Trading Reality (31 page)

‘Do you mind if I go now?’ asked Keith.

‘No, thanks for joining us,’ Rachel replied. The virtual Keith walked out of the office.

‘Now, do you want to buy a house?’

‘All right,’ I said, not knowing what to expect.

In a moment we were outside an ordinary suburban semi-detached house. ‘Follow me,’ said Rachel.

I didn’t do anything, but the virtual me followed Rachel inside. We walked through an empty hallway into a living room. There was a garden through the french windows.

‘Now, virtual representations of furniture have been saved in a database. Let’s see how they fit in the house.’

Rachel pointed and clicked, and soon a sofa, table, bookcase, desk and armchair were all in the room. She tried different configurations. ‘Wander round,’ she said. I found that I could now move around the house. I looked in the kitchen, walked up the stairs, and checked out the bathroom.

‘You see?’ Rachel said. ‘It certainly makes buying a house easier. The rooms can be fed into the computer from drawings, or even measurements, and the furniture uses a database of four hundred different pieces. You just select those which are most like your own.’

We were back in the office. ‘As you know, some of the biggest applications for computer programs are databases. Well, VR can help you see data in an entirely new way. Most databases can only be viewed in two dimensions on a record card. With VR, you can watch data in at least three dimensions. In Bondscape, there were eight dimensions. Let me show you a much simpler database.’

We switched to a map of Britain, dotted with a series of columns, each made up of a number of blocks piled one on top of die other. ‘Assume you’re a salesman, covering customers throughout the country. This database shows you all your customers. Take a look at Leeds.’

I pointed to Leeds, and clicked. I was standing on a station platform, next to a sign saying Leeds. Beside me rose a large column of blocks. Each had a name, address and telephone number.

‘These are stacked in order of when they were last seen,’ Rachel said. ‘The blocks at the top are those that you saw most recently. Or we can reshuffle them.’ The blocks blanked, and then stood out in a different order. ‘Now the blocks at the top are your biggest customers. Let me find out which buy widgets and which gadgets.’ Suddenly the blocks were coloured in, red for widgets, blue for gadgets.

‘It’s possible to get all this information on an ordinary database, of course, but in VR you can analyse it much more clearly. This is an example of how, when you begin to use VR, you suddenly see old information in a new light.’

We left the database, and went back to the office. ‘There are all kinds of other things you could use this system for,’ she continued. ‘Booking a holiday. You could see the area you were staying in, and the hotel. Shopping. You could buy anything from tins of beans in a supermarket to a car. You know from playing Manhunt with my brother how experiencing a game in virtual reality is much more fun than watching it on a screen. And the computer games market is huge.

‘Then there is social communication. We’re in an office here, but people will soon be able to communicate over the phone wires using VR. Once people are used to it, then voice or text messages just will not be enough.’

She shut the machine down. ‘With this system, VR will move from specialised, expensive applications, to the sort of everyday uses that an ordinary individual in a business or at home might want.’

‘Phew,’ I said. ‘Can we really do all that?’

‘We have the technology to do it, yes,’ said Rachel. ‘Of course we need communication systems to improve, but once fibre optic cable reaches most homes and offices, VR will follow.’

‘Who designed all these applications?’

‘A whole range of software companies. They all used our software and graphics chip.’

‘It’s very impressive. But can’t you do much of this on standard computers?’ I asked.

‘You can do the calculations. But display is all important. Once you’ve used VR, then a flat screen will seem primitive. Businessmen, Internet surfers, games players, they’ll all want it.’

‘And we’ll do all this with Jenson?’

‘Yes. We use our graphics chip, our simulation manager, and our headsets. Jenson manufactures them all in volume. The price comes down to two thousand dollars a system.’

‘Two thousand dollars?’

‘Yep.’

I thought it through. There was still a big problem, the problem that had dogged us all along. ‘We still don’t have a mass market. How do we create one?’

‘That’s where Project Platform comes in,’ said Rachel. ‘Look at this.’

