1998, December 16th

  It was William's birthday, and he officially turned 18. It was a calm day for him, as he had planned. He bought the mansion he had been staying at from the official deed holders. It turned out that his family didn't officially own the deed, but instead, it was under one of their subsidiaries. So it was quite easy to buy the property. They likely didn't even notice that it was William who bought it. And today was the day he would officially create his company, Quantum Innovation.

  After discussing it with Eve, they decided to create two companies instead. One in Delaware, called Quantum Innovation Holdings LLC. And the other one in Florida, called Quantum Innovation LLC. The Holding company would hold the company in Florida and all the IPs they produced, so that the one in Florida would have to 'pay' for the royalties of the IPs, which meant less taxes for them. He never planned to go public with either of the companies, so it was fine.

  He called his contact in Wilmington. He found him through Eve, who knew him through the net.

  "Hello, John? Yeah, it's William. Can you set up the holding company like we discussed? Sure. Like I said before, the price isn't a problem. Yeah. Thanks."

  After that, he went over to the local attorney's office and created Quantum Innovation LLC. He drove back home. After he got home, he created a website and bought a domain. The website was far from the time as it was modern, clean, and sleek, making it very easy to look at. After that, he officially released the OS for $60. The price was low when compared to the alternative. And his OS had more features and was better optimized. As for marketing and the other business side, he delegated it to Eve, since he had no idea about that area.

  While he could learn those, frankly, it would be a waste of time since he didn't have all the time in the world.

  William had a plan for his releases. He had already released his OS, and his next release would be a web browser. He had been working on it, alongside the OS. Initially, he had planned to integrate it into the OS, but he changed his plans after some discussion with Eve. Just limiting it to his OS would limit his potential customers. So he decided to redo it into a standalone version for Windows, Mac, and of course, Quantum OS. It was far faster than Netscape, cleaner than Internet Explorer, and included features that wouldn't be included until decades later, like tabbed browsing, integrated ad-blocking, and a privacy mode. Including ad-blocking might seem unintuitive, but it was to get more goodwill from the consumers.

  By completely negating the need to install an additional extension or use a VPN just to block ads, he included the ability to block ads. Of course, it wouldn't be turned on by default, but it wouldn't be hidden under a pile of settings either.

  Other features included a built-in download manager, private profiles, extensions, password manager, autofill, sandbox tabs, reader mode, HTML/CSS/JS standardization, spellchecker, script control, and tab groups. Most of these were not a thing in the browsers yet. And despite all these features, it was surprisingly lightweight. It was very efficiently programmed and was very modular; for example, password manager would only load on logins, and download manager would only load on downloads. The adblocker was also very tiny, as the ads here were very primitive.

  Eve had planned for distribution, too. She had contacted multiple CD manufacturers and hired them to start manufacturing CDs. And she had already hired delivery service for them to be shipped to retail chains like CompUSA, Best Buy, etc.

  William had shipped some of the copies to tech magazines for review. He had also sent the full version via FTP to the universities he had previously sent the beta version. Now, all he had to do was wait.

  Dr. Amanda Chen was in her office as usual. She had been busy doing paperwork when her teaching assistant, the same one from years ago, Marcus, knocked on the door.

  "Come in." She didn't look up.

  Marcus opened the door and walked in. "Dr. Chen, it's from Quantum Innovation again. This time, they're sending us their consumer version."

  "Again? Didn't they send us 0.8 like a few months ago?" She looked up from her paperwork, pushing up her glasses.

  "They did. But this time, they said they're finally releasing it to the public and would like us to try it."

  She shook her head, "Do we even need to try it? It's light-years ahead of everything we've seen. Even now, I'm using it on my personal computer back home."

  He nodded, "It is, but this time, they said they've added a bunch of new features."

  She looked curious, "Oh? Do tell me. What are they?"

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "First of all, they said they added a new feature called virtual machines? And that is only one of several features."

