American History 1988
Chapter 252 - 245: Release

Chapter 252: Chapter 245: Release

About Byte Company’s new office software, it had been talked about in the market for some time.

After all, Dean mentioned it once in TIME magazine, and the software’s interactive interface was even demonstrated during subsequent roadshows.

A month before its release, Byte Company even provided a batch of trial versions to Morgan Stanley.

In order to perfect the official version and correct some hidden bugs, the user testing of the software was a necessary phase.

So during that time, there was frequent leakage of information about Work title.

Based on the feedback from Morgan Stanley, this office software was absolutely unique in creativity.

Like Teams, it adopted the currently popular graphical interface.

Its convenient usage design allowed employees to quickly get up to speed and significantly enhance work efficiency.

"It’s easy to use; you can access everything needed to quickly complete work from a single entry point, including business applications, email, calendars, and more."

This was Byte Company’s promotional position for Work title, with improving work efficiency at the core and a variety of functions as support.

And on the first day of its release in late September, Work title welcomed several large orders.

Morgan Stanley purchased about 40,000 sets, Merrill Lynch placed an order for 30,000, and PwC booked 10,000 sets.

All three companies had placed their orders with confidence only after having run trials of Work title in advance.

The software’s structure of linear workflow design left a deep impression on the leaders of these three companies.

It clearly showed where a project was initiated, where the current progress stood, and when it was expected to end.

All this information was crystal clear, and leaders could even complete the approval process online.

Additionally, if they needed to communicate with someone involved in a particular step, the built-in Teams system provided reliable instant communication services.

If a formal written response was needed, no problem, Work title also had email functionality.

Look, Byte Company’s new office suite could nearly meet the majority of office needs.

And these were exactly the three core functions that Byte Company heavily promoted for Work title: linear workflow, instant messaging, and email services.

Other features like contact management, calendar, and so forth were auxiliary function modules.

This is the current Work title 1.0 base version, with more features like logging and meeting functions to be gradually added in subsequent versions.

Like Teams, Work title continued to adopt an annual subscription model, with the base version costing 265 US dollars per set.

If purchased together with Teams, Byte Company’s office suite would be discounted to 375 US dollars.

In addition, Byte Company also promised at least one major update each year to ensure the user experience.

One must admit that compared to other office software on the market, this pricing was almost an entire tier lower.

Lotus 1-2-3 from Lotus Company could sell for 475 US dollars, and Microsoft’s Office suite went for as much as seven or eight hundred dollars.

Byte Company’s suite was even less expensive than the individual product prices of its competitors.

It was not that no one within the company suggested setting the price of Work title at 435 dollars, and including Teams in the suite for 565 dollars.

But Dean refused; he insisted on following the low-price route previously taken with Teams.

Firstly, the annual subscription sales model meant that Byte Company’s software pricing could not be too high.

Otherwise, many corporate users would prefer to opt for the perpetual license rather than paying a high annual fee every year.

Secondly, Dean wanted Byte’s corporate products to penetrate the market as much as possible.

While the money from large companies was indeed easy to earn, Dean estimated that even if Work title was priced at 475 dollars, they would still place their orders.

But Dean did not want to corner the market, as high pricing would only allow Byte’s software products to circulate among big corporations.

A broader range of small and medium-sized companies might likely be deterred by such pricing.

Now, while there were still no competitors in collaborative office software, the focus was to capture as much market share as possible.

As long as users became dependent on Work title, there would be no lack of money-making opportunities later on.

Therefore, Byte Company not only stuck to its low pricing strategy, but it even provided server support for small and medium-sized companies.

Yes, both Teams and Work title needed network support.

Previously, Byte Company mainly used corporate internal servers to build the local network environment required for its software.

But now the situation had changed, because with the privatization of the NSFnet, many companies had already connected to this network.

This meant that different companies could communicate through email, Teams, and the like, naturally including Work title.

Considering the limited server capabilities of small and medium-sized companies, Byte Company took on the role of server provider proactively.

Starting this year, Byte Company would establish three server centers in California on the West Coast, Virginia on the East Coast, and Ohio in the Midwest.

Their main task was to provide server support for Teams and Work title software.

These server centers along with low prices, and free server support, made it easier to attract users and also indirectly raised the competitive barrier.

After all, if other companies wanted to enter this market and compete with Byte Company for customers,

it would mean that their pricing would have to be sufficiently low and they would need to provide similar server support.

Undoubtedly, the costs were high, and any potential competitors would have to consider the sunk costs if the project failed.

This was also one of the ways companies build their competitive moats. With the 150 million dollars raised from its IPO, Byte Company dared to do so.

