The Goddess Shines on America

The sun and the moon fly by, and time flies like an arrow. Throughout the end of 1986 and the beginning of 1987, too many things happened. While Alice has been preparing for investment in Japan, the ever-changing world is also constantly performing wonderful scenes.

For example, at the end of last year, when Alice arrived at Eton for only two months, Queen Elizabeth visited Hong Kong for the second time. You know, the "Sino-British Joint Declaration" was signed as early as the end of 1984. If you come to visit it when it is still your own territory, presumably any leader will do the same.

At the same time, in mainland China, the high-tech research and development plan, namely the "863" plan was officially launched. The "Outline" identified 15 thematic projects in 7 fields as the focus of China's future development of high technology. It involves the fields of biotechnology, aerospace technology, information technology, laser technology, automation technology, energy technology, marine technology and new materials. It can be said that it is the beginning of the country's real modernization.

Furthermore, in the beautiful March of 1987, not long after Alice returned to school, the Chinese and Portuguese governments initialed the joint statement on the Macau issue. The statement confirmed that the Chinese government will resume the exercise of sovereignty over Macau on December 20, 1999. When the statement was released, Alice, who had just finished class, didn't know that James had already sent an email full of information to her e-mail, and she didn't see it until before going to bed at night.

Of course, while the international political situation was constantly playing out, one email after another reporting work was also sent to Alice's mailbox without interruption, as always. A mere fifteen-year-old girl is involved with so many companies, she is not as busy as ordinary people of the same age can imagine.

If you want to say which type of email has the largest number, it must be sent from Microsoft. It is precisely because of the increasingly developed Internet infrastructure and the hardware equipment purchased from Cisco that Alice's research and development of Windows.NT has achieved remote networking ahead of countless companies.

At every certain moment every day, Howard, her assistant in the R\u0026D department at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, will summarize all the progress of the day and the problems encountered during the day into an email. Then, in an average of less than an hour, Alice will send back the next step guidance and solutions to the problem in an extremely efficient manner. As time goes by, I believe that if you print out all the emails between each other, it will be no problem to print a whole thick book.

When the timeline entered March, Cisco's business also had new changes. The most important work at present was the sale of firewall equipment that had been developed for a long time.

Of course, the company will not only sell this product to the Pentagon. In fact, it is precisely because of the "Exchange Gate" incident in March last year that IBM has launched a wonderful advertisement for Cisco in advance, which has attracted enterprises all over the world. , government departments have realized the importance of network security. So, in early March, when Cisco announced that the firewall was about to be sold, Alice immediately received a special email, which clearly explained the situation after that: the company's phone line was blown.

Then, at the end of March, three days before the official sale, Alice received another e-mail that made her overjoyed.

order catalog.

The first order was of course the Pentagon, then the Capitol and the White House, the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Homeland Security Agency and other prestigious agencies. It should be known that before the computer network became civilian, the predecessor "Arpanet" was established for the purpose of militarization. The whole batch of orders from Washington, saying that they are the first batch of real users of the computer network, is not unreasonable. Pass.

From the Pentagon, to the Congress, to the White House, to the FBI, to the CIA, to the NSA... Washington is the core area of ​​American politics, and countless politicians have a complex and closed social circle. It is not difficult for these people to know that Alice is developing a firewall. From the Secretary of Defense to the President, from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the heads of relevant special agencies, some problems can be solved with one word.

Then the question arises: how much process does this need to go through?

The government's money comes from taxpayers and cannot be spent indiscriminately. The expenditure of large sums of money often requires coordination and consultation among various departments, which is a very complicated issue. From a dramatic point of view, even Hollywood directors can make a whole movie or even a series for a certain amount of money!

However, this has nothing to do with Alice.

Because, this is all a matter of those politicians' own circles.

Anyway, Cisco's current market position is here. The industry's No. 1, Lucent Technology, currently ranked No. 2, is at least one-third behind the former in terms of product performance. Who knows that the firewall developed by it can be inferior to Cisco's? How far.

And the current objective situation is still a seller's market. Affected by the "Exchange Gate" incident and the hacking incidents in recent months, Washington, led by the Pentagon, is in urgent need of a firewall, rather than Cisco's eagerness to sell the firewall.

