At the end of September, San Francisco did not give any feeling of entering autumn. It was still sunny with lush green trees.
The mountain villa in Woodside.
The date was September 25, a Saturday.
These days, Simon mainly worked in Los Angeles on weekdays and spent the weekends in San Francisco with his female assistant.
In fact, it was Janet who sent him to San Francisco.
Because Veronica flew over from New York every weekend to see the kids.
During these holidays, most of the time seemed leisurely. Since it was maternity leave, it was inevitably somewhat monotonous.
After playing guitar with his female assistant for a while and reading a few pages of a book, the afternoon sun made people drowsy. So she curled up next to Simon and fell asleep. The outdoor environment was somewhat unsuitable for a pregnant woman's sleep, so Simon carried his sleeping assistant into the bedroom, then returned to the backyard veranda, sitting at a round table, drinking coffee, and going through some materials organized by the A-girl today.
No longer entangled by various detailed work every day, Simon could finally take a serious look at the entire Westeros system.
Recently, he focused on the impact of the launch of the 58list website on the traditional print media, which in turn affected the distribution of Daenerys Entertainment films.
Daenerys Entertainment's three labels, including High Gate Films' release of this year's Venice Golden Lion award-winning Kieslowski's "Blue" from the "Three Colors Trilogy: Blue," released a total of four movies in September.
The more important one was Brian De Palma's new film "Carlito's Way," released on September 10. This classic gangster film, starring Al Pacino and directed by De Palma, had a production cost of $30 million and opened on 1,679 screens.
The other two were a Cold War-era drama "The Innocent" starring Anthony Hopkins, released by New World Pictures, and "The House of the Spirits," a novel adaptation starring Meryl Streep, about the tumultuous life of a Chilean girl with prophetic abilities, released by High Gate Films.
Among the four movies, only "Carlito's Way" was entirely produced by Daenerys Entertainment. The other three were either bought out or co-distributed.
Based on the word-of-mouth and box office data of the four movies, Daenerys Entertainment's distribution department determined that the confrontation between the Westeros system and traditional print media had significantly affected the company's film distribution.
Take "Carlito's Way" as an example. After its release on September 10, the film received a media composite score of 7.1, slightly above average but not outstanding. Many critics described it as Brian De Palma and Al Pacino repeating their previous work in "Scarface," making the plot seem old and lacking innovation.
In contrast, the emerging internet platforms had a composite score of around 8.
The gap was quite evident.
However, in terms of box office, "Carlito's Way" grossed $11.39 million in its first week, with a second-week drop of 26%, earning another $8.36 million, making the two-week total $19.75 million. The North American total box office was expected to be around $35 million.
This commercial performance basically met Daenerys Entertainment's expectations.
With a production cost of $30 million and a marketing budget of $10 million, a North American box office of $35 million meant the project was not a success. However, relying on overseas distribution and subsequent channels, recouping costs and achieving some profit wouldn't be a problem.
When Simon approved the project, he had already anticipated this outcome.
Daenerys Entertainment couldn't always succeed; occasionally, it needed such mediocre projects to maintain its reputation.
Overall, traditional print media significantly influenced the film's reputation but did not have a substantial impact on the box office. This was not surprising.
Currently, the advertising expenses for Hollywood films allocated to traditional print media only account for about 25%. The more important platforms are still television channels, accounting for 50%, with the remaining 25% divided among theater posters, street advertisements, radio ads, etc.
The proportion of advertising expenses in print media also reflects its influence on a film's commercial performance.
25%.
Not decisive.
Of course, this proportion applies to standard commercial films. For art films produced by companies like High Gate Films, which can't afford high marketing expenses, traditional print media's reputation is crucial for promotion.
For instance, "The House of the Spirits," released on September 17, had a composite media score of only 2.6.
The film's quality was indeed not up to par, but the High Gate Films team felt that the mainstream print media were overly harsh on it.
As a film released on 513 screens, its first-week box office was only $1.71 million, with a total North American box office expected to be around $5 million. However, the budget was as high as $25 million.
It was a complete loss.
Fortunately, the film's production wasn't funded by Daenerys Entertainment; the budget mainly came from Europe.
For a project destined to fail, whether the box office was $5 million or $7 million made little difference. The change in traditional print media's attitude towards Daenerys Entertainment was visibly noticeable.
In recent years, Daenerys Entertainment had been trying to court film critics. It was evident that Simon had overestimated the independence of critics.
This was also understandable.
Daenerys Entertainment could offer critics some perks, but this group still relied on the fees from print media, so they could never be entirely independent.
This wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Lack of independence meant they could be influenced by external forces.
After pondering for a moment, Simon put down the materials, opened the laptop on the round table in front of him, and began drafting emails to several executives of Daenerys Entertainment.
The key to Daenerys Entertainment's upcoming film marketing was to ensure the promotion of key projects, such as films scheduled for important release dates. For other films, they just needed to do their best.
If some print media went too far, they could take drastic measures when necessary.
Additionally, they needed to strengthen the collaboration between Daenerys Entertainment and the Ygret Portal, guiding more users to check movie reviews and participate in discussions on the internet platform. As long as users were drawn to the internet, it would become the main battlefield of the Westeros system.
The number of North American internet users had reached one-third of the total population, and they were the most valuable consumers.
If operated properly, leveraging Westeros system's advantages on the internet platform could largely offset the negative impact of traditional print media on Daenerys Entertainment's film marketing.
After finishing an email, it was already past four in the afternoon.
A-girl quietly appeared, tidied up the scattered materials on Simon's desk, and said, "Mr. Gates is here."
