American History 1988
Chapter 266 - 257: I Am Their Shareholder

Chapter 266: Chapter 257: I Am Their Shareholder

The concept of the World Wide Web was born in 1989 when Berners Lee submitted an information proposal to the European nuclear agency.

He suggested developing their own software tool to facilitate the personnel within the agency to use computer resources more efficiently.

The nuclear research institute should develop its own software tool for use within Europe and to connect to the network in North America.

Before 1989, North America had been using the internet for quite a long time, but Europe did not have a corresponding mature network environment.

The personnel of the research institute expressed dissatisfaction and an urgent mood about being unable to communicate electronically with their North American colleagues.

For this reason, Berners Lee’s boss agreed to this plan and gave him a certain budget to support it.

In the beginning, Berners Lee only focused on "sharing" as an application area.

But he quickly found that his colleagues’ complaints were not just about the difficulty of sharing; a search service was also one of the urgently needed functions.

However, this was not his forte, but it was okay because his colleague, Robert Cailliau, happened to be developing a search tool.

So after sitting down and talking it over, they decided to abandon their previous isolated efforts and start working together.

Later, hypertext language was born, as well as the world’s first browser—World Wide Web.

The first complete version of the World Wide Web browser, perfected in 1990, had many limitations, such as it could only run on NeXT workstations.

That’s right, the company NeXT, founded in frustration by Jobs after being ousted from Apple.

Workstation computers were very popular these two years because, with technological iteration and progress, they were beginning to gradually replace mainframes.

Thus, many enterprise users were busy migrating data from mainframes to client-server architecture, that is, C/S architecture.

Compared to the bulky and cumbersome mainframe computers, flexible and high-performance workstation computers were of course more popular.

Even in the eyes of many IT consultants and computing professionals, C/S computing was the contemporary revolution.

It usually included a workstation that acted as a data server, while personal computers on the LAN acted as clients.

Dean often heard a slogan, "The Internet is greatly beneficial to the C/S network."

Indeed, now everyone’s attention was concentrated on the new server architecture, and the internet received comparably less focus.

And this kind of computer equipment aimed at enterprise users typically yielded very hefty profits.

So Jobs also saw it as an opportunity for his comeback, and then NeXT was created.

Also, because of this trend in perception, the market value of Sun Microsystems even broke through 10 billion US dollars.

Because its core business was server equipment; besides IBM, Sun Microsystems was the second-largest server provider on the market.

Based on the same recognition, Berners Lee also used workstation computers when developing the browser.

The operating system of workstation computers is usually not Windows, but that’s no problem for Dean.

He had exchanged communications with Berners Lee when hypertext language was being developed.

Later, in mid-1991, Berners Lee even shared the hypertext language publicly on the network.

As one of the earliest communicators, Dean had already obtained the full set of HTML, HTTP, and URL languages.

So, porting the World Wide Web browser to other operating systems was simple; you just needed to be familiar with the logic of hypertext language.

And they had been publicly disseminated for half a year; what Dean and others now saw on web pages was sites established by internet enthusiasts using hypertext language.

To be honest, it was very rough, the design arbitrary, and the layout was chaotic and disorderly.

But when John and others browsed the web pages, they didn’t feel this burden at all.

Because the convenience of the user experience covered up these flaws; mouse scrolling, hyperlinks, image and text display, what you see is what you get...

This was an entirely different thing from the previous command-input experience; the World Wide Web was too convenient.

"Boss, do you want Price’s List to be redesigned in this format too?"

John had understood the purpose of Dean showing them the World Wide Web; the hands-on experience told him it was a revolutionary innovation.

"Exactly," Dean appreciated John’s sensitivity to technological changes, "The internet must keep up with the trend."

"Dean, are you saying it’s going to be the next big thing?" Simon pointed at the new style web page on the screen.

"User experience doesn’t lie," Dean replied concisely.

Simon and John exchanged glances, then shrugged, "So what do we do next?"

"First, learn hypertext markup language and get proficient at using them," Dean said, pulling out a CD he had prepared earlier. "This is the latest version of the language library; I got it from the inventor of the World Wide Web."

"Cool~" John carefully stored it away, "I’ll have our programmers get familiar with them as soon as possible."

"Good," Dean nodded with satisfaction, then took out a business plan.

"Second, promote Price’s List, which has been redesigned in hypertext language, to other cities."

