American History 1988
Chapter 355 - 344: Pulling the Trigger

Chapter 355: Chapter 344: Pulling the Trigger

Brad Silverberg had only stayed in Illinois for three days when he returned to Seattle.

The negotiation went smoothly, and Microsoft acquired the Mosaic browser’s codebase for a negligible $2 million.

This included not only NCSA’s initial results but also the underlying code updated by Spyglass itself.

Although it might not be used, having it was better than not.

As for when to launch this business, honestly, Silverberg wasn’t sure himself.

While Skunkworks had a certain degree of autonomy, promoting the browser business on a large scale inevitably required Gates’s approval.

The reality now was that Gates refused to invest in anything related to the internet, and they had argued about this more than once.

This was a troublesome matter, Silverberg sighed.

However, he didn’t plan to give up; at least his team could quietly make some preparations.

...

The Mexican coast, Cape Saint Lucas, was hailed as the ends of the earth.

In winters, tourists from around the world converged on the seashore.

Located at the southernmost tip of North America, Cape Saint Lucas had always been an American vacation paradise.

After all, for Americans, Mexico was no different than a backyard.

Glenn Miller, too, had arrived at Cape Saint Lucas in this early winter season.

As a venture capitalist, he didn’t need to stay in Silicon Valley every day, as his job was to search for opportunities worldwide.

With just a mobile phone, he could close deals from anywhere.

Keeping the communication lines open was key; the rest of his time he could arrange freely.

Besides, due to the nature of his job, Glenn Miller spent many days each year on vacation.

Just like now, he and his wife had once again checked into their seaside villa here.

He had bought it three years ago for only $80,000.

Such were the benefits of being American; they earned in US dollars and then enjoyed the low prices here in Mexico.

"Linda, could you get me today’s paper?"

Although on vacation, Glenn Miller had the habit of checking what was happening in the world every morning.

Oftentimes, business opportunities hid within this information.

"Dear, you’re supposed to be relaxing on vacation," complained his wife from the kitchen.

"In order to ensure we can come here every year for a peaceful vacation, I must do this."

Glenn Miller was planning to go fishing today; he had rented a white sailboat that was parked at the dock outside their house.

But before setting out, he needed to make sure it was another calm day.

Linda went outside to the mailbox to retrieve the papers; they subscribed to the international editions of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

This allowed them to stay informed of domestic happenings even while vacationing.

Of course, only the wealthy could afford such luxury.

Local Mexicans would not care at all about what happened on Wall Street and in New York.

After casually browsing through the papers, Linda leisurely returned inside.

"Dear, there’s nothing important, just some news about the internet."

"The internet?" Glenn Miller was now very sensitive to this word.

"Yeah~," Linda shrugged indifferently, "It says here that Netscape has captured 75% of the browser market.

Also, Bit Corporation has officially launched a new instant messaging software.

They say it’s free, and on the first day, it attracted hundreds of thousands of users."

Glenn Miller put down the fishing gear he had been organizing; he no longer felt as relaxed.

"Dear, did you just say Netscape? Bit?"

"Mmm-hmm~," Linda handed him the newspaper.

Glenn Miller carefully read each sentence; it was his only way to get authoritative news now.

Explorer 2.0 had completely driven Mosaic out of the market, and Netscape had now become synonymous with browsers.

Orders like snowflakes were flying towards the offices in Mountain View.

Silicon Valley was abuzz that they planned to take Netscape public this year.

Shit! Glenn Miller was shocked by this news.

He knew Netscape was popular with venture capitalists and that its valuation was outrageously high.

He had tried to get involved but was rejected.

Glenn Miller thought he still had a chance since this was Netscape’s first round of funding.

So, having failed to make any inroads with Jim Clark, he decided to set this matter aside and start his winter vacation.

He planned to reach out to Clark again in the spring or possibly go directly to Dean.

Wally Davis, a senior partner at Mayfield, had already agreed to arrange a meeting with Dean through the connections at 3Com.

This was their chance for reconciliation; everyone was in Silicon Valley, and there were no deep grudges.

They could clink glasses and exchange resources, leaving past displeasures behind.

Glenn Miller highly valued this meeting; he even quietly inquired about Dean’s interests to cater to them.

In his view, Dean was the key to the situation.

As long as he could navigate this relationship, the jokes about him and the investment in Netscape might all find perfect resolutions.

But he hadn’t expected things to end so suddenly.

Netscape went public after only one round of funding?

Bit’s new software became hugely popular, and its stock price rose for several consecutive days?