Rachel clicked some buttons on her computer. Windows came up. Windows is the operating system used on eighty per cent of personal computers.

‘OK?’ I said.

‘Look at the bottom row, on the right.’

I did. There was a little picture, or icon, of a person wearing a pair of virtual glasses.

‘You mean our system is going to run under Windows?’

Rachel grinned. ‘Yes. Project Platform is the codename for the alliance between us, Jenson and Microsoft. Our system will be bundled up with every copy of Windows sold. If anyone wants to use a VR application under Windows they’ll have to use FairSystems’ simulation management software, and the FairRender graphics system. And it will be right there, on everyone’s computer, just waiting for them to try out.’

‘How much do we charge for this?’

‘Not much,’ said Rachel. ‘But it will give us a tremendous advantage in developing new software. And even a couple of dollars is a lot on tens of millions of computers sold.’

‘And Jenson makes money on selling the computers.’

‘Right. He gets a head start over the competition in making virtual reality PCs. What’s more, if anyone wants to make a PC that will use VR, they’ll have to buy a FairRender chip, made by Jenson.’

‘So we all make money. How about Microsoft? What’s in it for them?’

‘They get the use of the most advanced VR system for PCs in the world, and they kick-start a whole new market.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘If this works, our royalties could be worth millions.’

‘It’s more than that,’ said Rachel. ‘This is a revolution in computer technology that is about to happen, almost as great as when IBM introduced the PC in 1981.’

‘You’re right. And we’re IBM.’ I thought about the IBM PC, and how many millions had been made during the 1980s. Soon companies like Compaq and Jenson had learned how to clone them. IBM had made good money for ten years, and so had the others.

‘No,’ she said patiently. ‘Jenson Computer is IBM.’

Then it came to me.

‘Microsoft.’

Rachel nodded.

I saw the weedy image of Bill Gates staring up from the book Richard had left open on his sofa. Bill Gates’ firm, Microsoft, owned DOS and Windows, the operating systems that drove most of the millions of personal computers used round the world. In less than fifteen years, Microsoft had grown from nothing to be worth more even than the mighty IBM. And the reason was that the Microsoft operating system had become the standard. Just as IBM had promoted Microsoft with its personal computer, so Microsoft would promote FairSystems through Windows.

In the new world of mass market virtual reality, FairSystems would own the standard operating software.

I remembered Microsoft was worth more than thirty billion dollars.

And I was considering selling FairSystems for ten million dollars or even less.

No wonder Rachel didn’t want to do it. No wonder Richard had been so keen to avoid a sale at all costs.

Richard had been right all along. He was on the brink of building a company that would change the world. And it wasn’t just pretty technology. This company could be stupendously successful in terms that I understood: turnover, profits, market capitalisation.

My trader’s mind began churning. This would be the trade of the century if I could pull it off. Sure, the odds were against it. It still looked like FairSystems would go bust before Project Platform hit the streets. But if I could manage to keep the company alive for the next four months . . .

I took a deep breath. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We don’t sell. We’ll get through to September somehow.’

Rachel’s face lit up. She jumped out of her chair. ‘Yes!’ she shouted, and leaned over and gave me a quick, triumphant kiss on the lips.

Surprised and elated, I said, ‘Let’s calm down and work out how to do it.’

We talked through the options. There weren’t many, but neither of us was downhearted. Although there was no obvious solution, I was confident that I would find one somehow.

‘Given what you’ve told me, Jenson’s decision to ditch us seems completely crazy,’ I said. ‘He’s shooting himself in the foot.’

‘I know. I can’t figure it out.’

‘I wonder what Microsoft think? Have you any idea?’

‘No. The negotiations for that end of the deal were all done by Jenson. He’s a big customer of Microsoft, and he has a close relationship with them. I think Richard met them, but no one else in FairSystems has. Apart from a couple of their software people who I’ve spoken to, that is. Why? Are you thinking of talking to them?’

