The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 171
Smartphones and feature phones have very different requirements for human-computer interaction.

Even if the first product of Matrix is ​​a transitional product between a functional phone and a smart phone, there will still be a lot of innovation.

Because at the moment, the functions between mobile phone operating systems are fragmented.

Although there is still a lot of human-computer interaction between mobile phone hardware and functions, this kind of human-computer interaction is only related to the function itself and has nothing to do with the system.

The system is only the carrier of functions, and the system itself cannot provide added value to functions.

Like Nokia's 3210 mobile phone that was popular all over the world last year, it has built-in currency conversion, radio, and three built-in small games.

These functions all exist alone. If I want to go from function A to function B, I can only exit completely and then jump to function B.

In the era of smart phones, functions have evolved into applications, and there are strong interactive relationships between applications and between applications and systems.

After the user takes a photo, he can directly jump to the WeChat interface, send the photo, and receive a link from others on the WeChat interface, or jump to other applications by clicking the link.

From the perspective of system design, there are more points to consider.

Not only do a single function well, but the interaction between functions and the interaction between functions and the system also needs to be considered in place, and reserve space for subsequent expansion.

Similar to the reserved interface of the application store.

Although the storage space of Matrix's first mobile phone is not enough for the newly designed reserved applications, but these issues still need to be considered.

With the increase of storage, the cake of the application market cannot be given up anyway.

Relying on the strength of mobile phones and the high quality of users, Apple tax brings an astronomical amount of profit to Apple every year.

The profits from the Apple Tax account for [-]% of all Apple profits.

The communication between Zhou Xin and Jobs did not disclose any specific information about how to do the mobile operating system.

Purely from the product logic, the communication was carried out.

In the end, Jobs took the initiative to say: "The research and development investment required for mobile phones is too high, and the manufacturing cost and sales cost are also too high.

For the current Apple, it is difficult to afford such a high cost.

We plan to make a music player. The reason why we want to make this product is similar to the logic of matrix's first product, which is a keyboard.

The cost of the music player is small, and the low cost means that even if it fails, it will not hurt the fundamentals of Apple.

And it can give full play to Apple's advantages in industrial design.

Matrix makes keyboards, and its industrial design is at least ten years ahead of other keyboards. Similarly, Apple's products are also ten years ahead of other benchmark products in terms of industrial design. "

Jobs was extremely confident, talking about industrial design here.

Industrial design is not only about appearance, but also touch and hardware experience.

"The functions of the music player are limited, and it is difficult to open the gap in software, and Apple has a huge advantage in terms of appearance.

We have researched this field for a long time and found that the profit margin is very considerable.

Apple needs to have a product that can bring in a lot of profits to improve Apple's poor financial situation.

I am very optimistic about Apple because I am Apple's CEO. If I were an investor, I would definitely put a cross in my heart when I saw Apple's financial report.

Now investors have another reason to invest in Apple, because Newman is Apple's major shareholder. "

After listening to Jobs' words, Zhou Xin quickly realized that the product mentioned by the other party was the iPod, a product that helped bring Apple back to life.

Zhou Xin also knew that there was a lot of concealment in Jobs' words.

Zhou Xin is very familiar with the history of technology in the past 20 years. The success of the iPod and its global popularity are definitely not as simple as relying on industrial design.

If it is just industrial design, it is not difficult to design similar products. Even mobile phones, Xiaomi can borrow a lot from Apple's design language.

Could it be that consumer electronics giants such as Sony and Samsung cannot learn from the design language of the iPod if they are replaced with music players with lower technical content?
Obviously impossible.

The reason why the iPod has made achievements beyond the reach of other music players is that industrial design is an important factor for its earliest success.

In the next five years, the iPod will become more and more successful, becoming the absolute number one in the market share of the music player field, with the help of FireWire, Apple's transmission technology far surpassing other companies.

FireWire's serial bus standard was more than ten times better than the prevailing standard at the time.

