American History 1988
Chapter 125 - 119: Bustling Activity

Chapter 125: Chapter 119: Bustling Activity

"I think I kind of understand what’s going on~" Clark said with a laugh, "The CEO of Sun Microsystems, Scott, and Oracle’s Ellison are on good terms, maybe he introduced Teams to them?"

Sun Microsystems, MITS, Oracle—simply through Clark’s connections, Byte Software had received nearly four thousand orders.

Well, this effect was much better than the publicity from "Global Overview."

"Anyway, I’m very thankful for your help, Byte Software has taken the toughest step."

"You’ve done a good job, Dean. Oh, by the way..." Clark’s smile faded, "There have been some changes at SGI, the follow-up Teams purchases might..."

"Ok~ I understand," Dean stopped him before he could say the uncomfortable words, "You’ve done more than enough, SGI will always be our most important customer."

"Dean, thank you for understanding," Clark let out a sigh of relief.

He had said before that if Teams performed well, there would be an additional order of more than a thousand units.

But this proposal was strongly opposed by Glenn from Mayfield Company during the meeting and came to nothing.

Now, touched by Dean’s understanding, Clark found himself liking the young man more and more.

After agreeing to go hiking together next time, Dean hung up the phone.

No matter what had happened, Byte Software had now secured a large order, which was exactly what Dean urgently needed to take care of at the moment.

Just as he was thinking about how to arrange everything, Marcus and David, who he had lured back with the prospect of becoming millionaires, also rushed to the Byte Software office in a hurry.

"Dean, are we going to get rich?" Marcus couldn’t help but exclaim excitedly as soon as he walked in the door.

"Whether we can get our hands on this money depends on whether we can handle it from here on out," said Dean as he thrust the documents Anna had organized into their hands.

"Wow~" Just a glance at the numbers made Marcus’s mouth drop open. "Damn it, David! We’re really going to strike it rich!"

Marcus excitedly pointed at the strings of numbers and gestured to David, "Shit! More than five thousand orders! How much is that worth? ...Oh~, I need to do the math..."

Passing the orders to David, Marcus punched a few numbers on the calculator on his desk, then he became completely speechless.

"$800,000! ...$800,000!" Marcus repeated the number he saw in a murmur, "David, tell me today’s not April Fool’s Day..."

"We just had Christmas~" David, much calmer, shrugged his shoulders. Although he was surprised, he managed his emotions well.

"Mother F*cker! $800,000 a month! By the end of the year, we might actually become millionaires!" Numbers wizard Marcus had already calculated Byte Software’s estimated income for the entire year.

"Guys, before we dream, let’s think about how to fulfill this order," said Dean, who was already sitting in front of his computer, pulling Marcus back to reality.

"YES!" Marcus took a step towards Dean, "Boss, tell me! Where do we start?"

"First, we need to confirm the order information with these companies one by one, and schedule on-site service times," Dean was already furiously typing on his keyboard, composing a work memo.

"Then, as soon as Anna gathers the manpower, we’ll start training immediately. Of course, the most important step is to strike while the iron is hot!" Dean picked up several electronic magazines on the desk and shook them.

"We need more advertising! The orders we’ve received during this period are enough to prove Teams has its own market, so don’t waste this golden opportunity! Go! Go! Guys, get moving right away!"

Under Dean’s direction, although there were only three or four people in the office, it was a scene of busy activity.

The few people divided up the companies that had placed orders and called them separately to confirm order information. If any companies wanted to learn more about Teams, Byte Software would arrange for a demonstration at their premises.

Once the collaboration was confirmed, agreements were sent by fax for signature and confirmation. Modern office practices weren’t anything new in that era.

After everyone had taken action, the results surprised Dean. The companies made it clear that they could place orders directly, without the need for additional demonstrations.

It was only after Dean’s probing that the companies explained. They had already purchased a few copies of Teams software in retail stores and decided to place orders with Byte Software after experiencing it firsthand.

These companies were all in Silicon Valley, even not far from Dean’s office, and Kevin’s computer shop was among them.

So, after seeing the advertisements in "Global Overview," on the Global Electronic Link forums, and getting recommendations from friends in the industry, 3Com and Oracle went directly to the computer shop to buy a few copies to assess the practicality of the software themselves.

The result proved Teams to be a pleasant surprise. Its features brought significant improvements in efficiency to everyday work for their employees.

And that led to what Dean was now witnessing—the direct delivery of orders to Byte Software’s hands.

"OK, guys, although we’ve got a big order, and the deposit will soon be in our account, but..." Dean glanced around at the few people in the office, "we’ve also got a heavy task ahead of us. We need to get all the scheduled Teams installations in place and up and running by the end of the month.

So action must start right away. I, Marcus, and David will each take charge of a few companies, with the biggest ones prioritized.

To increase efficiency, we can look for some help from our classmates. The hiring fees will be settled daily; just make sure the accounts are clear."

Anna, the task of holding down the fort at Byte Software is yours, and don’t forget about the recruiting."

