American History 1988
Chapter 329 - 319: An Exquisite Combination

Chapter 329: Chapter 319: An Exquisite Combination

Gates’ concerns proved to be not without reason, just the day after Microsoft decided to move up the MSN plan.

Corners of Seattle suddenly began to be flooded with a large number of CDs bearing the AOL logo.

Just like the scene previously enacted on the East Coast, people even received a free AOL trial package while taking a taxi.

What made Microsoft’s management even more frustrated was that right under the Redmond Microsoft headquarters building,

the Starbucks there also offered such CDs as a gift to every customer.

Ross Higerman enjoyed such treatment, and God knows how wide his mouth opened in shock at the time.

Clearly, AOL had started to take action, even earlier than Gates had anticipated.

And this ground marketing campaign was not aimed solely at Seattle; it was rolling out across the entire United States.

The AOL board may have been skeptical about the subscription model, but a proven carpet-bombing approach was unlikely to be questioned.

Therefore, to cover the major cities across the United States, the AOL board approved a staggering marketing budget of one hundred million US dollars.

Considering the delivery rate and loss of physical discs, AOL began to use CDs instead of floppy disks on a large scale.

Under mass production, the cost of a CD was even less than ten cents.

Also, due to AOL’s sudden purchase of huge quantities of CDs, half of the CDs produced worldwide — not just in North America — bore the AOL logo.

Under this unprecedented saturation bombardment, AOL acquired new users at a rate of one user every six seconds at certain times.

This was mainly thanks to AOL’s nearly zero learning cost, reliable solution that realized PC networking in one step.

The rich online content also kept the retention rate of acquired customers at an ideal level.

In an internet age yet to take off, AOL’s clear theme, rich content, and complete functionality might just be the "optimal solution" for network experience.

Those who had grown accustomed to AOL after their free trial period expired, needed to continue to pay AOL for connectivity to maintain the connection.

Look, with this model, AOL practically caught all the active users in one sweep.

Dean deeply believed in the theory that taking the initiative is key, as Steve Case had said.

Before Microsoft’s MSN even began its publicity, they branded AOL in people’s minds first.

Most importantly, they secured the target users into AOL’s fold before anyone else.

Once they chose AOL, they would not switch to MSN in the short term.

Meanwhile, looking back at Microsoft, their MSN currently only had dial-up functionality.

As for the larger, more content-rich platform MSN, it would not emerge until the following year.

AOL, having taken the lead, might be able to disregard Microsoft’s financial power after a year of digestion.

Not to mention that Ross Higerman was once again urgently pushing his subordinates to speed up the development of the MSN platform.

By the spring of 1994, under the huge ground marketing campaign, AOL’s market value soared again and again.

After reaching the fifty billion US dollar mark at the beginning of the year, it now rushed straight towards eighty billion US dollars.

This was happening too fast, even making Steve and his colleagues start to believe in this marketing method.

The overflowing CDs even led environmental groups to criticize AOL’s wasteful practices.

Other social commentators also very much resented AOL’s excessive marketing, even forming protest groups for this purpose.

Of course, that is a later story; one of the instigators, Dean, had already turned his attention to Netscape.

"Jim, is Explorer 2.0 finished?" Dean walked into Clark’s office as if he owned the place.

"To be precise, it’s the Beta version for Windows systems." Clark was used to Dean’s blunt approach by now.

This cramped office in Mountain View had within a few months essentially turned into their war room.

"A Beta version? That’s still worth a look." Dean was very interested in all developments concerning Explorer.

"That’s why I’ve already prepared it," said Clark with pride, pointing at another computer on his desk.

Without waiting for an introduction, Dean had already seated himself in front of the computer.

The logo of Explorer 2.0 hadn’t changed much from the previous generation,

but the details were noticeably prettier, in a more professional sense, conforming to the aesthetics of graphic design.

Since this was Netscape’s first commercial browser, they had hired professional designers for the logo.

With a gentle click of the mouse from Dean, despite a brief pause of one or two seconds, the browser window popped up.

"Jim, it’s faster," said Dean, who had a technical background and was very sensitive to software response times.

"In fact, it’s four seconds faster than version 1.0 and ten seconds faster than Mosaic."

The pride on Clark’s face was even more evident than when SGI first went public.

He watched Explorer grow day by day, making progress time and time again.

Netscape had become the center of his entire career; he invested even more heart and soul into Explorer than Dean had.

It could be said that from the founding of Netscape, all matters, big and small, were managed by Clark.

Although he didn’t hold a formal position within the company, he was effectively the CEO.

"Impressive progress, I bet Explorer 2.0 will leave Mosaic far behind," Dean added.

