled and looked over curiously.
Sandra's attention was indeed diverted. She raised her hand and gave Simon a light smack. "Why don't you go find yourself a boyfriend? My sexual orientation is perfectly normal."
"All right, so..."
Sandra gave Simon a white-eyed glare. "I found one. You can meet her sometime. Big shot, give me a chance, huh?"
Simon immediately shook his head. "No way. Don't let me meet her. I'm afraid I won't be able to resist putting him down a bit and making him feel so inferior he'll leave you on his own."
"That's why men are like this," Sandra sighed with feeling, then turned to Jennifer for support. "Don't you agree, Jenny?"
The female assistant nodded. "Mm."
Simon looked over with feigned displeasure. "What are you mm-ing about? If you don't understand, don't pretend you do."
The female assistant glared back lightly and countered, "I do understand. Men are all greedy bastards."
"..."
"Haha..."
They chatted and laughed along the way. The distance of more than five hundred kilometers took the Boeing 767 less than forty minutes to land at San Jose Airport in San Francisco.
Upon arriving at the venue for this new product launch, the San Francisco Civic Auditorium, there were still more than twenty minutes until the event began.
With America Online and Cisco having gone public one after another, Ygritte Company, as the most important piece in Westeros Company's internet industry layout, was also drawing increasing attention from the industry.
Therefore, this launch event attracted not only North American domestic media but also reporters from various overseas countries swarming in. Including guests from other sectors, the total number of attendees exceeded two thousand.
After Simon greeted several of Ygritte's senior executives, he only had time for brief exchanges with important industry guests like Bill Gates and John Sculley, who had specially come to show support. The launch event was already about to start.
Although this conference focused primarily on Ypay and Ystore, since it had drawn so much media attention, Ygritte's management took the opportunity to turn it into a comprehensive product presentation for the entire company.
At ten o'clock, the launch event officially began.
Tim Berners-Lee, as Ygritte Company's CEO, although his authority had been largely sidelined by his two strong-willed subordinates Jeff Bezos and Carol Bartz, still took the stage first as the primary representative to deliver his speech. He briefly introduced Ygritte Company's development over the past few years as well as the current state and future prospects of the entire internet industry.
Afterward, Carol Bartz went up second, focusing on introducing Ygritte Company's YWS product.
YWS was short for Ygritte Web Service, the name Simon had chosen modeled after the AWS from his memories.
Of course, the biggest difference at this stage was that YWS still offered traditional web hosting and leasing services. Cloud computing technology was still in development.
However, compared to other competitors in the same industry, YWS's advantages were very clear.
Ygritte's YWS also included one-stop website solution services that most website creators needed at present.
Unlike the highly mature internet industry of many years later, there was still a significant talent shortage problem in the current internet sector. The plug-and-play web solutions offered by YWS could help many companies and individuals wanting to dip their toes into the internet bypass the most critical technical barriers.
Of course, this kind of simplified network service also had its limitations.
Lacking proficiency in certain technologies and relying solely on assembly was like the knockoff products in Simon's memory. It was destined to be difficult to scale up significantly.
To develop further, internet companies would need their own talent and technical teams.
However, those were concerns for the future.
The most important thing for the internet at this stage was still to enrich content resources on the internet, or more precisely the World Wide Web platform, as quickly as possible.
This was like making sure a person ate their fill first before pursuing a more refined lifestyle.
To achieve this goal, during the first half of the year Ygritte had successively constructed four new large-scale data centers across the United States.
Moreover, once cloud computing technology began to be deployed next year, the computing power of these existing data centers would be unleashed to its fullest potential. By then, having seized the lead in timing, technology, and cost advantages, Ygritte would face no real competition in related businesses.
Although the topics involved relatively foundational technical matters, the guests attending today's event were no newcomers. They had done plenty of preparatory work in advance.
Ygritte's cloud computing project, the Housewife Plan, was still confidential. Yet many guests present had already sensed the company's tremendous ambitions from Carol Bartz's presentation.
As the internet industry shifted into high gear, everyone could sense the explosive growth of websites. Many companies had begun investing in server hosting, leasing, and related businesses.
Holding a series of core patents for World Wide Web technology, Ygritte possessed far too many advantages that even giants like IBM could hardly match.
