Reboot 2003

Chapter 332 115: SUN (three-in-one)

SUN Microelectronics... It's not that Chen Qin didn't know about it. After all, this company was indeed quite famous in the last century, and he had a relationship with him since he was in elementary school.

The open source database MySQL he invested in before was bought by SUN Company, and he had some dealings with it. As Mr. Tan said, this company was indeed a company that had "ever been rich", and its main business center was in the server area. field.

At that time, the Internet coincided with the rise of the Internet. SUN's small servers almost dominated the world. It had supporting chips, instruction sets, operating systems, software ecosystems, and greater first-mover advantages. In that field, it almost had the same status as IOS later. .

And since it is IOS, it is naturally done by Android; when Chen Qin copied Android's homework before, of course he could not say that he was copying Android when explaining to others, but he was copying Linux's homework. This homework was IBM's support for Linux back then. written at the time.

In the original assignment, SUN was the opponent of Linux, but later it was indeed overtaken like IOS——

Or even more than that.

The server itself is a public product, and users are generally not that particular about taste. Cheap and easy to use is the way to go.

After the rise of Linux, IBM's victory was much greater than that of Android. Since the financial turmoil at the beginning of the century, SUN's server market share has plummeted every year. This is all due to the fact that this company is "a skinny camel bigger than a horse". This year.

But this year, it looks like it really won’t work anymore.

Naturally, there is no hope for the server market to rise. Linux took the lead in open source. Even if SUN later open sourced its entire family, it would not help.

As for customers, the remaining small number of old customers can no longer do it... It was said before that users of corporate services are not so particular about taste, but there are actually exceptions. After all, Wall Street customers are not only about taste, but also about performance and aesthetics. Regardless of the price, they could spend money to support SUN in the past, but this year the landlords have no food left.

In addition, the surplus cycle in the semiconductor cycle has arrived, and SUN's latest generation of chips seems to have a small problem...

In short, all kinds of bad news have been concentrated this year. It now looks like it is about to die. In fact, the end is really coming soon. It will be acquired by Oracle soon, and Oracle eats people without spitting out their bones. Silicon Valley businessman, Sun declined soon after the acquisition.

When Chen Qin heard Teacher Tan talk about this, he asked: "I know these things. I heard that its technology is very powerful and it is the founder of Java..."

Teacher Tan said: "Yes, Java is a language developed by SUN. The application layer of our Kaitian OS is an encapsulated Java virtual machine. Its design is very exquisite, and it has an open graphical interface like a traditional operating system. It’s actually not the same thing, it’s just like an app in itself.”

Teacher Tan couldn't stop talking about his professional content. Chen Qin nodded: "Java is indeed very powerful, but it's a pity that you can't make money."

"Yes, they have quite a lot of powerful technologies, but basically they don't make much money." Teacher Tan said, "Many of the cloud services we have been doing recently were pioneered by SUN."

Chen Qin was curious: "You mean containerization technology?"

"Have you heard of it?" Teacher Tan said, "Cloud services just put the computing on the server side, and then let the personal computer run an interface. This is actually the working principle of traditional workstations, and SUN Company is this set of hardware The founder of the system.”

He added: "It's just that the workstations in the past were dedicated machines. Now in the Internet era, its function can be directly replaced by the Internet. There is essentially no difference between the two technologies. Now our job is to move their technology to the Internet." .”

Chen Qin thought to himself that this is not what you said last time, but he had known about this problem before, and asked: "What else?"

"They have been thinking about transformation this century, so they have tried many innovative paths. The methods they think of are actually quite similar to our company, such as open source instruction sets, open source tool libraries, and Internet-based cloud services. They actually started it at the beginning of the century. If we want to do it, the basic foundation of the multi-platform route is also pioneered by their company.”

As Teacher Tan said this, he seemed to have noticed something, and then lowered his voice: "Why, Xiao Chenqian seems to have many ways to go. Do you have some inside information?"

Chen Qin glanced at him sideways: "You have already lost so much by betting on Big A, and you still want to speculate? It has fallen like this recently."