There were already music players in the 90s, and the music players at that time were evaluated by Jobs as: they were all rubbish.

The common file transfer standard used by these music players results in it taking five minutes to transfer a song.

The FireWire standard can make the transmission speed of a whole CD only need ten seconds.

The gap in the middle makes consumers never choose products other than iPod, even if their industrial design is similar to iPod.

Waiting is very painful.

It was not until 2009, after Intel launched the USB3.0 standard, that music players that followed the USB3.0 standard could catch up with the iPod in 2001 in terms of file transfer.

Zhou Xin thought to himself, he had reservations, and the other party also had reservations.

"I also have a semiconductor design company under my umbrella, and we have the best decoding chips on the market.

I think we have every reason to cooperate. "

The decoding chip largely determines the sound quality of the music player.

The technology that Zhou Xin obtained from Samsung includes a series of decoding chips.

The technology that Samsung chose to transfer has limited commercial value at this point in 2020, which does not mean that they had no commercial value in 2000.

For example, music players, in this field by 2020, almost only high-end HiFi players will be left.

There are only a small number of markets for low-end products in underdeveloped regions.

Samsung has designed a series of decoding chips, which are a pity that they are tasteless and discarded.

In 2000, it was very different. Music players were a huge market, and this market had not been fully tapped.

An excellent decoding chip has great commercial value.

Zhou Xin intends to cooperate with Apple on the decoding chip. After Apple's iPod achieved commercial success, it also advertised for Xinxin Semiconductor.

The entire series of decoder chips can be sold to other different manufacturers.

As for why matrix doesn't make a music player, it's because there is no need.

Mobile phones are already the ultimate form of entertainment terminals in the next 20 years, and there is no need to take another detour.

The purpose of making a keyboard is to establish a brand image. One of the selling points of the matrix phone itself is the typing feedback.

As for the music player, the selling point of the matrix mobile phone is not music, and even Zhou Xin does not plan to carry music functions.

The functions to be carried by the Matrix mobile phone are relatively complicated, and there is no storage space for music.

In addition, there are very few mobile phones with music functions at present.

Users will not be surprised that the phone does not have a music function.

Compared with making a music player by himself, selling decoding chips to major manufacturers brings him greater potential value.

In addition, he was originally a major shareholder of Apple, and he would also benefit from the greater success of the iPod.

Jobs asked, "I've never heard that you have a chip design company in Silicon Valley?

I know you majored in integrated circuits, but you don't seem to have much interest in entrepreneurship in the field of integrated circuits. "

Zhou Xin replied: "My chip design company is located in Huaguo.

Your expression tells me that you have doubts about the capabilities of the chip designed by Huaguo Company. "

Jobs explained: "I'm not questioning you, but Apple's supplier list does not seem to have Huaguo.

They're not doing very well in ICs, and I'm skeptical because they haven't proven themselves successfully in the past.

It's as if Apple wouldn't have brought me back if I hadn't proven my abilities by founding Pixar Studios. ’ he laughed at himself at last.

Zhou Xin said: "In my chip design company in Huaguo, most of the engineers are from Silicon Valley.

Because of the low labor cost in Huaguo, I plan to train some chip design talents in Huaguo.

This can effectively reduce costs.

Our decoding chips are also designed by engineers in Silicon Valley.

I also understand your doubts. I will not force you to choose products from companies under my name just because I am a major shareholder of Apple.

You can test the decoding chip, and I hope it is because the products of the company under my name are good enough to be recognized. "

After Zhou Xin chatted with Jobs, Jobs was very satisfied, because the other party's thinking was very similar to his, which determined that Zhou Xin would not become an obstacle for him in the board of directors in the future.

As for the similarities between the mobile phone that Zhou Xin wants to make and what he wants to make, it means that Matrix will become Apple's competitor, and it will be ahead of Apple.

Jobs was also not worried, because he could just see what kind of mobile phone Zhou Xin designed.

Zhou Xin was well-known, and Jobs was looking forward to the electronic products he was going to design.

