I’m in Hollywood

? After lunch, Virginia took the two women for a walk outside, and Eric and Chris got into the study together. ↗,

Emily's reaction just now seems a little wrong, isn't she embarrassed when she heard the topic of marriage before? Eric sat down at the desk and asked curiously.

Chris shook his head and smiled: It may be because they are pregnant. When you told me the news, I chatted with Emily about something, Chris said, shaking his head helplessly , Obviously the result was not very good, and quickly changed the subject: What about you, what happened in Europe, there is so much movement?

Eric briefly told Chris about the Euro Disneyland situation.

After listening to this, Chris also began to shake his head: The budget of one billion dollars has ballooned to $5.5 billion, and it is indeed out of control. If you still can't make a profit after the rectification, what are you going to do?

Eric shrugged and said, Then we have to keep going. This project is related to the jobs of 30,000 people, and consumes so many resources of the French government. If I dare to shut it down, it will be tantamount to tearing my face with France.

Chris nodded and agreed with Eric. Because of the sudden closure of Euro Disney, Chris has also inquired about some relevant information about Euro Disney these days.

The French government not only sold the land equivalent to one-fifth of the urban area of ​​Paris to Disney at the ultra-low land price in the 1970s, but also provided more than one billion US dollars in project subsidies. In addition, the French government has even built a high-speed railway between downtown Paris and Disneyland, another multi-billion dollar investment. And all of this stems from the optimism about the prospects of EuroDisney, which consumes such a huge public resource. If Disney dares to back down because the park's profits are not as good as expected. face public pressure. The French government has only completely turned against Disney.

Michael Eisner's ability is unquestionable, but judging from his actions in the last few years at Disney, he has been completely carried away by Disney's success. If Michael Eisner continues to control Disney , it won't be good for Disney, but judging from his moves to Universal, he seems to have calmed down again, Chris recalled of Michael Eisner, who started the Disneyland project. Can't help but comment.

Eric recalled a little, but it seems to be the case. In the mid-to-late 1990s in the original time and space, although Disney's market value was still rising, it was only because of the general trend of the overall economic situation in the United States. Disney's profitability But it has been declining year after year, and TV stations that have invested heavily in mergers and acquisitions have also become a drag on the Disney Group, and have raised Disney's debt ratio to a very dangerous value.

It was after the resignation of Michael Eisner that Disney adopted a series of reform measures under its successor leader Robert Iger.

That's what brought this big movie company back to life.

Now Michael Eisner was kicked out of Disney by Eric to go to Universal. It can be said that it is a good thing for both Michael Eisner and Disney, and Disney can let go of Michael Eisner's constraints. Continue to develop rapidly. After calming down, Michael Eisner can also start a new career with Universal as a platform.

In the current Hollywood, Eric feels that there are not too many people with outstanding abilities. Most of the directors of several major film companies are more than enough to make progress. In the 1990s, several high-level executives of the major film companies impressed Eric deeply. Tube, there are only three people, Barry. Diller, Jeffrey. Katzenberg and Michael. Eisner.

Judging from the current information, the possibility of Barry Diller acquiring Paramount is extremely low. It is not easy for the Hollywood tycoon to return to Hollywood. Katzenberg is still staying at Disney. Eric is not easy. Like the original Michael Eisner, Katzenberg will be forced out of Disney, so it seems that his biggest competitor in Hollywood will undoubtedly be Michael Eisner.

I heard that Steve Ross is dying? Thinking of this, Eric suddenly said a sentence.

Chris was a little puzzled, but nodded: It shouldn't last this year.

Without the suppression of Steve Ross, Warner's already fierce internal disputes are expected to be exposed on the table. Such Warners will definitely not be able to compete with Firefly. In the future, Firefly's biggest enemy in Hollywood is estimated to be numbered. Global.

According to your tone, you don't seem to hate Michael Eisner?

It doesn't matter whether you hate it or not, but I have always admired people with outstanding abilities, and it's a good thing to have opponents, otherwise life would be too boring, Eric said honestly, he was very clear about what he was doing. Everything that he has is obtained by the golden finger that he has passed through, so he admires those tycoons who can be all-powerful without relying on the golden finger.

After chatting about some Hollywood trivia, Eric remembered what Chris had just said at noon and asked, Didn't you say you have good news for me, what is it?

Can you surf the Internet here? Chris stood up with a smile and asked.

Eric nodded and immediately understood: Is there a result?

Yeah, wait a minute, Chris said with a smile, then walked out of the study and quickly returned with a laptop from the car.

Eric pushed aside his Apple notebook on the desk, pulled out the network cable and pulled it over. Seeing Chris open the notebook, he was a little surprised: Is this from IBM?

The famous series of antique machines.

Eric vaguely remembers seeing in a magazine not long ago that ibm was about to launch his own laptop series to compete with Apple, but he didn't expect it to be released, and it was still a series. In his previous life, because the ibm laptop business was acquired by Lenovo, Eric also bought it. It is estimated that the brand is the longest-running notebook series.

I just bought one and tried it out not long ago. The configuration is similar to Apple's. But this notebook is loaded with the latest 3.1 system. I think it is much easier to operate than the Mac, Chris Said that, because Firefly Investment focuses on investing in high-tech fields related to computers and networks, in order to be able to participate in a deeper level, Chris also spent a lot of thought on researching this knowledge.