Teacher Tan scratched his head in embarrassment: "Isn't it because I saw the U.S. stock market falling recently and wanted to take advantage of the bottom?"

"Here, look." Chen Qin gave him the notebook, "This is the private document of Lenovo's Mr. Liu. It contains a bunch of investment suggestions and the financial report of SUN Company. Recently, SUN Company has too much debt and its stock price has plummeted. Investment People are already preparing to find a home for it.”

Teacher Tan was stunned for a moment: "You mean that Lenovo wants to acquire SUN?"

Chen Qin said: "There should be such a plan."

"'Had'?"

"They don't want the documents, so what else can they do? A dancing aunt just picked it up. I listened to their conversation with Mr. Liu when I was eating, and he said that they don't plan to buy it anymore."

"Oh……"

Only then did Teacher Tan understand and nodded regretfully. Ah Yue, who had been watching just now, also scolded him: "Teacher Tan, just work hard and stop speculating on your stocks!"

"Oh, yes. Although I recently joined the company, the contract requires me to complete this task before I can get P10..."

Teacher Tan handed the notebook back to Chen Qin and talked about the troubles at work recently, but he seemed much more optimistic than before. He seemed quite satisfied with the current salary level and the pie drawn by the senior management.

And as he said this, he looked up at the stage and saw that the big draw at the annual meeting was still going on.

There are many prizes in the event. The grand prize is a three-person trip to the Maldives. Below are cars, travel, electrical appliances and cash. Although the current annual meeting does not have the atmosphere of hard-core comparison in the future, the end of the year is also the time for tax calculation. Since investors There is no requirement to make a profit, and the annual income and expenditure and debt situation are almost determined. The excess money will be left alone, and taxes will be collected. It is better to distribute it to the company's employees as operating costs, which can also boost work morale.

Galaxy Software hasn't made much money recently, but the money it gives out is really generous. Everyone is very happy. Only Chen Qin looked at the stage with a slightly subtle expression. Ah Yue didn't know what he felt, so he leaned over and asked softly: "What's the matter? ?”

"Nothing." Chen Qin suddenly became serious, "I just understood an old incident."

"The acquisition target of Lenovo that you wanted to know before is probably the SUN company." A Yue said, "Do you need to tell Mr. Sun?"

"Ah."

Chen Qin hummed, but did not call immediately. He just looked at the bustling hall and suddenly seemed to have made up his mind. He pulled A Yue up and left: "Let's go, it's a little urgent..."

A Yue was a little confused, but she still followed him. Just as she arrived at the entrance of the venue, Sun Yazhang rushed in with a mobile phone and large and small bags on his back. When he saw Chen Qin, he immediately wanted to report the situation to him, and approached him and said : "Mr. Chen, I heard about it. Just now Giant's boss Shi told me that the acquisition was a suggestion given by the Science Bureau. They seemed to have proposed that Lenovo acquire SUN, a company owned by Meilican, but Lenovo has officially rejected it."

Chen Qindao nodded, his face became more solemn, and he just asked for Sun Yazhang's laptop and asked him to find a quiet room for him quickly.

Sun Yazhang quickly went to work again, but Ah Yue felt a little awkward: "What are you going to do? How about I wait for you below?"

"You also come together." Chen Qin said, "This matter is very important."

It's quite easy to be misunderstood, but Sun Xiazhang is used to it, and Chen Qin is also very serious. A Yue has been with him for so long, so she is somewhat familiar with his way of thinking about problems. In short, she almost understands: "You Are you interested in this company again? You said it was not good last time."

But Chen Qin pulled her forward quickly: "Actually, it's not impossible. The so-called value investment, the most essential value investment is not asset investment. It is called 'picking up cigarette butts'."

"Pick up cigarette butts?"

"It means that only companies like this, which have left a piece of second-hand cigarette smoke on the ground, can buy high-priced assets at a price truly lower than the market price..."

Ah Yue didn't quite understand this, but Chen Qin added: "Besides, you asked me before if there is any chip company that doesn't use salted fish..."

"Well, by the way, I met someone else suddenly, and I forgot to talk about it later." A Yue was curious, "So is this SUN company a non-commercial company?"