Those who are ahead have a first-mover advantage. If your product caters to the potential needs of users, then you will monopolize the entire market for a period of time.

Because you are the first mover, there is no competing product in the market, and consumers can only buy your product.

Latecomers have the advantage of latecomers, which means that they can learn a lot from the advantages of the first movers.

Tencent likes to do this the most. It directly learns from the first-mover advantage, and takes advantage of QQ's traffic and engineer advantages to copy a model and continue to iterate.

Jobs did similar things, and was done similar things.

The earliest graphical operating system was developed by Xerox. Jobs insisted on visiting the graphical operating system developed by Xerox. In exchange for accepting Xerox's investment, he took the main developers of the Mac operating system to visit.

After the visit, Apple launched the popular Mac OS, which was also the first graphical operating system.

Later, Microsoft also made a graphical operating system, and Microsoft took advantage of its latecomer advantage to provide a better user experience.

So Jobs has experienced both first-mover advantage and late-mover advantage.

He thinks it is good to wait until the matrix mobile phone is made, and what is needed now is to accumulate strength.

Otherwise, if you want to develop a mobile phone, you still need to go to the secondary market to raise funds. When Zhou Xin participates in the fundraising, what should you do if the shareholding ratio is higher?
Just because Jobs appreciates Zhou Xin does not mean that he is not wary of him.

Belonging is the coexistence of competition and cooperation.

After meeting with Jobs, Zhou Xin packaged some technical information of the decoding chip and sent it to Guan Jianying who was far away in Shenhai.

He just told the other party to make a decoding chip, and then provided some ideas to Guan Jianying.

Zhou Xin can directly provide a complete set of technical information to the other party, but this is of no help to the company's development and talent training.

Making money was never the goal.

As June draws to a close and the millennium is halfway over, the impact of the Y[-]K bug on the Internet was far less severe than the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble.

Experts and scholars warned people through various channels before the arrival of the millennium, how much harm the Y[-]K bug would bring to the computer system.

And no expert scholar can clearly point out that the millennium Nasdaq bubble will burst.

The entire Bay Area of ​​California is about to enter a hot summer, and "Game of Thrones" will undoubtedly become the hottest game this summer.

Compared with various stand-alone games, a 20-40 minute 8-player PVP game is particularly exciting.

Future generations of gamers may not have the patience for a 40-minute game.Game manufacturers who focus on PVP game development also believe that PVP games should speed up the pace, and try to control the duration of a game within 20 minutes.

In the millennium, a 40-minute game is obviously an innovation.

There is no electronic product such as mobile phones that frequently interrupt players' attention. Players can immerse themselves in the game world all day long.

"Game of Genting" gives players the illusion that the game itself is helping them balance the game and life.

In just one month, the number of players of "Game of Genting" has exceeded 200 million, and the number of global players has exceeded 500 million. This number shocked the entire game industry.

You have never seen the grand occasion of "World of Warcraft" with 1300 million people online at the same time.

Compared with console games, online games are still very marginalized game types.

If "Game of Genting" hadn't been dominated by Zhou Xin, the industry wouldn't have noticed this game at all.

Even with the blessing of Zhou Xin's fame and the crazy players at the E3 exhibition, game manufacturers are still not so optimistic about the results of "Game of Thrones".

The final result surprised everyone.

Because Riot Games is a listed company, it needs to publish a semi-annual report.

Among them, "Game of Genting" was launched on May 5, and the revenue exceeded 15 million US dollars in just 15 days.

Players focus on the game itself, how to match the lineup, which rounds to start, which fetters have a high probability of winning, how many points have been climbed on the ladder, and whether the newly released chessboard looks good.

What the industry is concerned about is why "Game of Thrones" can succeed, whether online games are the future development direction, and what is the advertising effect of Riot Games as a distribution channel.

With the success of "Game of Genting", the advertising unit price of Fist Games not only did not drop, but also increased by 20%.

(End of this chapter)