Chapter 112: WTALK
Chapter 112: WTALK
But if they used external hosting, bandwidth would be limited from the start, so the service environment could only deteriorate even further.
Unlike Korea’s Kingdom of the Winds, which came out in 1996 and reached 130,000 concurrent users in 1997, just one year after release, this was probably one of the reasons Ultima Online, developed in America, failed to exceed 100,000 concurrent users.
That was why Insu intended to use dedicated lines in addition to proprietary servers.
If there’s really no other way, I might even lay down a nationwide network myself.
It would cost a considerable amount of money, but he planned to keep trying various internet services anyway, so it would be a meaningful investment even aside from TLF Online. Of course, that did not mean he absolutely intended to lay down the network himself. He had his own calculations.
Insu shared these thoughts with his parents.
“Ah. So renting lowers the quality.”
Seongcheol had some knowledge, but he was not exactly an expert. He had only vaguely understood that renting could serve as a substitute, but after listening to Insu, he roughly grasped the difference.
At the same time, once he understood Insu’s determination and ambition, he no longer felt like trying to persuade him otherwise.
Well, the shares are all Insu’s anyway.
If Insu were being stubborn without thinking, that would be one thing, but if he had calculated things this far, then supporting him seemed right.
And while Hyein had spoken a little timidly about the possibility of failure, honestly, considering Parallel Soft’s current corporate value as assessed by magazines and communities, ordinary failure would not be enough to sink them.
Moreover, this investment also seemed necessary to preserve that corporate value.
“Okay. Then let’s keep going like this. What about you?”
“Mm. If Insu is that certain, then…”
And so Parallel Soft decided on unlimited investment. Until now, even as a returner, Insu had avoided arrogance and stayed away from risk as much as possible, but now was the time to risk everything and take the gamble.
Whatever the result, he did not intend to regret it.
Not long after TLF Online’s beta began, while public attention, including that of gamers, was focused entirely on it, people’s efforts and time continued to move forward equally.
The same was true even inside Parallel Soft, the center of that storm.
[Truly, thank you for your hard work. Were there any difficult problems to solve?]
Insu sat in front of the computer and typed on the keyboard. It looked like a message exchanged with someone, but this was not something like chat or email.
In the upper-left corner was the other person’s name, [Casey Reynolds]. Inside a clean box, the other person’s messages appeared on the left, while Insu’s messages appeared on the right as soon as he pressed Enter. Beneath that was a text box for entering messages. It was an extremely simple program structure.
It was an instant messenger.
Only a few seconds after Insu sent the message, the other person’s reply appeared on the left.
[Yes. There are still points to improve, but there are no major technical problems.]
Casey was not saying that because he did not want to confess his incompetence to his employer.
An instant messenger was not an especially complex or difficult program. Of course, since it was the first of its kind and the internet environment was still immature, there were certainly difficult parts.
But Parallel Soft was one of the best companies of the current era for solving those problems.
That was because they had accumulated network-related know-how and technology while developing and servicing WET and TLF Online.
A recent stress test had also revealed a problem where the servers went down when too many users connected at once, but that was easily solved by using the delay and queue technologies from TLF Online. As for the server-client architecture, referring to the data and know-how built up on the TLF Online side lowered the difficulty to the level of solving a problem while looking at a reference book.
Of course, that did not mean they used it exactly as it was. The two were clearly different programs, and using the complex systems built for an MMORPG in a simple system like a messenger would be overengineering, like attaching a jet engine to an electric bicycle.
“This is very good.”
After exchanging messages with the messenger business division members, including Casey, for a long while to test the program and confirm the results, Insu took his eyes off the monitor and spoke with his mouth instead of his fingers.
The messenger business division members had confidence in their work, but demonstrating it in front of the president’s son, the genius who had designed the program they made, naturally made them nervous.
So when Insu gave them clearance, they let out sighs of deep relief.
“We’ll make a few minor improvements, then immediately service it as WET content.”
At Insu’s declaration, the messenger business division members’ expressions brightened even more. It was a small-scale project, but their results had been acknowledged.
Of course, they had already signed employment contracts before joining. But there was a world of difference between having a presentable achievement and having none. Moreover, this was America, where, unless the reason was discriminatory, people could be fired at will without prior notice.
On top of that, WET’s status in the American IT market right now was enormous.
It had started so humbly that, only two years earlier, it had to compete with privately made webpages. Yet now, unbelievably, millions of people visited it every day, and it was expected to grow even more explosively going forward.
According to analyst reports distributed by investment banks, WET was evaluated in comparison with competitors such as AOL and was said to be worth at least 700 million dollars, and as much as 1.2 billion dollars.
When considering that Parallel Soft’s game development team was said to be worth around 300 million dollars, one could guess WET’s standing.
Having this project officially serviced as WET content meant the project was being valued that highly, which also meant there was no danger of them being fired in the short term.