Of course, the substantial expenditure on building its own server centers was not solely for supporting Teams and Work title.

Dean was also planning for the future; databases, algorithms, and cloud services – these would all need the support of a massive number of servers.

Right now, it was merely about being prepared before the storm; after all, Byte Company was not short of cash at the moment.

Apart from setting up its server centers, Byte Company was also quietly preparing its first acquisition with the 150 million dollars.

To accelerate the company’s expansion, buying out others is a shortcut, but that’s a story for later.

Right now, everyone’s eyes are fixed on Byte Company’s stock prices, which received almost 70,000 large orders on the first day of Work title’s release.

If the stock price didn’t rise, it would defy all logic, and indeed, within a mere half-hour after Byte Company’s announcement, the price soared to 55 US Dollars.

The market reaction was incredibly swift, after all, backed by several major companies, Work title is believed to quickly gain acceptance in the industry.

Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, with their tens of thousands of global employees, this was just their first batch of purchasing.

Of course, to secure this order, Byte Company also offered them a certain discount.

This was a win-win, they got a discount and Byte Company’s market value also broke through the 5 billion US Dollar milestone.

As Byte Company’s market value surged, so did Dean’s net worth.

Just when reporters were gearing up to besiege him again, he had quietly flown to the East Coast.

"Hey, Miranda, did you miss me?" Dean spread his arms proudly, ready for a hug from Miranda.

But he soon couldn’t smile any longer because, behind Miranda, he saw an unexpected figure.

"Mr. Mather?" Dean’s eyes widened slightly.

"Surprised?" Mather arched his eyebrow smugly, as if he’d caught him in the act.

"What a coincidence?" Dean regained his smile, "So you’re not here specifically waiting for me, are you?"

"What do you think?" Mather said nonchalantly, arms crossed as he watched him.

Shit! Keeping watch over his daughter’s date? What a voyeur!

"Dear, have you been too busy lately, ah? Mr. Billionaire?"

Thankfully Miranda didn’t disappoint him, she did grumble a bit, but still gave him a warm embrace.

"Baby, you know I’ve been tied up." Dean wrapped his arms around Miranda, then shot a challenging glance at Mather.

"Miranda, let me have a word with this young man." The provocation worked on Dean.

Dean blinked. Why can’t the old man take a joke?

"OK, I’ll be outside waiting for you guys."

Miranda gave Dean a reassuring look and left the arrival hall with a smile.

Now it was just Dean and Mather, staring at each other in silence. However, the quiet moment didn’t last long before Mather made the first move.

"Kid, remember what I told you last time? The Irish never betray their family.

I can overlook your sordid past with other women, as long as you marry Miranda and cut ties with them."

"Oh~" Dean looked surprised, "Mr. Mather, this surprises me, especially since I haven’t even graduated yet."

That’s when Dean remembered his student status, despite his infrequent attendance at Stanford.

"That’s not the issue, Dean, you’re of age."

"Not exactly." Dean shrugged.

"What?" Mather was taken aback.

"I mean, I still have a few months until my 21st birthday. So..."

Dean smiled politely, the legal age for marriage in California is 21.

Of course, that wasn’t the point. He wanted to brush off this topic for the time being.

"Then after your birthday, we’ll talk about this again." Mather seemed not to intend to give up on him so soon.

"Uh, I’m actually not thinking about this right now.

You know, there’s a lot going on with Byte Company, and I’m planning to do some other business deals..."

"Kid!" Mather interrupted him rudely, "Your thing with Miranda... anyway, I won’t let you hurt her!"

Mather wanted to say, if you don’t marry Miranda, then it’s all over between you two.

But considering Dean’s current net worth, Mather changed his tune on the spot.

"I believe Miranda is very happy with me." Dean appeared indifferent to his threats.

"You!..." Mather was about to continue.

Just then, a flight announcement echoed in the hall.

"Passengers heading to New York, please be advised..."

"This isn’t over." Mather dropped these words and hurried off to the boarding gate with his bag.

Alright, he wasn’t here just to keep tabs on me.

This is America, the beacon of democracy, for goodness’ sake.

Dean liked the freedom here to tangle with multiple girls without having to worry too much about public morality.

To be honest, he wanted even more of that kind of freedom.

"How did it go? Dad didn’t give you a hard time, did he?"

"Of course, we have plenty in common."

"Sounds good, so now let’s talk about the reason Washington invited you here."

Dean was taken aback, "You know?"

"Of course," Miranda winked playfully, "don’t forget, I work in the Republican Party offices."

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.