If Christmas Eve of 1868 had made the Austrian New Energy Electric Company famous throughout the civilized world as the "City That Never Sleeps," then 1869 cemented its position as the industry's overlord.
With the completion of a series of patent licensing agreements, Austrian New Energy Electric Company standards had also become the international standards for electrical systems.
It would not be difficult to break this system of standards. As long as one was willing to pour in enough money, it could always be broken. The only question was how much money would have to be thrown into it—no one knew.
If this had been a wildly profitable industry, the financial conglomerates might have given it a try. Unfortunately, the electric power industry had only just emerged, and while urban power systems looked delicious, they were difficult to profit from.
No one knew when the market would mature, but everyone knew perfectly well when the patented technologies would expire.
This era had not yet entered its fast-paced age. People were not so crisis-conscious, and simply did not believe that electricity would become the mainstream of the age within twenty or thirty years.
Take steamships, for example. Jouffroy had built one in 1796. At the time, it too had been seen as a technology that would change the era, yet more than seventy years had passed, and sailing vessels were still the mainstream ships on the seas.
There were many such examples. From the emergence of a technology to its large-scale application, there was always a period in between. The length of that period directly determined a technology's commercial value.
To advance electrical technology, Franz had poured several million Divine Shields into it. Including the later promotion costs, the investment had already exceeded ten million Divine Shields.
This was no single