Back in the day, IBM had been able to force companies like Intel and Microsoft to license patents externally to prevent any one of them from dominating. Now, as an emerging industry, the internet had Ygritte as its sole giant. Therefore, no one could force Ygritte into concessions it did not wish to make.
Half an hour later, accompanied by enthusiastic applause, Carol Bartz finished her presentation.
Afterward, Tim Berners-Lee returned to the stage.
This technically oriented executive was responsible for introducing some new products and features of the Ygritte portal. In truth many had already been officially released, but with such a large gathering of media today, they naturally wanted to make full use of the occasion to expand their reach.
Having prepared meticulously in advance and presenting user-facing products, Tim Berners-Lee's introduction also concluded amid applause.
Following Tim Berners-Lee, it was still not time for the two heavyweight new products.
This time a senior executive from PC giant Compaq took the stage to introduce their personal computers specially customized for internet platforms.
They had actually considered having the C girl come up to promote iCam.
However, this card camera product had already stolen the spotlight for several months. The most difficult challenge facing Tinkerbell Company right now was resolving the series of supply chain, technical development, and production capacity issues brought on by the sharp increase in market demand.
Traditional electronics giants held far too many advantages in this area.
Whether Japanese manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic or American domestic electronics companies, in recent months they had all initiated projects or released their own internet camera products. Traditional giants possessed complete component supply chains and manufacturing facilities, allowing them to easily meet market demand.
Panasonic from Japan, which had established a cooperative relationship with the Westeros system, had even made overtures about investing in Tinkerbell.
It was easy to imagine that if they accepted Panasonic's investment, many of the problems currently facing Tinkerbell would be resolved effortlessly.
However, neither Simon nor the C girl had any intention of letting Tinkerbell become a subsidiary of Panasonic. Panasonic would not be satisfied with merely acquiring a small amount of stock without decision-making power. The two sides had failed to reach an agreement.
Of course, because it was a new type of product, although the traditional giants had all started investing, due to the limited market size they could not devote themselves to it as fully as Tinkerbell, which was currently focused solely on this single product.
Take the American traditional camera giant Kodak, for example. This company had actually launched digital cameras even earlier than the Japanese manufacturers. But perhaps sensing the threat card cameras posed to traditional film cameras, in order to protect its interests in the film industry, Kodak had not followed the trend at all this time.
In Simon's memory, Kodak had indeed clung stubbornly to its interests in the film sector and refused to embrace the digital camera wave, ultimately heading toward bankruptcy and collapse.
Therefore, Tinkerbell actually held considerable advantages of its own.
After the Compaq executive finished introducing their Internet computer, this launch event had already been underway for more than an hour.
As the brand spokesperson, Sandra went on stage together with the famous talk show host Jay Leno, whom the Ygritte team had specially invited today. Through a series of jokes and segments, they energized the atmosphere inside the auditorium. The final heavyweight portion finally arrived.
The first thing to appear on the auditorium's large screen was still Ygritte Company's motto, which countless people had analyzed yet was destined to have its true meaning known only to Simon.
You Know Nothing!
Jeff Bezos took the stage, made a few quips around this motto, and as the image shifted, the interface of Ygritte's app store Ystore appeared on the large screen.
Over the next half hour, Jeff Bezos provided a detailed introduction to the two products, Ystore and Ypay.
Since they were opening a store, they naturally needed goods that could attract users.
For Ystore this time, they had uploaded every PC game that EA had developed and accumulated since its founding in 1982. Because the exclusive agreement signed with Nintendo had not yet expired, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series unfortunately could not be included in this game lineup.
In addition, Ystore had brought in a large number of PC game titles from other publishers. The online battle version of EA's real-time strategy game series Dune would also go live soon.
In fact, moving all of EA's PC game content onto Ystore had involved quite a few twists and turns along the way.
EA was originally a game publisher, and Ystore clearly also possessed publishing attributes. This would undoubtedly threaten EA's traditional business.
EA's senior management and other shareholders had initially expressed strong opposition because of this. Even though many older games had lost their value in the physical market and listing them on Ystore was essentially recycling waste, the conservative EA management still did not want to proceed.
In the end, Daenerys Entertainment, as EA's largest shareholder with a 35 percent stake, had applied forceful pressure before the decision was finally passed.
To resolve this issue once and for all, Simon had recently instructed Nancy Brill to initiate the full acquisition negotiations for EA, something the petite woman had long wanted to do.