I rubbed my chin. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t want to scare them into going somewhere else. We should carry on as if nothing has happened. Jenson’s bluffing, I’m sure of it. What I’m not sure of is why?’

‘I could go and talk to him,’ Rachel said. ‘I need to go to California anyway to check out the motorbike accident. Maybe I could find something out at Jenson. Until last week, he and I got on quite well.’

‘It’s a good idea. Try it.’ I frowned. ‘But we certainly can’t rely on those payments from Jenson. We need to get some cash from somewhere. And quickly.’

I had to wait till two that afternoon to call Scott Wagner. It was six a.m. in San Francisco, but he was already in the office. You have to get up early if you want to play the financial markets from California.

‘I want to talk to you about the possibility of raising some new equity,’ I began. ‘We have some very interesting projects coming up, but we’ll need some more money if we’re to finance them properly.’

‘How much?’ Wagner asked.

‘Oh, five million dollars would cover it,’ I said casually.

‘When do you need it?’

‘A month.’

‘That’s too fast.’

‘Couldn’t you just go to existing investors for more cash? It would significantly improve the value of the whole company.’

‘No point.’

‘Why not?’

‘They’re not too impressed with your track record so far,’ said Wagner. ‘The shares are down to three dollars from the ten they invested at. They’re not going to throw good money after bad. If you need finance, why don’t you just face reality and sell to a stronger company?’

‘We have a real future as an independent –’ I began.

Wagner’s voice hardened. ‘Mark, you don’t understand.

I was shocked by his tone. ‘I’ve decided to run this company independently.’

‘I don’t care what you’ve decided. I’m telling you to sell. So sell.’

‘Who owns the shares?’

‘In effect, I do.’

‘If you’re acting in concert to threaten me, aren’t you breaking SEC rules?’

‘Look buddy,’ said Wagner. ‘You’ve fucked up bad. Your shareholders don’t like it. They want you to sell up and get out. I’ve given you an offer you won’t refuse. So take it.’

‘Who is the buyer?’

‘I can’t tell you yet.’

‘How much?’

‘Four dollars a share. Eight million dollars for the whole company. Take it. You’ve got no choice.’

‘Fuck off,’ I said, and hung up.

So that was how Wagner’s little community of investors and companies worked. He had done us a favour by raising equity, and now we owed him a favour. He controlled the equity, so he controlled us. I hated being beholden to Wagner. What really annoyed me was the obvious pleasure he got from exercising his power. Well, I would call his bluff, and see what trouble he could stir up.

Where else could we get money? I tried some of the banks we had asked earlier, but got emphatic ‘Nos’. We would just have to press on and hope something turned up.

With a sigh, I rang my own bank manager, or rather my ‘Personal Account Executive’. Since he had seen my bonus cheques he had been falling over himself to offer me assistance. Well, now he had a fine opportunity.

He was encouraging but cautious. I was a valued customer to the bank, but he would have to see the details before agreeing to the loan I was suggesting. I hoped we wouldn’t get to that stage.

David put his head round the door.

‘How’s the sale going?’

‘It isn’t.’

‘What do you mean, it isn’t?’

‘I mean we’re not going to sell the company. I want one more try to get new money in.’

‘What? You can’t be serious!’ He came into the room and stood squarely in front of my desk.

‘I am.’

‘And who decided this?’

‘I did.’

‘Jesus, Mark! We don’t have time to muck around. If you don’t start the process now, we’ll go bust before we close a deal!’

I was tired of being pushed around. ‘David,’ I said. ‘Leave it to me. All right?’

‘You’re doing your best to ruin this company, Mark. And I won’t let you do it. I’ve got too much riding on this. If you don’t do something, I will.’ He turned on his heel, and swept past Rachel coming in, clutching two cups overfilled with coffee.

‘Ow!’ she cried, shaking her hand. ‘That’s hot! Here,’ she passed me one. ‘Black, isn’t it?’

‘Thanks,’ I smiled. She sat opposite me.