"Let him come here."
Allison nodded and left.
Moments later, Bill Gates walked over under A-girl's guidance. Simon then got up and shook hands with him, and they sat down together at the round table.
After A-girl left again, Bill Gates, pretending to sip coffee, discreetly withdrew his gaze from Allison's curvaceous figure wrapped in an OL suit.
Slightly dissatisfied with Simon's lack of a personal welcome, Gates didn't exchange many pleasantries and went straight to the point, "Simon, what's with Linux?"
Just this Wednesday, Ygret Company suddenly released a fully open-source Linux 1.0 operating system source code. This was the result of Ygret's Linux team working for more than half a year. Compared to the rough kernel of the founder Linus Torvalds, this version had 200,000 lines of code. Although not yet perfect, it was already basically practical.
A completely open-source free operating system had never been seen in the mainstream computer industry.
It was imaginable what kind of impact this completely free open-source operating system would have on the industry.
Publicly, Ygret released this product to further demonstrate the company's openness.
Of course, privately, this openness was for long-term planning.
For the computer industry, whether a large operating system application or a simple program for executing one or two commands, it could only form an industry and even achieve monopoly if it had enough users.
In Ygret's plan, they wouldn't directly commercialize the Linux operating system but intended to provide further application software and solutions based on the Linux platform.
The Red Hat company's business model later proved this to be feasible.
IBM, to strengthen its position in open-source applications, even acquired Red Hat for over $30 billion, proving this business model's viability.
However, all this premise was that the Linux system must be sufficiently popular.
Ygret released its heavily invested Linux operating system source code to accelerate this process.
Facing Gates' question, Simon calmly said, "Bill, you must already know this is a public open-source operating system project. Also, Ygret's target is the server operating system field, which won't significantly impact Microsoft. I know what you're concerned about, Bill, and I can assure you, Ygret will not develop a desktop operating system based on Linux."
Gates' expression did not ease and even became somewhat agitated, raising his voice unconsciously, "But you should know, Simon, Microsoft just launched Windows NT, and you're disrupting the market!"
"Unix is already open enough, yet many people still have concerns about it. Bill, do you think people will accept a completely closed-source server operating system?"
"Why not, as long as we can provide more stable services?"
"There are no absolutely stable services. Any operating system will inevitably encounter various issues. People need a system where they can conveniently and quickly find and solve problems when they arise. A closed-source operating system is like a car with its hood welded shut. No matter how reliable you say it is, users
will have concerns."
Gates seemed to lose patience, "How to sell a welded-shut car is our business, Simon. You must stop Linux development. Don't forget, you're also a major shareholder of Microsoft, the second-largest."
"Sorry, Bill, I can't agree to that."
Gates stared fiercely at the young man opposite him. After a moment, realizing he had little leverage, he grew more furious, "Alright, then promise me Ygret won't continue releasing Linux source code."
The current 1.0 kernel, though significantly improved from Linus Torvalds' initial version, still needed ongoing refinement to rival other widely-used operating systems.
Simon was straightforward, "Okay, I can promise you that."
Bill Gates was momentarily speechless.
Simon didn't explain that Ygret had already supported Linus Torvalds in establishing the Linux Foundation to coordinate global volunteer developers to continue perfecting the operating system.
Even if Ygret stopped releasing the latest Linux source code, the Linux Foundation would continue launching versions 2.0 and above.
Of course, Ygret's Linux development team would still participate to guide the operating system in Ygret's desired direction.
Gates also knew Simon was hiding something, but he couldn't pursue it further, so he switched topics, "Regarding the IE browser pre-installation, I think we can renegotiate."
Simon smiled, "Bill, you can discuss this with Jeff and the others."
When Simon initially wanted to pre-install IE directly on the Windows operating system, Gates had refused, so he had to settle for cooperating with OEM manufacturers like Compaq, HP, and Dell.
With the increasing popularity of the internet, whether IE browser software was pre-installed had become a factor for consumers when buying personal computers.
Thus, even if each computer's IE browser pre-installation cost an additional $10, mainstream OEM manufacturers still gradually began cooperating with Ygret, including even Apple.
Since he had already secured the cooperation of mainstream OEM manufacturers, there was little need to directly collaborate with Microsoft.
After all, doing so would entail a greater monopoly risk.
Simon also knew why Gates suddenly changed his stance.
Microsoft's MSN portal was launching soon.
Ygret offered almost the same conditions to Microsoft as it did to AOL.
Microsoft was also emulating AOL by partnering with other North American ISPs to launch Microsoft's news box, aiming to increase MSN portal's traffic.
The news box, similar to later pop-up ads, was a window Ygret opened for its two competitors.
Compared to many other websites, AOL and Microsoft were already quite fortunate.
But Gates was obviously not satisfied.
If IE became a pre-installed software on the Windows operating system, Gates probably felt Microsoft could use it as leverage to demand the right to preset IE's homepage, further boosting MSN portal's traffic.
This was actually quite a significant investment.
Even if Ygret offered some price discounts for pre-installation, based on Microsoft's annual operating system sales, it would still cost billions of dollars annually.
However, the internet wave had already begun surging, and even Microsoft worried about being left behind in this industry revolution, thus considering it worth the expense if it could secure enough online traffic.
Simon, in his place, would likely make the same decision.
Thus, he was even less likely to agree to Gates' request.
Ygret's dominant position in the internet field was not to be challenged. Even knowing Microsoft's eventual failure in the internet industry, Simon wasn't willing to open this door. Who knew what other changes might occur in history?
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