Accompanying Ygritte Company's two major new product launch event on October 14, there was actually a complete set of marketing plans involving various media platforms such as the internet, television, newspapers, and so on.
The following Wednesday, Ygritte officially released a set of data to the public.
The number of World Wide Web users in the United States had officially surpassed the ten million mark.
Internet users were usually counted by household. Ten million World Wide Web access accounts naturally meant far more than simply ten million people.
More precisely, it meant ten million World Wide Web accounts.
According to survey data from the Ygritte portal, the average number of individual users per World Wide Web account at this stage was 1.6 people. In other words, as of October 1991, the actual number of World Wide Web users in the United States had already reached sixteen million, which was close to eight percent of the total U.S. population.
The average American household size was of course not 1.6 people. This was merely a comprehensive statistical figure.
Personal computers in the early 1990s were still high-end electronic products. Even in a five-person household, perhaps only one or two people could use the computer, not to mention the large number of single white-collar users who accessed the internet.
However, this also meant that the existing ten million World Wide Web access accounts still held enormous untapped user potential.
Sixteen million netizens already rivaled the average audience size of America's four major television networks, and they were all high-end social groups with strong purchasing power.
Therefore, only two days, or thirty-two hours in actual terms, after the release of the Ypay and Ystore products, Ygritte Company announced that transaction volume for the Ypay online payment tool had exceeded ten million dollars.
On the fifth day, the Ygritte portal released another press statement: Ypay had reached one million activated users.
After a full week since the two new products launched, Ygritte Company also publicly released a series of other exciting figures.
Ygritte app store Ystore achieved twenty-eight million three hundred ninety thousand dollars in transaction volume over seven days.
Ypay online payment tool ultimately reached one million five hundred thirty thousand activated users in seven days.
Because different payment amounts qualified for discounts ranging from two percent to five percent off, combined with the convenience of online payments, the amount of America Online network fees paid through the Ypay channel in seven days reached thirty-six million nine hundred ten thousand dollars. Just this one week's revenue already exceeded twenty percent of America Online's entire September monthly revenue.
In seven days, more than eighteen thousand people opened credit cards directly linked to Ypay accounts through Citibank and Bank of America channels.
Compaq's "Internet PCs" achieved sales of twenty-eight thousand three hundred seventy-one units in seven days.
This computer was offered in two configurations priced at three thousand two hundred ninety-nine dollars and three thousand seven hundred ninety-nine dollars. At an average selling price of around three thousand five hundred dollars, Compaq's sales from this single model in just one week approached an astonishing one hundred million dollars.
Because it was an emerging industry, the other figures had few direct points of comparison.
Therefore, Compaq's seven-day sales data for its "Internet PCs" became the point that drew the most industry attention.
According to statistics from industry research organizations, global personal computer shipments for the week of October 14 to October 20 were approximately four hundred fifty thousand units.
Yet Compaq alone had sold more than twenty-eight thousand units of a single model, already equivalent to six percent market share.
Compaq subsequently announced that total shipments across its entire PC lineup reached sixty-nine thousand units, achieving a market share of fifteen point five percent.
Only one month earlier, Compaq's latest reported market share had barely reached thirteen point two percent.
In other words, this single coordinated online marketing effort with Ygritte Company had increased Compaq's market share by two point three percentage points.
Since the birth of Apple in the 1970s up to now, competition in the personal computer industry had already become extremely fierce.
Therefore, a two point three percentage point increase in market share, achieved in only one week, was already a small miracle.
If other PC manufacturers had anticipated in advance that this marketing campaign could raise their market share by two point three percentage points, they definitely would not have missed the opportunity.
In fact, at this stage most major brands, IBM, Commodore, Apple, and so on, had all been contacted by Ygritte Company beforehand.
However, because many details could not be agreed upon, these relatively established manufacturers ultimately gave up on the chance. In the end only Compaq reached a cooperation agreement with Ygritte.
The nearly one hundred million dollars in sales from a single product category over seven days actually generated only five million five hundred sixty thousand dollars in deposits through the Ypay channel. The five million five hundred sixty thousand dollars in discount costs were of course borne by Compaq.