Even if they were fired, this work experience alone would likely earn them fairly high evaluations and allow them to find jobs elsewhere.
Afterward, Insu rewarded them with vacation and planned the next project.
One person? No, I should probably take out two.
He was talking about personnel for maintaining and updating the instant messenger. Since simplicity and ease of use were the program’s key points, he did not intend to force too many functions into it right away.
However, since no program was completely free of bugs, they needed someone responsible for responding when problems occurred. And although it was a platform with extremely limited monetization models even in actual history, Insu had seen several decades’ worth of answers, so he knew a few usable revenue models that needed to be added.
Gift icons, emoticons, and a bit of advertising, I guess?
Insu also considered linking the next project with this messenger, but he judged that it was still too early. It would be effective for increasing the messenger’s penetration rate, but a messenger was a platform that made connecting with third parties extremely easy. That created control problems, and there were security concerns as well. It might be possible in the mobile era, but for now, it was too much.
The next project was a digital payment platform.
In other words, something like PayPal.
(Translator’s Notes: PayPal — Online payment and remittance company founded in 1998. The story’s WPAY is positioned as an earlier alternate-world equivalent.)
“So it’s a system for credit card payments through the internet?”
Casey, who had returned after a five-day vacation, listened to the plan directly from Insu. Since he already knew everything about Insu anyway, hearing and discussing the plan directly with the planner would make the project easier to understand than hearing it through Seongcheol.
“Yes. For now, it will only be card payments, but later I plan to connect it to every financial institution, including banks.”
“Banks?”
“Ultimately, I intend to turn it into a comprehensive online financial service.”
“…”
Casey looked overwhelmed by Insu’s words. He had expected that the internet’s development would change the world, but he had never imagined that something as grand as finance would be brought online this concretely, and this quickly.
That was only natural. Banking and finance required an enormous amount of capital, to the point where even companies, let alone individuals, could not easily attempt it. It was like an engine of capitalist development, and most people would not even dare reach for it.
He really isn’t an ordinary human being.
Once again, Casey looked at this young boy and felt as though he were facing an incomprehensible being called a genius.
But separate from that impression, the principle behind this digital payment platform itself was relatively simple.
They would store the customer’s credit card information on the customer’s behalf, verify the customer’s identity through email, receive the customer’s request, and request payment from the card company on their behalf.
Of course, automating that, exchanging information online, and making communication with card companies a reality would be somewhat more complex. Still, it would not be so different from the messenger development he had already participated in.
“You can try negotiating with the card companies yourself, but if it’s difficult, ask the management team, meaning my parents, for cooperation.”
“Ah. Yes!”
At this time, most card companies were already computerized. Of course, it was not for online payments, but to support card payments through offline POS terminals.
(Translator’s Notes: POS terminal — Point-of-sale terminal. A device used in stores to process card payments and other sales transactions.)
And while it was difficult to call it online, POS terminals and card processing systems communicated through dedicated lines or telephone lines.
Since this was not a system built for the internet, it could not be used exactly as it was. Still, there was no need to develop a separate internet-only system from scratch.
Manipulating something analog might be difficult, but manipulating something already digitized through a computer was simply a matter of writing the proper program.
For that, they needed to develop the “payment gateway” in the plan.
To explain this system simply, it could be called a POS terminal emulator. It converted online payments as though they were payments made through a POS terminal and sent payment requests to card companies.
In fact, such a payment gateway had already been developed and was being serviced under the name “CyberCash.” But using it as-is would only benefit CyberCash, so independent development was necessary. Another reason was that he did not like CyberCash’s quality.
For this digital payment platform, the idea was important. The implementation method was not as difficult as expected.
However, there were tricky parts.
“You can receive support from other development teams for the security system, so make it as airtight as possible. No, at the very least, make sure it undergoes review.”
The issue was security.
They had to store and handle sensitive financial information in many ways. If a problem occurred, it would not end at the level of moral responsibility. A bomb of compensation claims could blow the company away.
Casey seemed to realize this as well, and instead of showing any developer’s pride, he nodded with a heavy expression.
Besides, he had already received a great deal of help from other teams while developing the instant messenger, so acting prideful now would have been awkward.
Since Casey had set his pride aside anyway, he asked about something in the plan that had made him wonder.
“But what is this JavaScript?”
He understood the explanation that the system needed to be web-based because it was a payment system meant for the internet era, but this was the first time he had heard of a language called JavaScript.
“It’s a newly released web-based language. Unlike existing HTML, it isn’t a markup language. It’s a language that can properly express dynamic elements, so we should be able to create a fairly convincing UI with it.”
“So it’s new.”
“You’ll have to learn while developing, so there will be some pressure. But if we make everything through hyperlinks, the burden on the server side will get a bit too heavy, so it can’t be helped.”
“That’s true.”