game trailblazer

Chapter 190 The Eve of ICQ Launch

The next morning, when Chen Zishan woke up from a deep sleep, she found that Judy had fallen asleep lying on the desk where the computer was placed. It seemed that she had played ICQ all night. Now and again there was the sound of typewriters and "uh-oh".

Chen Zishan got out of bed, walked lightly to the bathroom to wash up, and when she came out, she found that Judy was still awake. She sighed, took a thin blanket from the bed, and covered Judy.It seemed that there was no sound of rain outside the window, but Chen Zishan still went to the window to look out. The sky outside looked really good, then she went to her bed to pick up her backpack, and then went to the coat She took off her coat by the shelf and put it on. After finishing these, Chen Zishan opened the door of the room and went out to prepare breakfast.

After breakfast, Chen Zishan wandered outside for a while, and didn't return to the dormitory until after nine o'clock. At this time, Judy was no longer in the room.Back in the room, Chen Zishan picked up the phone and called her mentor Jay McInerney, but unfortunately there was no one answering, so she had to leave a message for Jay McInerney, saying that she had something important to do talk over.Putting down the phone, Chen Zishan didn't go out. In order to wait for the tutor's call back, she simply stayed in the room and read to pass the time.This wait lasted all morning. It was not until after lunch that Chen Zishan received a call from her mentor, Jay McInerney. They made an appointment at 03:30 pm on Boylston Street across the Charles River. Meet at Starbucks.

Before going out, Judy came back with an excited look on her face.As soon as she entered the room, Judy wanted to turn on her computer, and even activated ICQ.After Chen Zishan asked, she found out that in the morning, Judy went to find her boyfriend Ken again, and taught him the ICQ that she just learned yesterday. Of course, Judy didn't forget to install an ICQ on Ken's computer. , and she had to keep ICQ on before she left, so she couldn't wait to try it out as soon as she came back.

Seeing Judy knocking excitedly, Chen Zishan shook her head helplessly, put on her backpack and went out, planning to go to the appointment.After leaving the dormitory, Chen Zishan got into a taxi, crossed the MIT Bridge, and turned into Boylston Avenue. The taxi stopped near Starbucks not long after.Taking some change from her body, Chen Zishan paid the fare, got out of the car and walked into Starbucks.

Chen Zishan looked at her watch. It was still 5 minutes away from the appointed time. The tutor should not have come yet, but she still looked around in the store, and she did not see the tutor.Chen Zishan found a more conspicuous seat by the window and sat down, ordered a caramel macchiato, sipped it slowly, and waited.After drinking half of the coffee, Chen Zishan finally saw her mentor Jay McInerney appearing at the door of the cafe. She hurriedly stood up and waved her hand. Jay McInerney's eyes fell was attracted.

Jay McInerney walked to the seat opposite Chen Zishan and just sat down when the waiter came over with the list and asked, "Excuse me, sir, what do you want to drink?"

"A glass of the day, thank you." Jay McInerney smiled and nodded to the waiter.

"Okay, please wait." The waiter wrote it down, nodded and left.

Seeing the waiter walk away, Jay McInerney turned his head to look at Chen Zishan and said, "Susan, what is the important thing you are talking about?"

"Jay, I heard yesterday that there is a problem with the funding of our research project. Is it true?" Chen Zishan expressed the question in her heart, which is the first thing she needs to figure out today.

Jay McInerney's complexion changed, he hesitated for a moment, sighed and said, "It's possible, but I'm still negotiating with the funder, maybe the situation is not as bad as you think."

"Jay, I have a friend who is in charge of an investment fund. He is very interested in our research. I wonder if you would like to talk to him." Chen Zishan explained the reason for her visit today.

"Oh," Jay McInerney's eyes lit up. Maybe this is a good opportunity to solve the problem of funding sources. He nodded repeatedly and said, "Of course we can talk, but does the other party have any conditions?"

"Well, he wants us to have a lab in Hong Kong."

"How is this possible? Hong Kong does not have the research conditions and atmosphere here." Jay McInerney shook his head repeatedly.

"He is willing to provide us with the site and related facilities needed for research, and provide a certain amount of research funding every year." Chen Zishan continued.

At this time, the waiter brought a cup of coffee to Jay McInerney and said with a smile: "Sir, this is your daily selection, please use it slowly."