"OK!" With their orders received, it was as if everyone had found their direction, and all began to busy themselves with their tasks at hand.

Dean was no exception, having arranged a hefty task for himself. He was to fulfill Sun Microsystems’ order of two thousand units within two weeks.

But before that, he had another call to make, "Kevin, I’m back in California. Did you say that the computer shop needs more physical copies of Teams?"

"Oh, thank God, Dean, you’re finally back!" Kevin had been tormented by all sorts of calls hurrying him for deliveries throughout the week, "The 300 physical discs you left me with didn’t even last a week! Now I need more!"

"OK, Kevin, I got your request, but it’s too late to press more discs now," Dean flipped through the calendar on his desk, "I’ll find a batch of floppy disks to package, they can serve as a temporary emergency measure."

"Floppies would be even better, but we need to move quickly. Don’t forget, this is your business!" Kevin knew the promotional effects had a window of opportunity and to catch this wave was vital for a long-lasting business.

"I’ll contact someone to handle this right away." After hanging up the phone, Dean began to go through his address book, remembering he had received a business card from someone involved in the floppy disk recycling business.

Originally to save on costs, Teams’ physical software was recorded on CDs. They were cheap, with each costing less than one US Dollar.

Many electronic stores took such orders, but it was too late to place new ones now, so Dean could only opt for the slightly more expensive option of floppy disk packaging.

Provided there were enough blank disks, stuffing them into a computer, and it would take less than a minute to complete the software packaging.

This process was much faster than burning CDs, and the data was less likely to be lost, but the downside was the higher price of floppy disks.

However, every industry has its own clandestine supply chain, and floppy disk recycling is one of them. There are middlemen who specialize in this trade, buying used floppies at 8 to 12 US Cents each, cleaning them up, and reselling them for around 2 US Dollars each.

Large companies would often discard hundreds of thousands of floppy disks each year, and some middlemen have even set up their own companies, offering software duplication services.

These were the people Dean was looking for; it didn’t matter if the floppies were not brand new, as long as they worked.

At most, Byte Software would stick their own logo and label on the floppy disks, so they would appear no different from new ones on the outside.

Having just returned to California, and without even a moment’s rest, Dean spent three days dealing with Kevin’s order for physical floppy disks, after which he started on the software installation for Sun Microsystems.

This time Dean was going into action himself, with Marcus and David busy with the installation of Teams at other companies in Silicon Valley.

Fortunately, working on the server technology was a task that Dean could handle alone. Of course, for the follow-up maintenance and training, the newly recruited after-sales engineers at Byte Software would be needed.

And in the server room of Sun Microsystems, Dean also witnessed the lavish behavior of a server company in their own microserver room.

"Are all these the latest generation of SPARC series servers?" Dean gaped at the dense array of equipment indicator lights filling the room.

"Yeah~Sun Company, of course, uses its own servers." The pride was evident in the accompanying IT personnel’s demeanor; every outsider who visits this server room has the same reaction.

"I suppose with them, Sun Company never encounters server bottleneck issues." Dean envied the lavish server room, wondering when Mayfield would have its own server farm.

"Dean, right?" As they discussed server issues, Sun Microsystems’ Andy Bechtolsheim and Bill Joy walked in.

"Jim said a computer genius has emerged from Stanford, so we took a detour to come see," Bill Joy, wearing glasses, greeted Dean cheerfully.

"Mr. Bechtolsheim, Mr. Joy," Dean set aside his work and walked over to shake their hands warmly. "Thank you for supporting Byte Software."

"Teams is a great idea; I have good expectations for it." Andy, although one of the founders, was still responsible for the technical development at Sun Microsystems.

Perhaps because everyone came from a technical background, there was an additional sense of closeness between them.

"Frankly, I dream of equipping my own company with a full set of SPARC series servers, especially those for web servers targeting the World Wide Web in the future." Naturally, user data from website visitors is most safely housed on one’s own servers.

"World Wide Web? Web servers?" Andy and the others were somewhat unfamiliar with these two terms from Dean’s mouth.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Dean shrugged apologetically, "It’s a hypertext markup language that’s under development. Tim shared this idea on the BBS forum, and I think it could be a trend for the future."

Tim Berners-Lee had proposed the concept of the World Wide Web last year and began its development towards the year’s end, even sharing his progress on the BBS forum recently.

And Dean, who had been following this news early on, had even interacted with Tim a few times. The NSFnet not only connected the continent of North America, but many European and Asian countries had also joined this public network.

It was for this reason that Dean managed to communicate with Tim, who was in Europe.

After hearing Dean’s explanation, the technology enthusiast Bill Joy showed some interest in the new language. "Dean, when it’s ready, remember to notify me."

"OK, I’ll be keeping an eye on it," Dean replied. After a brief chat with Andy and the rest, they took their leave.

If it wasn’t for Clark’s introduction, perhaps they wouldn’t have come to see Dean, and now they had exchanged greetings and gotten to know each other a little.

Well, as for Dean, he had no complaints. Looking over the vast server room, getting it sorted out and getting his pay was the priority.

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