American History 1988
Chapter 190 - 184 Various Shows of Skill

Chapter 190: Chapter 184 Various Shows of Skill

"Alright, that last comment was a joke."

Seeing Dean’s perturbed gaze, Dave burst out laughing.

He had chanced upon Dean’s image in the entertainment section of the newspaper recently.

The article was nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors about Dean and Jennifer Connelly, which might have something to do with Jennifer’s upcoming movie release.

Between the Toronto Film Festival and various promotional shows, it was only normal for Jennifer to be somewhat of a hot topic in entertainment news.

"Dave, back to the main topic, when is Word Link planning to start its IP telephone service?"

Today was only the signing day; the company was still bustling with preparations.

"We will have rented an office by Christmas, and the first batch of employees will be drawn partly from MCI and partly from Byte Company.

After Christmas, we’ll start R&D, and then aim to run a trial operation within the first quarter."

The most important hardware infrastructure, the fiber optic lines, were already in place; Word Link’s R&D would mainly revolve around software protocols and IP telephone endpoints.

And whether it was software protocols or IP telephone endpoints, there were already existing products to reference.

Like Byte Company’s Teams software and MCI’s desk phones, meaning the R&D cycle would not be too lengthy.

Upon hearing that trial operations would begin in the first quarter of next year, Dean’s mood lifted substantially.

He hoped Word Link could formally start its IP telephone business in the first half of the year; it was very important for Byte Company.

The reason was that Byte Company was likely to initiate its IPO during the second half of next year.

If Word Link could deliver good news before this IPO, this would undoubtedly make Byte more popular on Wall Street.

"Where are we going to start the IP telephone service first? I suggest targeting the enterprise customers to begin with.

They have the necessary hardware infrastructure and a fairly high demand for conference calls."

"Great minds think alike, Dean." Dave had MCI conduct internal market research on IP telephony, which now seemed to align with their mutual conclusion.

"As for which states to start in first, MCI suggests Florida, Texas, and South Carolina."

"Wait a second~" Dean looked up with a hint of surprise. "Why all the southern states?"

"Because that’s where MCI has the least business," Dave explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Wow," Dean couldn’t help laughing upon hearing this answer, "I guess it’s the exact opposite for AT&T?"

"Bingo~" Dave winked at Dean, "This is our little gift to AT&T."

IP telephony, a product that could disrupt the traditional market, naturally couldn’t be launched in the heartland of MCI.

No one knew exactly how IP telephony would perform in the market; it was filled with uncertainties.

That’s why places where the competition held an advantage in business became the perfect testing ground.

If IP telephony developed well, it could be used to vie against competitors for market share.

Even if the performance fell short, it wouldn’t be an unbearable loss for MCI.

See, the southern states were the perfect choice for Word Link; Dave had AT&T on his mind at all times.

Now Dean was suddenly looking forward to Word Link’s future competition with AT&T. When it came to being cunning, Dave was definitely the man.

"Good, I’m looking forward to seeing AT&T’s face when they receive this ’gift.’"

What goes around comes around, and Dean still remembered the troubles AT&T had caused Byte Company a few months earlier.

"If you want it done quickly, then have the guys at Byte put in some extra effort. MCI can settle the endpoints within a month at most."

"No problem, Byte Company is also quite interested in giving AT&T a headache."

"Hahaha..." Dave laughed heartily. He had once said the same thing to Dean.

...

"Dean, look, here’s some big news!" Miranda exaggeratedly shook the newspaper in her hand.

"Darling, I’m busy." Dean casually stuffed clothes into his suitcase; he was preparing to head back to the West Coast.

"You’ll be interested in this, I guarantee!" Miranda sat cross-legged on the couch, leisurely watching Dean scurry around the living room alone.

"Alright, darling." Dean stood with his hands on his hips, helplessly shrugging as he sensed something off about Miranda’s tone.

He took the crumpled newspaper from her hand and immediately understood the reason behind Miranda’s odd behavior today.

Damn! There were pictures of him and Jennifer Connelly! Thankfully, not any intimate ones.

"Oh~, so it’s Jennifer." Dean exclaimed with sudden realization, smiling, "I should introduce you two sometime, Miranda."

"What?!" Miranda, stewing with annoyance, thought she’d misheard.

"She’s your alumna; you guys should have plenty to talk about." Dean took a closer look at the newspaper, "This must have been taken those few days I met her when I was in Los Angeles for a show recording."

"Los Angeles? On a show?" Miranda’s skeptical gaze carried a hint of confusion.

"Yep, ’The Late Show with David Letterman.’ Remember?" Dean mimicked David Letterman’s signature grin.

Miranda’s suspicion didn’t diminish, but she fought back laughter.

"You know, it was my first time on the show, so I was really nervous.

Jennifer happened to be backstage, and she helped me relax—that was a big help.

That’s all there is to how we met; nothing unexpected happened."

"Unexpected things?" Miranda’s voice involuntarily rose in pitch.