What Ygritte Company received was a fifteen million dollar advertising contract.
The contract period ran from early October through the end of the year, lasting one full quarter.
Based on Compaq's PC sales data after the first week of Ypay and Ystore releases, the fifteen million dollar custom advertising contract had delivered returns far exceeding Compaq's expectations.
Many tech brands had been placing advertisements on the Ygritte portal one after another over the past year or so, but previous amounts had never been particularly large. The key reason this marketing cooperation had not been finalized earlier with other companies was precisely Ygritte's fifteen million dollar quote.
Although most of the revenue Ygritte obtained was reinvested into the company's own brand marketing.
Nevertheless, many manufacturers at the time still believed that since they were already shouldering the discount costs through brand cooperation, and Ygritte was gaining promotion for its Ypay tool, this was a win-win situation. Therefore Ygritte's additional demand for a huge advertising fee seemed very unreasonable.
Now, no manufacturer would think that way anymore.
The plan Ygritte offered was of course not limited to simply selling Compaq's "Internet PCs" through the Ypay channel. It also included a full-platform, quarter-long advertising campaign.
With the success of this cooperation between Ygritte and Compaq, other tech brands began contacting Ygritte one after another. Gates even personally called Simon to discuss online marketing plans for the Windows 3.1 system scheduled for release next year.
1991 was already more than half over.
For the new technology sector, Ygritte's rapid growth over the past six months or so had been obvious to everyone.
To name just one thing, the ten million World Wide Web access users had already brought Ygritte one hundred million dollars in revenue simply through the ten-dollar IE browser installation fee per user.
Because many operators were running free trial promotions, even if users did not convert to paid accounts, the operators still had to pay the IE browser installation fees.
Therefore, as of mid-October, this software had actually generated one hundred thirty-seven million dollars in revenue for Ygritte Company.
The Ygritte web services that Carol Bartz had formally consolidated into YWS had, over the previous three quarters, brought Ygritte Company a cumulative eighty-six million dollars in revenue through server leasing, utility software, website solution sales, and other products. Full-year revenue for this segment was expected to exceed one hundred ten million dollars.
Including Compaq's fifteen million dollar massive advertising order, Ygritte portal's 1991 advertising revenue had also accumulated to sixty-one million dollars.
Although this portion of income appeared to be less than half of what a single IE browser software had generated, with the huge success of this marketing cooperation with Compaq, the advertising business of the Ygritte portal undoubtedly held even greater growth potential.
After all, IE browser software sales were essentially a one-time transaction.
According to the agreement, Ygritte guaranteed three years of free upgrades for the IE browser software users installed.
Simon's plan was to push for completely free IE browser software in a few years.
This was mainly for antitrust considerations.
The Ygritte portal was set as the fixed homepage for Ygritte Company's IE browser software. At this stage, Ygritte had not even granted users permission to change the homepage.
In the short term, as a guide website directing users through internet surfing, no one found anything inappropriate.
But.
Over time, people would definitely realize it.
I have already paid for this software, so I should have the right to freely choose and customize my homepage.
Even if users did not realize it themselves, other internet companies in the industry would understand how great a monopoly advantage Ygritte held in this area and would certainly step forward to raise objections.
If the IE browser became free, the related pressure Ygritte Company would face would be much smaller.
I provided you with free software, so I should enjoy conveniences such as the default homepage.
At most, Ygritte could make some concessions in the future allowing users to change the IE browser homepage.
However, the default homepage for IE browser software was destined to remain the Ygritte portal and would later become the Ygritte search engine.
Any industry that could not generate sustainable commercial benefits would certainly be unable to grow and strengthen.
Ygritte Company had already proven the viability of its YWS product and portal website advertising business earlier. This time, the success of the Ypay tool and Ystore once again confirmed the vast commercial prospects of the internet industry. Capital from all sides and traditional business giants began pouring even more investment into the internet sector.
Then, some problems inevitably arose.