"What’s this?" John and Simon took the document and flipped through it carefully, "Are these all network operators?"

"Mhm~" Dean nodded.

"Isn’t this too many?" John pointed at the lengthy list of names, "I didn’t even know America had so many network operators."

Out of the dozens of names on the list, they were familiar with only American Networks; the rest they had mostly not heard of.

"There will only be more in the future." Dean wasn’t surprised, as opposition to a monopoly was a consensus among the alliance members.

When the market loses its monopolist due to artificial intervention, it will only present a scene of blooming flowers.

Of course, according to market rules, new monopolies will inevitably emerge, but that’s a story for another time.

"What we need to do is to promote the redesigned Price’s List throughout the networks of all these operators."

This list contains the most comprehensive current ISP operators, in other words, we need to promote Price to the entire America."

John and Simon gasped, both astonished by Dean’s ambition.

"Boss, we haven’t even stepped outside of Ohio yet."

To be precise, the Price’s List in Ohio only has over a hundred thousand users.

Compared to the tens of millions of people in Ohio, that really isn’t much.

"This situation will change soon." Dean is now a major participant in the promotion of the internet in America; no one understands the internet better than him.

"Have you heard of the ’High-Performance Computing Act’ and the National Information Infrastructure initiative?"

John and Simon shook their heads.

"Well, simply put, the NSFnet will soon relax its regulation of the network.

The future of the internet will be entirely operated by private companies, and furthermore, the federal government will allocate a budget to promote the development of the network."

Dean summarized the impact of policy on the internet with a simple statement.

"Really?" John’s eyes lit up.

"Yes, there are no bans on commercial activities, no restrictions, it’s completely free." That was exactly what the CIX Alliance was striving for.

"That’s really good news." Simon thought of the dating section on Price’s List.

"Of course this will take some time, but privatization has already started, so there’s a lot we can do."

Dean pointed to the business plan in their hands; Price’s List needed to be ready for the wave of the internet in advance.

John had already skimmed through it and understood Dean’s plan, but he had some questions.

"But Boss, how are we going to convince these operators to promote Price’s List?

I counted roughly, and there are nearly thirty service providers on the list.

Just the business negotiations alone could take half a year."

"We don’t need business negotiations, they will agree." Dean wasn’t worried about this at all.

"Why?" John was stunned, showing a look of bewilderment.

"Because I am their shareholder." Dean’s response was brutally blunt.

Even Simon was shocked; this was more than thirty operators.

But considering Dean’s wealth, they quickly came to terms with it—it might just be standard operating procedure.

"In any case, learn the new language, then redesign Price’s List, and finally promote it.

That is our goal for this year; I hope that in two years, Price’s List will become a household name website in America."

As long as we always stay one step ahead of others, we will become the most dazzling flag in the upcoming internet surge.

"Considering the future development of Price’s List, we might move to California, or at the very least establish an office center there."

Ohio is just too remote; it’s not suitable for the development of internet companies.

California is the first choice, and if not, then Virginia and New York are still better than Ohio.

But flying from Ohio across the continent to the southernmost part of California—that’s quite a distance.

John and Simon are locals, and Dean was concerned they might be resistant to the idea.

However, upon hearing Dean’s recommendation, neither of them even blinked an eye.

"Cool~ I’ve heard that the girls in California are very warm, and I can’t wait to verify that saying for myself."

Simon was Dean’s classmate and would graduate this summer; it was a good opportunity.

"I’m also good with it, I think Bonnie and the others would be happy to enjoy the sunshine in California."

As a professional manager, John was used to moving between different cities.

Of course, the reason they were willing to go to California, without worrying about the cost of living there,

was primarily because their wallets had become much fuller.

Byte Company had gone public, and Dean had specially arranged a stock subscription contract for them.

Like John, Simon would be purchasing part of the issued stock at an internal staff price.

Even to compensate for their dedicated service in Ohio over the past two years, they were entitled to subscribe for many more shares than the average employee.

Now, with Byte Company’s share price breaking through 60 US dollars, both Simon and John had made at least a million dollars.

They had made a fortune, a level of wealth they had never dared to imagine before.

It was for this reason that they were obedient to Dean’s arrangements and even secretly looked forward to them.

They hoped that one day Price’s List would also rise on Nasdaq; that would be an incredibly captivating moment.

"OK, that’s settled then." Dean’s last bit of business in Ohio had been taken care of.

It was time for him to return to California.