After lunch, Virginia dragged the two women out for a walk, and Eric and Chris went into the study together.

"Emily's reaction just now seems to be a little wrong, isn't she embarrassed to hear about marriage before?" asked Eric, sitting down at his desk.

Chris shook his head and said with a smile: "Maybe it's because they're pregnant, when you told me the news, I talked to Emily about something," Chris said this, shook his head helplessly, obviously the result was not very good, and quickly changed the subject: "What about you, what's going on in Europe, there is so much movement?"

Eric briefly told Chris about the situation at Disneyland in Europe.

After hearing this, Chris also began to shake his head: "The budget of one billion dollars has swelled to five and a half billion dollars, which is indeed out of control, if it is still not profitable after rectification, what are you going to do?"

Eric shrugged his shoulders and said: "Then we have to hold on, this project is related to the jobs of 30,000 people, and it consumes so many resources of the French government, if I dare to shut it down, it will be equivalent to tearing up my face with France." ”

Chris nodded, agreeing with Eric that because of the sudden closure of Disneyland Europe, Chris has also looked up some relevant information about Disneyland Europe these days.

The French government not only sold Disney's land equivalent to one-fifth of the urban area of Paris to Disney at an ultra-low land price in the 70s, but also provided more than one billion dollars in subsidies for the project. In addition, the French government has even built a high-speed railway between downtown Paris and Disneyland, which is another multi-billion dollar investment. And all this stems from the optimism about the prospects of European Disneyland, which consumes such a huge amount of public resources. If Disney dares to back down because the park's profits are not as good as expected. Facing the pressure of public opinion. The French government has only completely turned against Disney.

"Michael Eisner's ability is undoubted, but judging from his actions in the last years of Disney, he has been completely carried away by Disney's success, and it will not be good for Disney if Michael Eisner continues to control Disney, but judging from his series of actions to the world, he seems to have calmed down again," Chris remembered Michael Eisner, who initiated the Disneyland project. I couldn't help but comment.

Eric recalled a little, it seems that this is the case, in the mid-to-late nineties of the original time and space, although Disney's market value is still rising, but that is only because of the general trend of the overall economic situation in the United States, Disney's profits have been declining year after year, and the huge acquisition of ABC TV has also become a drag on the Disney Group, and Disney's debt ratio has increased to a rather dangerous value.

It was after the ouster of Michael Eisner that Disney revitalized the major film company through a series of reforms by his successor, Robert Iger.

Now Michael Eisner was kicked out of Disney by Eric and went to the world. It can be said that it is a good thing for Michael Eisner and Disney, and Disney can let go of Michael Eisner's constraints. Continue to grow at a rapid pace. Michael Eisner, who has calmed down, can also start his career again with the platform of Universal.

In the current Hollywood, Eric feels that there are not too many capable people, most of the directors of several major film companies are more than conservative and enterprising, and there are only three big movie company executives who impressed Eric in the 90s, Barry Diller, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner.

Judging from the current information, the possibility of Barry Diller buying Paramount is extremely low, and it is not easy for the Hollywood tycoon to return to Hollywood, Katzenberg is still staying at Disney, and Eric will not force Katzenberg out of Disney like Michael Eisner did, so it seems that his biggest rival in Hollywood will undoubtedly be Michael Eisner.

"I heard that Steve Ross is dying?" said Eric, who thought of this.

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

Without Steve Rose's suppression, Warner's already fierce internal strife is estimated to be exposed on the table, and such a Warner will definitely not be able to compete with the Fireflies. In the future, the biggest enemy of fireflies in Hollywood is estimated to be the world. ”

"You don't seem to hate Michael Eisner, do you?"

"It doesn't matter if you hate it or not, but I've 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 knew very well that everything he had so far was obtained by virtue of the golden finger of crossing, so he admired those tycoons who could dominate without a golden finger.

After talking about some Hollywood trivia, Eric remembered what Chris had said when he first came at noon and asked, "Didn't you say there was good news for me, what is it?"

"Do you have internet access here?" asked Chris as he stood up with a smile.

Eric nodded, and immediately understood: "Got a result?"

"Yes, you wait a minute," Chris said with a smile, and then walked out of the study and quickly returned from the car with a notebook.

Eric pushed his Apple laptop aside on the desk, pulled out the network cable and pulled it over, and saw Chris open the notebook, and said in surprise: "This is IBM's Thinkpad?"

The famous Thinkpad series of antique machines.

Eric vaguely remembers seeing in a magazine not long ago that IBM was about to launch its own laptop series to compete with Apple, but he didn't expect it to be on sale, and it was also a Thinkpad series, in his previous life, because IBM notebook business was acquired by Lenovo, Eric also bought a Thinkpad laptop, and it is estimated that the Thinkpad brand is a laptop series that has existed for the longest time.

"Thinkpad700c, it was just released not long ago, so I bought one and tried it out. The configuration is similar to Apple's Powerbook. However, this laptop is loaded with the latest Windows 3.1 system. I think it's much easier to operate than the Mac," says Chris, because Firefly Investments focuses on investing in high-tech areas related to computers and networks, and Chris has put a lot of effort into this area to be able to get involved on a deeper level.

