$1 million in cash, plus 500,000 shares of Netscape Company's stock, totaling $5 million...

Such generous conditions not only made Chen Dayou excited, but even a time travel party like Du Qiu was a little moved.

Netscape has just started its IPO process at this time. It is expected that the stock price will be $10-12 when it goes public. In order to use appreciation space to lure Du Qiu, Mark Anderson directly dropped to $8 per share. In fact, when Netscape went public in August, the opening price was $71. When the market value was the highest in December, the stock price broke through $170. In this way, 500,000 shares are worth at least $35.5 million, and at most $85 million.

It's just a browser, starting from February 18th to ending on March 18th, and it's only 28 days...

Whether it is $35.5 million or $85 million, it is enough to spend your whole life...

However, Du Qiu hesitated for only a second or two, then refused in a firm tone and said, "Mark, thank you for your kindness. My company doesn't sell it, but you can use the products and technologies for free."

When Jiang Danfeng translated this sentence, he felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, sweating his hands and feet, dry tongue, 5 million US dollars, equivalent to more than 40 million yuan, Du Qiu actually refused!

This guy was just a smuggler who cheated three months ago and even had a problem with eating!

Now he easily gave up the opportunity to become a millionaire. What exactly is he going to do?!

Mark Anderson was disappointed with Du Qiu's rejection, and persuaded him a few more words. Seeing that he insisted on selling, he had to say: "Du, you are a great programmer. Although we cannot work in the same company, I hope to maintain a close cooperative relationship with you in the future."

"You can call me autumn. Du is my surname and Qiu is my name." Du Qiu's purpose is to cooperate. He first corrected Mark Anderson's mistake in addressing, and then said: "I want to work with your company to jointly formulate a Napoleon code on web technology."

"code?"

"It's just an analogy. I think the current web technology is too confusing and there is no basic standard, just like medieval Europe, so we need a Napoleon and a Napoleon code."

"Autumn, you may not be very clear in China. Tim had already established W3C in October last year and is doing this."

Tim refers to Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. He established the World Wide Web Alliance at the MIT on October 1, 1994, as W3C. The purpose is to solve the incompatibility problems caused by different platforms, technologies and developers in web applications, ensure the smooth and complete circulation of Web information, formulate a series of standards and urge web application developers and content providers to follow these standards.

If the Internet is compared to a country, the W3C is equivalent to a parliament that formulates laws. However, after a normal country formulates laws, it will be enforced by violent institutions. However, the Internet is a loose alliance, and the law enforcement power is in the hands of major IT companies. The standards set by the W3C can only be "recommended and implemented" and cannot be "enforced". Moreover, various disputes are made during the production of standards, and it is often difficult to solve a technology for several years.

The most famous case is the HTML language standard. The 4.0 standard was released in 1997 and the 4.01 standard was released in 1999. Then, after the troubles of XHTML, it was boycotted by mainstream browsers such as IE and Firefox. After the open and secret struggles between Microsoft and Google, it has been arguing for more than ten years. It was not until October 2014 that the 5.0 standard was released. This standard was not popular until Du Qiu traveled through time.

Du Qiu is a time travel party and knows that Tim Berners-Lee will enter a dead end in the next few years to toss out the HTML standard of "what you see is what you get". Not only has it wasted a lot of energy, but it also made his reputation bad, because this style is only suitable for static document processing and is not suitable for dynamic web design at all.

Based on the great ideal of benefiting tens of millions of web developers in the future, Du Qiu decided to do it yourself instead of waiting for others to set standards. Before Microsoft has paid attention to the browser, he will unify the three basic languages ​​of HTML, CSS and iScript, and then try to mess with XML, DOM, BOM and other things, and hold the standardization dominance of web technology in his hands.

But ideals are just ideals, and it’s okay to say it. The main purpose of doing this is to suppress competitors and lay the foundation for the future Internet empire, because although the standards themselves are free and open, they will take at least a few months or even one or two years to realize. The leader will run first in the process of formulating, but competitors can only wait until the standards are released before starting to run. How can they chase it?

"Mark, W3C is just a loose organization that sets standards based on the current situation. It is too low to be able to wait for them to set standards before developing new products. The HTML language has been invented for four or five years and is still in a state of chaos. I think we have the responsibility to go..."

Mark Anderson is a very smart businessman. The iView browser and iScript engine are both open source and free. Netscape can be used at will, but he specially offered a high price of $5 million to acquire it. The purpose is only one, that is, to hold the standard of the iScript language in his hand. Therefore, Du Qiu briefly explained his plan to improve the HTML language, which immediately attracted attention.

"Qiu, I agree with your point of view very much. We can talk about the acquisition again. If you agree to the acquisition, we can specially form a strong team for you, without limiting the R&D funds, and without interfering with your work content. How about it?"