Every piece of news in the newspapers made Glenn Miller’s blood boil.

He not only lost the last opportunity to invest in Netscape, but the success of Bit made his past actions seem even more like those of a ridiculous clown.

"Dear, are you okay?" His wife Linda noticed his unsightly complexion.

"Linda, have there been any calls from Silicon Valley in the past few days? About Netscape and Bit company."

"Calls?" Linda thought carefully and then shook her head.

"The calls about your business usually don’t come through me."

Indeed, he hadn’t received any calls about this news either.

Neither colleagues from Silicon Valley, nor those from Mayfield, nor even Wally Davis had called.

As a venture capitalist, he had only learned the news after seeing a newspaper in Mexico.

"Dear, has something happened?" His wife Linda was very concerned about him.

"No, I’m fine." Glenn Miller picked up his fishing gear and headed for the door.

Linda wanted to say something, but she couldn’t figure out what was troubling her husband.

Glenn Miller put the fishing gear on the white sailboat and then untied the moorings to raise anchor.

However, he didn’t start the engine immediately; first, he lit a cigarette for himself.

The sea breeze carried bits of ash away, gradually vanishing until the pain in his fingers brought him back to reality.

Flicking off the cigarette butt, Glenn Miller took out his mobile phone from his pocket.

"Jim, do I really have no chance left?"

"I thought you had given up long ago." Clark, startled for a moment in California, finally realized who was on the call.

"We once..."

"Glenn, it’s over, Netscape is planning to go public this summer."

Click, Clark hung up the phone right after saying this.

He had once sworn never to work with Miller again.

The disgrace at SGI had turned him into a joke among Silicon Valley founders.

After being hung up on, Glenn silently put away his phone and then set sail.

He only stopped the boat when the villa by the sea was nearly out of sight, then he walked into the cabin.

A moment later, Glenn Miller reappeared on deck with a hunting shotgun.

Looking back at the villa by the sea, he put the shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

...

"How many registered users does Toktok have now?"

"About six hundred thousand, but the daily average active users are only about one-third of that."

"Why?" Dean furrowed his brow.

"The specific reasons aren’t clear yet, but the marketing department thinks it might be due to cost."

Dean paused, then lifted his head to confirm.

"If I’m not mistaken, our Toktok is free.

It even ensures user experience by not hosting any ads on it."

"The cost here isn’t generated by us." Thomas shrugged, "It comes from the fee users pay for internet connectivity.

You know, Boss, most ISPs charge by the minute.

If users spend too much time online, it means they’ll receive a hefty phone bill next month."

A look of realization crossed Dean’s face, followed by a chuckle and a shake of his head.

Well, despite all calculations, he had overlooked the internet fees.

Although Bit minimized users’ costs of using Toktok, the ISPs did not.

On the contrary, the current per-hour charging model means that using the internet has never been cheap.

The free Toktok was indeed novel, and it had attracted over six hundred thousand people in just two months.

But that doesn’t mean users would stay online 24 hours, because even if they did nothing, they had to pay around three US dollars an hour, which is prohibitively expensive.

Clearly, most people did not think online chatting was worth spending three dollars per hour.

"I’ll think of something for the ISP side, but do not stop the development of the Bit email; we’re launching that feature next month."

"The development team has already completed most of the work; this isn’t difficult for us.

It’s just that there’s already Netscape, and entering the webmail market now, aren’t we a bit late?"

Thomas was somewhat doubtful, as the number of registered users of Netscape’s email had already surpassed tens of millions.

In the webmail market, there was hardly any space for others to survive.

It’s not that no other companies had tried to imitate Netscape’s email, but none had caused any significant ripples.

Bit, a large company with substantial resources, but this did not guarantee their success.

Also, about the major shareholders behind Netscape...

Thomas hesitated and did not speak up, though his expression was quite telling, as if this was merely competing against themselves.

Dean smiled; he did not think so.

"Thomas, Netscape’s business does not conflict with ours. They can develop free webmail, and so can Bit.

Also, if I tell you Yahoo is also developing its own email, what would you think?"

"What?!" Thomas was genuinely shocked this time.

As far as he knew, the relationship between Netscape and Yahoo was even closer.

Moreover, Yahoo was directly competing with Netscape in the email domain—didn’t they worry that Netscape might give the Explorer’s browser homepage to someone else?

"Thomas, times have changed; the internet is unlike any traditional industry."

Dean felt it was time to change the attitudes of Bit’s executives towards the internet.