The World Wide Web, which currently held the highest penetration rate, had its core patent technologies essentially controlled by Ygritte Company.
Although on the surface Ygritte maintained a very open licensing attitude, anyone who was not a fool understood that Ygritte would absolutely use its patent barriers to restrict the development of its competitors.
In fact, Simon himself would not deny that Ygritte Company would of course do exactly that.
It would be abnormal not to.
Right now, Ygritte held overwhelming first-mover advantages in server leasing, portal websites, online payments, email, and many other areas. Unless Ygritte voluntarily opened its core patent licensing, other companies simply could not enter these fields.
Ygritte had also basically covered all the major internet business models that Simon remembered as the most successful ones in the future.
Therefore, if other companies wanted to completely bypass Ygritte's patent barriers and compete with this company, they would probably have no choice but to promote an entirely different foundational network technology.
Of course other types of network protocols still existed in this era.
However, after looking around, other companies had to admit that the existing alternative network technologies simply could not compete with the already very mature World Wide Web.
Simon Westeros had begun pouring unreserved effort into World Wide Web technology research and development more than two years earlier. This time advantage was something other companies could not catch up to. Moreover, protocols and languages such as HTTP and HTML were undoubtedly more suitable for the development trend of the internet for people who had already used the World Wide Web platform.
In addition, Ygritte had already released relatively popular internet image formats, audio formats, JavaScript scripting language, and so on.
Not only these most basic technologies, Ygritte Company had also completed the development of related application software. The IE browser was the most widespread example. Other relatively specialized software for web design or site management, as well as complete World Wide Web site solutions, were things other manufacturers simply could not catch up to in the short term.
Even if they started racing to catch up from now on, World Wide Web technology would certainly not stand still.
What was more, once a commercial rival that threatened its position emerged, Ygritte Company would very likely erect even more technological barriers along the path of other technological pursuits.
Since catching up was impossible, the only way to get involved in the internet industry was to seek licensing from Ygritte Company.
Ygritte appeared very open, but what if one day this company felt threatened by competitors and forcibly stopped licensing?
Such things were commonplace in the tech industry.
Even if the company whose technical licensing was revoked won a series of lawsuits and regained revenue, several years of litigation would still severely damage any company's vitality.
Simon had actually become aware of this issue since the beginning of this year.
With the success of the Ypay and Ystore products, the industry began paying even greater attention to the emerging internet sector, and he realized that certain problems were becoming increasingly urgent.
The internet had to be an open platform. Only in this way could it attract enough companies and users.
Although Ygritte Company had already entered most of the most successful internet business models from Simon's memory, this industry was destined to hold far too much untapped potential. Human creativity was boundless.
However, the current problem was that many people were worried whether Ygritte would use its patent and technological advantages to suppress competitors.
Suppressing competitors was certain.
Yet for the sake of the entire internet industry's rapid development, Simon understood that using patent technology to do so was not wise.
In order to dispel the concerns of many people in the industry once and for all, after repeated consultations with several Ygritte senior executives, Simon ultimately made a decision to completely open the core World Wide Web-related patents held by Ygritte Company, including HTTP and HTML technologies as well as related image, audio, and even JavaScript scripting language technologies.
In the drafted plan, these patents would be placed into a non-profit World Wide Web Consortium foundation. Internet companies would no longer need to seek licensing from Ygritte Company in order to use these technologies.
Some matters always spread extremely fast.
The decision had just been made when the San Francisco Chronicle ran a related report, catching Ygritte's management completely off guard.
After dismissing a Ygritte mid-level manager who had leaked the information, both Simon and the Ygritte trio, including several other tech companies in the Westeros system, immediately became the targets everyone in the industry was scrambling to contact for information.
Although the decision had been made, the specific list of patents to be opened still required careful deliberation.
For example, Ygritte Company's email-related technologies would not be opened in the short term. Ygritte would also definitely restrict other manufacturers from using World Wide Web technology to develop browser software similar to IE.
However, no matter what, this matter was a rare grand gesture for the entire industry.