"I appreciate it, but I don't like working in a big company." Du Qiu refused again and suggested: "I mean that our two companies jointly set up a working group to promote the development of web technology."

For a rational and rational businessman, if he cannot take it for himself, then cooperation is also a good choice, which is better than becoming a mortal enemy. Mark Anderson quickly agreed to Du Qiu's proposal and agreed to send two programmers to keep in touch with him and jointly study and formulate web technology standards.

There are too few two people...

But this is a good sign. Microsoft is currently developing IE employees in total...

When leaving Mark Anderson's office and taking the elevator downstairs, Chen Dayou clenched his fist and punched the box twice, shouting: "5 million US dollars! 5 million US dollars! It's gone!"

Jiang Danfeng was also very regretful and said in confusion: "Du Qiu, why do you refuse? That's more than 40 million. Sanjiang Provincial TV may not be able to make so much money even if it broadcasts one year of advertisements."

"Keep calm, we will make more in the future."

Chen Dayou hit the elevator twice and asked: "Du Qiu, Netscape now has tens of millions of users, and the market value after it goes public is at least over 100 million US dollars. We have the technology, and they have money and can benefit from it. Why didn't they agree to Mark Anderson just now and join them directly? Even if you join, you can still be your Qin Shihuang or Napoleon!"

"Brother Chen, Netscape Company is born with innate deficiency and acquired disorders, and will die soon and cannot fulfill my dream at all."

"Why are there congenital deficiency and acquired disorder?"

"It is a mixed race between the traditional software industry and the emerging Internet industry. The traditional software industry emphasizes selling a product and making a profit. The Internet industry emphasizes giving away products for free and collects service fees or advertising fees. Netscape's management comes from the traditional software industry and does not understand the business model of the Internet industry at all. If the head and feet cannot be coordinated, they will definitely fall to death."

Seeing that Chen Dayou and Jiang Danfeng didn't understand it very well, he explained in detail: "Last year, when Netscape officially released Netscape-Navigator, Mark Anderson rejected the opposition and released it in the form of sharing software, which was free for ordinary users. So in a few months it occupied more than 50% of the browser market and had tens of millions of users. However, after Jim Buxdale switched from AT-&T to become CEO this year, he immediately decided to charge an upgrade fee of US$49 for ordinary users, so many users simply did not upgrade and continued to use the old version of the browser."

"Our browser quality is better than Netscape, and it is released in a free and open source form. There is no intention of charging. It will definitely take away their users quickly. Maybe it will be on par with them in a few months and will also be available at that time. Why give up the future hundreds of millions of dollars for just $5 million?"

After explaining this, Chen Dayou immediately put aside his annoyance, his mind returned to his clarity, and nodded repeatedly, "It makes sense, I am smart in small matters and confused in big matters, so my dad always teaches me a lesson that you should be calm whenever you are big things, so you can achieve great things. Fortunately, you are the major shareholder, if it were me, you would have agreed in almost every ten minutes."

After Du Qiu and others left, Mark Anderson called Michael Toy and Jamie Gavinsky and asked: "Can we integrate iView into our browser?"

“It’s OK, but it takes time.”

"how long?"

"It may take about two weeks to one month."

"We don't have that much time, so we can give you ten days at most to integrate the main functions, including the iScript engine, into our browser, first release Windows 3.1 version, then DOS, Unix and Linux."

At this time, the phone on the desk rang. Mark Anderson answered it and said: "The Legal Department has studied the open source licensing agreement of iView and believes that it is looser than CPL. Our own programs do not need to be open source. We just need to publish the modified iView source code in the form of CDDL protocol."

Jamie Gavins is basically a loyal believer of free software. He is completely unresisting with open source software. He simply takes over the task and then leaves. Michael Toy is the management team, who is more sensitive to business and said worriedly: "Mark, if you do this, the core technology is in the hands of others and we will lose control of the product."

"I know, but iScript is a brand new technology. If it is independently developed, it will take at least three months to half a year. After completion, iView may have occupied the entire market." Mark Anderson rubbed his forehead and said, "I have to discuss with Clark and Jim to raise the price a little, and to buy Qiu's company as much as possible, otherwise it will have a serious impact on the IPO."

The acquisition is not the focus of Michael Toy's attention. He suggested: "Since Jim decided to charge an upgrade fee, our browser user growth has begun to slow down. Now iView is open source and free, and it may take away many users. I think the $49 upgrade fee should be cancelled, anyway, multiple users will not upgrade at all."

"Michael, I know that charging upgrade fees is a very stupid decision, but if you don't charge, the financial report at the IPO will be very ugly because we have almost no revenue, only expenditure! expenditure! expenditure!" Mark Anderson clicked a pile of documents on his desk and said, "We have to let Wall Street investors know how companies make money, and we can't make them think that companies only spend money."

Michael Toy was speechless because in 1995, no one in the world knew how Internet companies like Netscape, which made money by making software...
Chapter completed!