Jay McInerney nodded to the waiter, took a sip from his cup, the coffee tasted very pure, and the sour taste was very light.Regarding what Chen Zishan said, to be honest, Jay McInerney is still a little moved. Although he doesn't know how much investment he can get, but judging from the current conditions, the other party seems to be very sincere, and it's not that he can't talk at all. , and the key is that the original investors of the research project have become impatient, and efforts to find new funding sources have not made any progress during this period.

Judging from the current situation, the investment in front of him seems to be the only opportunity, but Jay McInerney is not the first rookie looking for investment, he will not just agree in such a muddle.Jay McInerney pondered for a while, nodded and said, "Well, it's okay to talk, but I don't know when it's convenient for the other party?"

While drinking her caramel macchiato, Chen Zishan sighed secretly in her heart, it seems that she still thinks about the problem in a simple way, thinking that she can talk about it like this, but now it seems that things are not so easy It's done, but I'm still a little too young.Of course, she is not a person who is easily discouraged. Although there is no result this time, she still secretly swears in her heart that she must work hard to learn more experience in business management, negotiation and communication in the future.

But at the moment, Chen Zishan has no better way to deal with this matter. After thinking about it in her heart, she said: "Jay, he should come to the United States next week. After dealing with his own affairs, he may have time on the 20th." , but I still have to ask about the specific date, or let him contact you by phone first before he comes."

"That's fine." Jay McInerney nodded, holding his cup and continuing to taste his own cup of coffee.

……

After dinner, Chen Zishan returned to the dormitory, and found that Judy was still happily chatting on ICQ, but there were a few more chat partners, and it seemed that she had used all the numbers she got yesterday .

"Judy, you haven't been out since you came back, have you?" Chen Zishan couldn't help asking, looking at Judy who was concentrating on her.

"Hmm..." Judy swallowed the bread in her mouth and said without looking back, "No, I went out to buy something to eat just now."

Chen Zishan shook her head helplessly, went to the desk, turned on the lamp, took out a book introducing the operation of the institute that she bought in the afternoon from her bag, and read it carefully.She never thought of managing a research institute by herself before, but her thoughts have changed a little these two days, but she also found that her strength is not enough, and there are still many things to learn, although reading can't solve all the problems , but it is still a good choice just as a start.

After reading the book for a while, Chen Zishan felt more and more dizzy. She never thought that running a research institute would be so complicated, including the introduction and training of talents, the development and construction of the research institute, the rationalization of research directions, and the raising of research funds. And use, patent application and commercial promotion, many things need to be considered in all aspects.Thinking about these things, Chen Zishan couldn't help feeling guilty, but Zhang Lexing's trust made her unwilling to back down.In fact, Chen Zishan's thinking was wrong in this regard. Zhang Lexing's original intention was to help her find something to do, and she didn't want her to be idle every day after she came back, feeling too boring.

Looking at the time, it was almost nine o'clock in the evening. Chen Zishan turned on her laptop, connected to the Internet and logged into her ICQ. There was a "uh-oh" sound, and another message from Zhang Lexing came.

freedom: "Good evening! ^_^"

Susan: "Hi, good morning! ^.^"

freedom: "How's the weather today?"

Susan: "It's much better than yesterday, and the sun is out. By the way, I talked to my tutor today."

freedom: "How is the situation?"

Susan: "I haven't talked well, but the tutor is still a little interested. After you come, I may want you to talk to him in person."

freedom: "That's no problem, let's talk about it when I come."

Susan: "Okay, we'll talk about it later."

……

After chatting, Chen Zishan let go of a concern, but Zhang Lexing was a little more depressed. In fact, the reason why he said that yesterday was just to find an excuse for Chen Zishan to come back. Even if he stayed in Hong Kong, it would be more convenient. He wanted to really set up a large-scale microbiological research institute, but now it seems that the development of the situation is a little bit beyond his imagination.However, Zhang Lexing is very interested in entering the biological industry. After all, this is also a very promising industry in the future. Although it is a little earlier than the planned time, but if the research team of Chen Zishan, the mentor, is strong, it will be good to win over. It's not a bad thing. Of course, the next priority is to find out the real strength of this team and its previous achievements, so that it is easy to choose. Zhang Lexing naturally handed over this task to Russell Market Research Company.

When the time came to November 11th, Zhang Lexing had already arrived in San Jose from BJ. The main purpose of this trip was to officially launch ICQ.Yang Xinxin couldn't understand Zhang Lexing's nervousness at all. Although she had a preliminary understanding of ICQ's development prospects under Zhang Lexing's repeated narration, she was very uncomfortable about making such a big move for the official operation of such a small company. Understand, in her opinion, at most one assistant can be sent to take a look, that is the most efficient.