The software’s response time significantly affects how users evaluate it,

especially the first time they open it, which decides whether people have the patience to keep using it.

"Anderson is extraordinarily talented in programming, in some respects even surpassing Teresa."

After all, as a core member who developed Mosaic, there was no doubt about his technical prowess.

Clark believed that with a few more years of experience, Anderson could become an excellent technical leader.

"It seems the stock options we offered were well worth it."

"Yeah," Clark nodded in agreement, "these young people are really working hard."

Dean smiled and continued to explore the new version of Explorer.

The entire layout of the browser had been tweaked, with frequently used tools and buttons placed within easy reach.

Web page loading speeds had also improved significantly, and the previous lags were rarely seen.

Although he had only experienced it for a few minutes, Dean already knew it was worthy of the 2.0 version name.

"Dean, the biggest upgrade to Explorer isn’t here," Clark suddenly reminded him from the side.

"Oh? What do you mean?" Dean looked interested.

"Click here," Clark pointed to a link below the browser’s address bar, where a favorites bar displayed several commonly used URLs.

At his prompt, Dean clicked lightly with his mouse.

Soon a completely new page popped up, and after buffering for a few seconds in the middle of the screen, it began to play an animation.

"Video playback?" Dean was startled by the sight of Mario hopping around on the screen.

"Haha, I knew it would surprise you!" Clark laughed proudly, head thrown back.

"Shit! It’s come a lot sooner than I expected." Dean hadn’t thought Explorer 2.0 could go this far.

"Actually, it can’t really be called video; we took a bit of a shortcut."

Seeing the surprised expression on Dean’s face, Clark began to reveal the truth.

"What do you mean?" Dean turned his attention back to the animation.

"This is a Java-based plugin that supports the playback and creation of two-dimensional animations.

However, compared to conventional videos, the animations played by this plugin are much more rudimentary and the motion is stiffer.

If you observe carefully, you’ll see that all the scenes and characters are displayed frame by frame."

With Clark’s guidance, Dean finally noticed the details he had overlooked.

"So this is a kind of web application? And Java is the key to it?"

"Exactly, James and Michael combined Java with hypertext.

They developed a new language environment—JSP, literally JavaServer Pages.

It allows you to insert Java into HTML web pages so that Java programs can be executed on the web client side."

"Genius idea." Dean was impressed by the clever innovations of these tech giants.

Java itself is a programming language, and programs written in it are no different from typical software.

But with JSP, such software can be run on a web page.

In other words, the browser becomes the platform on which this software runs.

Does that sound familiar? It’s quite like the relationship between computer software and the Windows operating system.

The strength of Java lies in the fact that programs written in it can run on the web client side as well as on other systems.

The current JSP was developed to adapt to hypertext, and with it, the browser can support a variety of functional plugins.

"The source code’s support for Netscape is undoubtedly tremendous, but our guys also have no shortage of brilliant ideas."

Clark pointed to the screen, "Just relying on JSP isn’t enough to ensure that this animation runs smoothly on the web client side.

Our technical staff, on this foundation, developed the JavaScript programming language.

It helps the client side respond to JSP executions, but the difference lies in where each one runs.

JSP executes on the web server side, while JavaScript executes on the browser side.

They work together, and then the web page not only has colors and images but also animations and sound."

"You’re right, Jim, Java really is well-suited to web pages."

Now Dean was extremely grateful that he had acquired half of Java’s proprietary rights; the source code and Netscape made an excellent match.

Look, in just a few months, they had taken Explorer 2.0 a big step forward.

"Of course, this animation is stored on Netscape’s internal servers, so that’s why we’re able to load it so quickly now.

Otherwise, relying on the straw-like telephone lines outside, it might take a day and a night to load."

"This is already incredibly impressive." Dean remained optimistic, as they were once again at the forefront of technology.

"Since the current internet speed doesn’t support video animation, then we’ll use Java to create dynamic images.

I believe Java has more powerful capabilities than GIF."

"Good idea," Clark’s eyes lit up.

Netscape could incorporate these features into plugins and then offer them as value-added services to other companies.

"Now the most important question, when is Explorer 2.0 expected to go live?"

"There are details that still need to be fine-tuned, like the final optimizations.

We’re looking at going live with a Beta version in about two or three months, followed by the official version one month later."

Well, that’s close enough to the final lap.

As far as Dean knew, things at Mosaic were pretty much at a standstill.

Clearly, Anderson’s collective departure had brought NCSA significant trouble.

"Dean! I knew I’d find you here?"

Just as the two were discussing Explorer’s follow-up, an unexpected visitor arrived.

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