Some familiar interfaces appeared in front of him, and Eric found the striking e icon on the light blue background desktop at a glance.

Chris skillfully connected the laptop to the Internet cable and saw that Eric had already started to operate the mouse and click the software shortcut, and explained with a smile: This is the software logo they designed according to the drawings you gave. At present, this software is still The alpha version for internal testing and the beta test version for users will be released at the end of November, and the official version will be released next year after user testing and feedback and appropriate adjustments.”

Listening to Chris's words, Eric has connected to the Internet and opened this graphical interface browser that appeared two years earlier than the original time and space. After a short time of loading, a browser interface dominated by gray tones appears on the screen. On the upper left border of the software is a striking '' mark, followed by shortcut icons such as menu bar, forward and back, and the address bar.

When the home page was loaded, the page that surprised Eric appeared again.

I can't believe Yahoo's homepage is finished.

Chris nodded. He shook his head again: If it's just a simple directory collection website, it won't take long. But the plan you gave is more than that. At present, the team is testing and optimizing the engine algorithm of the search function. They also feel that this The function will be one of the core technologies of Yahoo, so be very careful. What you see is only the test server we set up. At present, we have collected and organized more than 8,000 websites, which are divided into news, finance, technology, education and other sections .

Eric clicked on several websites in the directory and tried it out, and the opening speed was very smooth. Moreover, the homepage designed by Yahoo's team also followed the brief and clear design ideas given by Eric, not like Eric. In the past life, I saw the complicated information on those portal websites. However, Eric also knew that the root cause was that the current technical conditions could not meet those. Thinking of this, Eric looked at the homepage again. Although it was very simple, he always felt that there were few something.

Pictures, by the way, the website can't be full of text, there should be pictures, right? Eric said, and opened a few websites at random, and sure enough, he saw pictures on other people's website pages.

Chris seemed a little surprised, but quickly explained: I thought you wouldn't pay attention to this, ie's management is currently negotiating with a company called puseve to buy this company, and I was going to talk about it next time. I brought you the file.

puserve? Eric read it again, but couldn't remember the name of the company at all: What do they do, is it related to the picture?

Chris nodded: This company has developed a picture format that is very suitable for the current slow Internet speed. It can compress pictures by 50% without losing the picture quality at all. This picture format name It's called, people generally call it, you just saw a few pictures used on a few websites, and most of them use this picture format.

Eric immediately understood when he heard the name of the image.

So familiar!

Seeing Eric's obvious raised eyebrows, Chris paused with some doubts, but continued to talk: After the ie team plans to acquire this company, they will optimize the algorithm of the image format again, and apply for Related patents, and then use Internet Explorer as a carrier to promote.

Although Chris didn't point it out, Eric quickly understood that the promotion of a picture format using IE as a carrier would definitely prompt a large number of websites to actively use this format. And this algorithm format has been patented, so other companies who want to use the image format algorithm to develop commercial software must be authorized by ie, which forms a technical barrier that can block most of the technical strength Insufficient companies enter the browser field, and even a powerful software company like Microsoft will definitely consume a lot of time and money to bypass this layer of technical barriers and develop a graphical interface browser that can display formatted pictures. Technical PR, in the era of technological explosion, even if it is a few weeks behind, it may be left far behind by competitors, let alone months or years.

By the way, is there a software patent application for the IE kernel?

Chris nodded: Of course we have applied for those who can apply. Tim Berners-Lee also promised to favor IE's technical standards when promoting the World Wide Web, but many technologies are still free and open to the public, so we have to bypass our Patents are not too difficult, what we can do is to set up some technical barriers on related applications, such as the format just now.”

Eric felt a little regretful when he heard this.

Chris comforted: However, as long as we keep our technology and time advantages, we can still maintain our leading position. What's more, ie does not charge for it. Speaking of which, ie's team does not understand this point very much. They feel that this software It's great, and if it can be run commercially, it will definitely bring in a lot of profit.

This is what I promised Tim Berners-Lee, and you were there, Eric said. He didn't care too much about the profit of ie software sales, the key was the huge potential user base: And , in the future you will see the benefits of what I do.

I hope, Chris didn't say anything. There are only 20 million Internet users in the world, far less than the number of personal computers. Therefore, Chris doesn't feel too distressed about giving up ie's software sales profits.

After reading the results of the two companies, Yahoo and ie, Eric asked: What about the online mailbox service, to be honest, I am actually looking forward to this more, with online mailboxes, many things are much more convenient to communicate.

Chris shrugged: I can't show you this. The chief engineer named Steve Mitnick is a perfectionist and paranoid. I have asked several times but I haven't been able to get it back. The core program has long been It was written, but the guy felt that the security performance of the system was not good enough, and he has been conducting closed tests on a hypothetical server inside the company, and I only tried it out when I went to the Cambridge headquarters last time.

Eric smiled and said, Another paranoid named Steve!

Chris knew that Eric was referring to Steve Jobs, and laughed: Yes, but this is fine. As an online communication tool, if the security performance is not guaranteed, there will definitely be problems. So I I just let that guy toss around again and again, I heard that he is still a very good hacker. (To be continued. . . )