Zhang Lexing also has his own reasons for doing this. He knows that the real ICQ was born in the hands of a small Israeli company named Mirabilis, and the time is at the end of next year. No one knows whether Miracle Company will be born or whether it will launch better instant messaging software, so Zhang Lexing wants to use this gap time to make his ICQ as strong as possible. With the Matthew effect and some instant messaging software operation methods he knows, his own ICQ will definitely develop very powerfully, bringing a very good platform for the development of the game industry.

Zhang Lexing is well aware of how ICQ failed in China back then. The main reason was that the Chinese version was launched too late, and it was not as convenient and quick to use as Tencent’s OICQ, so he did not come alone this time when he came to the United States. A team of 12 people was drawn from Le Yiyang. They will join the update work of the subsequent version of ICQ. At the same time, there is a more important task to be responsible for the development of the Chinese version of ICQ.In addition to the first English version and the planned Chinese version, other language versions of ICQ will also be launched next year in order to achieve the goal of occupying market share as quickly as possible.

After arriving in San Jose, settling down with the development team from BJ, and making an appointment with Jay McInerney, Chen Zishan's mentor, Zhang Lexing came to ICQ to learn about the preparations for the launch.As early as two weeks ago, the ICQ1.0 version after repeated tests has come up with the final official version, and the time after that is mainly for server setup and testing.According to the thoughts of Yang Xinxin and the ICQ company, it should be enough to have two servers in the early stage, one for registration and background data, and the other for login, but Zhang Lexing, who knows the popularity of ICQ, doesn't think so. Going online, maybe two servers will be full in a week. In order not to affect the initial experience of users, Zhang Lexing arranged for someone to buy back 20 IBM high-performance servers at one go, and put them all in ICQ's In the engine room.The servers were all bought back, and the ICQ staff couldn't let these machines idle, so they had to change the original two server model to a larger scale according to Zhang Lexing's request.

Although the purchase of the server was arranged by Zhang Lexing, he had never seen the real thing before. When he actually walked into the ICQ company's computer room and saw the row of cabinets, Zhang Lexing still felt a shock. Of course, the bigger feeling was "Servers take up a lot of space", at most 4 tower servers can be stuffed into a cabinet. If this can be replaced with rack servers, the number can be more than doubled. If it is a blade server The density of servers is even greater, but unfortunately there are none at this time, so we have to use tower servers to make do with it.

"How is the preparation for ICQ going online?" Zhang Lexing turned around and asked Mike Dyson, the person in charge of ICQ, who was following him.

"Mr. Zhang, everything is ready, and the official homepage of ICQ has also been prepared. If we don't have to wait until midnight on the 18th, we can provide ICQ services now." Mike Dyson replied.

"Well, it's worth the wait. During this period of time, we can use appropriate publicity to let more people know about ICQ."

"Mr. Zhang, what do you think we still need to improve?"

"Before going online, check the server again. After ICQ is officially launched, nothing can happen again. We must ensure that users have a good initial experience, so that our users will increase. In addition, the registration number must be from Starting with 6 digits, no registration will be provided for those with less than [-] digits..." In fact, Zhang Lexing originally wanted to keep such serial numbers and auspicious numbers as well, but later he considered that ICQ has to face the whole world, and the customs of various countries Habits are different. If they are all comprehensive, the number segment may become too fragmented, so I give up. Anyway, I don't expect to make money by auctioning numbers.

After talking about some details that need to be paid attention to in ICQ operation, Zhang Lexing finished his visit to ICQ company, and everything was ready, and the promotion department should work hard next.

From the next day, some well-known computer newspapers published a special advertisement. There was only one domain name "www.", three huge letters "I, C, Q" and a time "1995". At zero o'clock on November 11", all the readers were guessing what it was, and some readers who could access the Internet went to the domain name "www." written on the advertisement, but there were only three huge letters on it." I, C, Q" and the time counting down.

Unclear advertisements and incomprehensible websites, on the contrary, arouse people's interest. ICQ has become the focus of people's heated discussions for a while, and many people are guessing "what is ICQ?" In anticipation, the time gradually came to midnight on the 18th, the ICQ server was officially launched, and the official website of ICQ was also launched...

(End of this chapter)