"Er... I mean, I got acquainted with Jennifer, and that was it." Dean shrugged innocently.

"But the paper says the photo was taken when you two met in San Francisco," Miranda said, folding her arms and listening intently for his excuses to continue.

"The paper could be right," Dean nodded generously in admission, "Jennifer was promoting her movie on the West Coast around that time.

So we did meet up occasionally, but I don’t remember exactly when, darling.

During that time, I was so haggard over Byte’s lawsuit that I couldn’t even remember who I’d met aside from the legal provisions.

"I swear, Miranda!" The ever-faithful Dean, feeling wronged and eager to explain, clumsily almost tripped over his suitcase.

"Look at you, be careful!" Miranda made sure he hadn’t twisted his ankle before she righted the toppled suitcase.

"You’ve packed so poorly, Dean." Seeing the messy clothes in the suitcase, Miranda’s complaints grew louder.

"Without you, I can’t do anything right, Miranda~"

"Don’t put socks with the razor, and clothes will crease if packed like this."

Miranda simply dumped everything out of the suitcase and then carefully repacked each item for him.

"Miranda, you’re always so outstanding; I’ll never be able to do these things well."

...

"Darling, I’ve arrived in San Francisco."

Dean, with a Motorola in one hand, handed his luggage to Anna with the other.

"Okay, I’ll take good care of myself." Dean stooped to sit in the passenger seat of the car.

"Miranda, when can I have your cheese steak again?

My God, all the chefs in San Francisco should be ashamed of their cooking."

Ignoring Anna’s quirky look, Dean continued to chat on the phone.

"Not until next month? All right, I’ll try to hold out. But don’t make me wait too long, Miranda."

Dean pointed in the direction of Byte Company, signaling Anna to head there first.

"Goodbye, darling." Dean stowed away the Motorola, then cheerfully grabbed a Coke from the glove box.

"Quite a harvest, ah?" Anna’s tone held a hint of mystery.

"All is well," said the thick-skinned Dean, his face betraying no change.

"Who was that girlfriend just now?" As a California girl, Anna was not only warm but also bold.

"It’s not important; what’s important is that they’re all happy with me, and of course, I’m happy too."

"Wow, emotional value, ah?" Anna had completely cast aside her assistant’s role, a fire burning in her heart.

Dripping... The ringing of the phone interrupted their conversation.

"This is Dean Price." Dean’s voice was still full of energy.

"Dean, where are you?" Sobbing came through the phone.

"What’s wrong, Jenny?" Dean put down his Coke and listened intently.

"I need to see you, Dean~" Jennifer Connolly’s tears flowed uncontrollably at the sound of his voice.

"Hey~ darling, I’m in San Francisco. Tell me where you are; I’ll come to you."

Dean didn’t know what had happened, but he could hear that Jennifer needed comfort right now.

"No, I’ll come to you. I’ll buy a flight for tonight, wait for me, Dean."

Click, Jennifer hung up the phone.

Seeing the fluctuating expression on Dean’s face, Anna couldn’t help but be curious, "Boss?"

"Back to the company," Dean glanced at his watch; by the time Jennifer arrived, it would already be tomorrow.

"OK~" Anna could see that not all emotional values were positive.

See, the more girls Dean had, the more worries he acquired.

...

"Boss, this is the October issue of ’PC World’ magazine."

At the Byte Company office, Dean had just returned from Washington and hadn’t even been home before he rushed to the company.

He’d been on the East Coast for nearly a month, and now it was the end of October, almost November.

And what the just-returned Dean was most concerned about was Byte Company’s marketing and advertising, and of course, at this moment, Microsoft was also on his watchlist.

Chief Operating Officer Jimmy handed an unopened magazine to Dean.

The most conspicuous feature of this issue was that it was sealed with a transparent film covering the entire magazine.

Inside the transparent film, a beautifully printed floppy disk was stuck to the cover of the magazine.

The Microsoft logo and the Windows 3.0 pattern nearly covered the "PC World" cover title.

Dean wasn’t too surprised by any of this.

That’s because by his side were several other magazines like ’Byte’, ’Popular Electronics’, ’Educator’...

If you looked closely, you would find that these magazines all had a similar sealing method to ’PC World.’

Only Windows 3.0 had been swapped by a Teams floppy disk, or rather it should be said the other way around.

It was ’PC World’ that had imitated the packaging of these previous magazines because they were released before it, even more than a week earlier.

Microsoft had not only stolen Byte Company’s advertising idea but also copied their packaging method.

"How’s the sale of this issue of ’PC World’?" Dean periodically glanced at the Microsoft logo.

"Extremely hot, the magazine is reportedly going for a reprint."

"And the Windows 3.0 software?" Dean’s voice still revealed no emotion.

"Just like the magazine, Microsoft is even urgently purchasing blank disks on the West Coast, as they’ve run out of stock."

Jimmy was both jealous and reflective; this should have been Byte Software’s victory.