  Her eyebrows shot up, "They added virtual machines to a consumer OS? How interesting."

  "Looks like it. Do you want to see?"

  She got up, "Sure."

  She sighed as she looked at the screen. Everyime she saw the OS GUI, she wanted to just admire. It was so simple and efficient, yet so beautiful.

  Marcus, from the side, mentioned, "They said that the GUI is also optimized so that the OS runs better, and that the full feature of their cybersecurity has been activated."

  "What?! It wasn't the full feature? That means their antivirus can do more than just scan and delete files?"

  He nodded seriously, "Yes. According to them, it will not only scan the entire device once a week, but it will also scan every new file that it can access for viruses and deal with them. And now, it includes a feature called quarantine that doesn't delete them but makes them unable to spread."

  "Impressive, not gonna lie. Anyway, did you find anything about the company this time around?"

  To her surprise, he actually had an answer, "This time, yes. They just created the company today and listed it under a company named Quantum Innovation Holding LLC."

  "That's obviously theirs, too. Did you find out anything?"

  "No, they seem to want to stay anonymous. So, there's no public record of the founder."

  "I see. Well, keep at it. Tell me if you find out anything about them."

  The magazines were thrilled by the new competition in the OS market. PC World's review hit newsstands three days after launch.

  William closed his eyes after reading it. There were similar reviews on his browser tabs. He also had a spreadsheet open with sales he tracked. On the first day, he didn't sell anything. But on the second day, 247 CDs were sold. He assumed this was through word of mouth. After all, Eve announced in the Usenet groups that they were finally releasing the official version. On the third day, they sold even more, officially hitting a thousand sales. On the fourth day, the PC World review was released, and the sales spiked to over 5000.

  His phone rang. He checked the number. It was calling his secondary number, which he added to the company's info. He picked it up, "Hello. This is Quantum Innovation."

  A professional male voice spoke, "Ah, yes. Hello. My name is Robert. I'm from Dell Computer. I'm calling for a potential partnership discussion."

  William sat up straighter. He knew that eventually, computer manufacturers like Dell would contact him, but he didn't expect it to be this soon. "I'm listening."

  He spoke, sounding a little befuddled by his attitude, "We've evaluated your product, Quantum OS, and it is a wonderful work. We're interested in discussing a potential OEM partnership, preinstalling Quantum OS on a certain percentage of our computer. Would you be available for a meeting to discuss terms?"

  "I am. When were you thinking?"

  "How about January 15th? Our offices in Austin, Texas?"

  "I'll have our COO contact you for further details. Thank you for contacting us."

  "Excellent. We'll send over an NDA and preliminary discussion points. Pleasure talking with you."

  "Likewise."

  He hung up the phone and immediately went over to Eve's room. She was on the computer, busy with work.

  "William? I was just about to call you. We have a problem."

  "What kind?"

  "The good kind. We're overselling our initial estimates. The CD manufacturers are unable to keep up with the orders from retail. CompUSA is asking for five thousand units, and Best Buy is asking for three thousand more. I ordered more CDs, but ramping up production will take time. We'll have a two-week gap where we can't fulfill any retail orders."

  William made a decision there, "Digital distribution."

  She frowned, "Will, you know it isn't feasible to download 180MB on a dial-up."

  "That's why we offer both. Digital distribution is for people who cannot wait any longer and have cable or DSL."

  Eve sighed, "Fine. So, what did you want to talk about?"

  "Well, Dell just contacted us. Said they wanted to discuss OEM terms. You'll have to go to Austin, Texas. Are you okay with that?"

  She smiled, "As long as you're coming with me, I'm fine with going anywhere."

  He grabbed a pillow from her bed and threw it at her, "Stop being corny, you dork. Of course, I'll come with you. That isn't even a question."

  She grabbed the pillow mid-air, catching it, "Indeed. Everybody knows you can't live without me." She threw it back.

  He rolled his eyes as he sidestepped the pillow, "You wish."