The main advantage is here, so Alice didn't even bother to bribe Donimick Fryer, or even Vice President Bush Sr. - we just waited for the order to come to our door!

Therefore, the order really came to the door obediently.

And that's just this batch of orders.

Alice had analyzed the market situation early on, and in fact it has always been the case, that is, small businesses don't need firewalls at all, because few people have the leisure time to hack them. Then, since all those who need to buy firewalls are large and medium-sized enterprises, how to determine the price of the product?

Routers, $2,000 each.

Switches, three thousand dollars each.

Well, then the price of the firewall is set at $10,000.

cost?

Oh, all three of them are pretty much the same.

In the emails sent to Alice, apart from the one in Washington, there is also a long list of large and medium-sized companies from all over the country. You know, the "exchange gate" incident is tantamount to giving business parents all over the world a mind, so when Cisco announced the development of a firewall a few months ago, and now it is finally about to be sold, the wave of orders is completely blocked. It can't be stopped, and of course no one will stop it.

"Is this a posture to make me earn 500 million yuan?"

Alice glanced at the statistics and was not particularly surprised by the turnover, but staring at the endless list of companies, her eyes were almost dazzled.

"And it seems... there are no foreign companies yet."

This is a very important point. After all, it is only a day or two before the press conference. These are the first batch of pre-order users. It is not easy for users in the European and American markets to react.

"So, if you include them, in about two years, you should be able to make a billion dollars?"

At this moment, sitting at the writing desk in her single dormitory, Alice stared at the computer screen while pondering.

A set of 10,000 US dollars is enough for an ordinary small and medium-sized enterprise, and a medium-sized enterprise with three to five hundred people needs three to five sets. Of course, this is a generalization, because the network usage and security requirements of enterprises are not absolutely proportional to the number of people, and Alice has not yet had time to divide the firewall into multiple models.

Because a firewall is a security protocol system after all, performance and quality are the top priority, which is different from routers and switches. For many large companies that are not short of money, "although" it is ten times more expensive, but "safer" a lot of similar products, they will definitely choose the more expensive one.

"Spending money for peace of mind, this is the best way to catch big fish for a long time. Hmm... so what price should you set for the next model?"

At this moment, before the first batch of firewalls were actually sold to pre-order customers, Alice was already imagining the price of the second batch!

"Well, patch No. 7, No. 15, and No. 18... No, that's too tricky, patch No. 4, No. 29, and No. 55 .The second-generation firewall is ten times more secure, but the price is only 30,000 US dollars. It's high quality and low price. Come and buy it~"

When the last sentence of the advertisement was yelled out with a squeeze of his throat, someone really didn't blush at all!

Because, she can also be set at 50,000, can't she?

Because the multiple of safety improvement is ten times!

That didn't matter any more, Alice looked at her watch. It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and it was four-thirty in the afternoon on the last day of March. Since it's the end of the month and it's this time again, it's time for so many companies under my umbrella to send over their statistical reports.

"Sissy~Sissy~Is anyone there?"

There seemed to be no one in the room, of course, Alice frowned, but just as she stood up, the door of the room just opened, and a girl with short hair was standing at the door, it was Maiya.

"Do you want some tea?"

"Just a glass of West Lake Longjing, thank you!"

Maiya smiled lightly and walked into the room: "Then how about I make you a cup of Coke? Or a cup of chocolate milk tea."

Alice ignored those, but stared at the pantyhose on Maiya's legs, and murmured: "It's ugly, it's ugly, why doesn't damn Eaton tell us to wear jeans?"

Maiya gave her a brainstorm: "What about the question, Alice, I'll just make you a glass of aspirin solution, what do you think?"

Alice put her hands on her hips and shouted, "I think it's a good idea!"

Maiya immediately pretended to be looking for something: "Where is the medicine bottle? Where is the medicine bottle? Someone should take medicine, where is the medicine bottle?"

"Hmph, I've already consumed all the medicine, my dear, you should honestly make me a cup of West Lake Longjing~"

With that said, someone sat back on the chair lightly, and within a minute, the new mail arrived.