Some familiar Windows interface appeared in front of him, and Eric spotted the eye-catching e icon on the light blue background of the desktop.

Chris expertly connected his laptop to the internet cable, and when he saw that Eric had already started to operate the mouse to click on the software shortcut, he explained with a smile: "This is the software logo they designed according to the drawings you gave. The software is currently an alpha version of internal testing, and the beta version for users will be released at the end of November, and the official version will not be released until next year after user testing and feedback, and appropriate adjustments. ”

Listening to Chris's words, Eric was connected to the Internet and opened the graphical interface browser that appeared two years ahead of the original plane. After a short load, the gray-tone browser interface appears on the screen, with the eye-catching 'Internet Explorer' logo on the border at the top left of the software, followed by the menu bar, shortcut icons such as forward and backward, and the address bar.

When the homepage loaded, Eric was surprised again.

"I didn't expect Yahoo's homepage to be completed. ”

Chris nodded. Shaking his head again: "If it's just a simple catalog collection website, it won't take long." But that's not all in your proposal, the team is currently testing and optimizing the engine algorithm for the search function, and they feel that this feature will be one of Yahoo's core technologies, so they are very cautious. All you see is our test server, which has collected and sorted out more than 8,000 websites, divided into news, finance, technology, education and other sections. ”

Eric clicked on several websites in the directory and tried it, and the opening speed was very smooth, and the homepage designed by the Yahoo team also followed the brief and clear design ideas given by Eric, and there was no redundant information like Eric saw those portals in his previous life, 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, but he always felt that something was missing.

"Pictures, by the way, websites can't be all text, there should be pictures, right?" Eric said, opening a few more websites at random, and sure enough, he saw pictures in other people's website pages.

Chris seemed a little surprised, but quickly explained, "I didn't think you were going to pay attention to this, IE's management is currently in talks with a company called CompuServe to buy this company, and I was going to bring you the relevant documents next time." ”

"CompuServe?" Eric read, but couldn't remember the name of the company at all, "what do they do, is it anything to do with the pictures?"

Chris nodded: "This company has developed a picture format that is very suitable for the current slow Internet speed, which can compress the picture by 50% without losing the image quality at all, this image format is called GraphicsInterchangeFormat, which is generally called GIF, you just saw the pictures used on several websites, most of them use this image format." ”

When Eric heard the name of the GIF, he immediately understood.

It's so familiar!

Chris paused with some confusion when he saw Eric's obvious raised eyebrows, but continued: "After the IE team acquires this company, it will optimize the algorithm of the GIF image format again, apply for relevant patents, and then use IE browser as the carrier to promote. ”

Although Chris didn't point it out, Eric quickly understood that using IE as a carrier to promote a picture format will definitely prompt a large number of websites to take the initiative to use this format. And this algorithm format has been patented, then other companies want to use GIF image format algorithm for commercial software development work, must get IE authorization, which forms a kind of technical barrier, can prevent most of the technical strength of the company into the browser field, and even if it is a powerful software company like Microsoft, to bypass this layer of technical barriers to develop a graphical interface browser that can display GIF format pictures, it will definitely consume a lot of time and money for technical public relations, in the era of technology explosion, even if it is a few weeks behind, it may be far away from competitors, let alone months or years.

"By the way, has the software patent been filed for the IE kernel?"

Chris nodded: "Of course we have applied for everything that can be applied, and Tim Berners Lee also promised to promote the World Wide Web with an appropriate bias towards IE technical standards, but many technologies are still free and public, so it is not too difficult to bypass our patents, what we can do is to set up some technical barriers on related applications around us, such as the GIF format just now." ”

When Eric heard this, he immediately felt a little regretful.

Chris reassured: "However, as long as we maintain our technology and time advantage, we can still maintain our leading position, not to mention, IE does not charge a fee, speaking of which, the IE team does not understand this, they think this software is very good, if it can be commercially operated, it will definitely bring a lot of profits." ”

"That's what I promised Tim Berners Lee, and you're here," says Eric, who doesn't care too much about the profits from IE software sales, but the huge potential user base. ”

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

After reading the results of Yahoo and IE, Eric asked: "What about the online mailbox service, to be honest, in fact, I am looking forward to this more, with online mailbox, many things are much more convenient to communicate." ”

Chris shrugged: "I can't show you this, Hotmail's chief engineer named Steve Mitnick is a perfectionist paranoid, I asked a few times and couldn't get back, Hotmail's core program has been written a long time ago, but that guy thinks the security performance of the system is not good enough, and has been conducting closed tests on the company's internal hypothetical server, and I only tried it out the last time I went to Hotmail headquarters in Cambridge." ”

Eric laughed, "Another bigot named Steve!"

Chris knew that Eric was referring to Steve Jobs, and laughed along: "Yes, but that's fine, Hotmail is an online communication tool, if the security performance is not guaranteed, there will definitely be problems." So I let that guy toss around repeatedly, and I've heard that he's a pretty good hacker. (To be continued......)