After saying that the two of them had entered the elevator, Chen Qin pressed the operation panel and seemed to smile: "Not necessarily, but whether it is a salty fish or not depends on the role you play in it. What do you think our galaxy software is? Salted fish?”

"Of course not. I felt so passionate during the promotional video just now."

"I think so too." Chen Qin said, looking at the closed elevator door. "Asking a group of nerds to do things, and then using the results they developed to achieve their own goals, although this is very convenient, it is definitely a bit salty. of."

"Then its opposite..." Ah Yue reacted, "It's what you said..."

She thought for a moment before remembering the term: "Creative capitalism?"

"Almost, come with me."

Chen Qin already knew what he was going to do.

He left the annual meeting halfway, took Sun Yazhang's computer to his residence, found a room, got in with Ayue, and locked the door.

Ah Yue still didn't know what he was going to do, but she neatly cleared the table and sat on the bed next to her.

Chen Qin sat down on the chair and immediately turned on the computer. Then he ignored the confidentiality of the information. After logging in with Sun Yazhang's star core, he immediately sent a message to Shen Nanpeng's assistant: "Hurry up and inform David. Don't worry about AMD for now. Go right away." Find the SUN company on Shabin Road in the Bay Area." "Okay, is there anything I need to do?"

"Do you know that SUN is going to be acquired recently?"

"As for SUN, news leaked some time ago that IBM plans to acquire it."

"What's IBM?...Okay," Chen Qin was stunned for a moment, then immediately responded, "I need to see their CEO immediately, or ask their board of directors to send someone to talk to me about this matter."

"What's the reason?"

"Capital cooperation."

Since someone has already boarded it first, there is nothing to keep secret.

He didn't lie before. After all, he really wanted to buy AMD's foundry. As a reborn person, this would be the most convenient shortcut to get some semiconductors in China in the future. Of course, there is no need to give up halfway now.

As for SUN... now he knows that the so-called missed opportunity to catch up with the semiconductor industry in 08 may well include Lenovo missing SUN, or even just this one thing.

After all, this was probably an opportunity for the Chinese dynasty at that time. After all, banks related to the national economy and people's livelihood are now being bought up by small businesses. Naturally, the semiconductor industry cannot be controlled. It's just that traditional semiconductor giants are not as miserable as banks, so they may not be able to do so. If you want to sell yourself at a low price in this market, only SUN once had a market value of hundreds of billions. Nowadays, the CPU design technology is not inferior to those giants. It is more or less a first-tier player in the server market. If you want to buy the bottom, you should be sure There is no better choice.

If you want to buy it, you can only buy it from Lenovo. Nowadays, there are not many companies that have reached this level and have semiconductor-related businesses. The largest is Huawei, and the second is Lenovo. However, Huawei is not listed on the US stock market, so it is basically just I can rely on association.

In the end, Lenovo didn't buy it. How much of an opportunity did it miss?

Of course, the opportunity will not be that big. After all, even the Science Bureau cannot bet that big on its business - Lenovo has previous experience in acquiring IBM's laptop business, and SUN makes servers, although the ones they make are not very good. , but as long as we can build something similar after the acquisition, national orders can support the business - now we can afford Audi A6 and Lenovo computers, and naturally we can also afford SUN's chips and computers.

So this is not to ask him to sacrifice his life and blood to make money for the country, but to give Lenovo a stroller to grab the opposite pacifier. Unfortunately, Lenovo still did not buy it, and there is nothing he can do to regret it later.

After all, this company is indeed a bit big at first, and some seemingly unprofitable technologies take up too much manpower.

Secondly, and also in the future, the power of the industrial chain does not lie in chip design, especially in chip design that does not occupy a leading position in the industry chain.

Even if Lenovo buys SUN, it will probably not be much better than Huawei. Even if it messes around for a few years, it will only be wiped out by the trade war...

Now Chen Qin is making semiconductors by himself. In this aspect, Lenovo still did not buy SUN. Instead, it came to compete with him for this foundry.

This is actually a better choice. After all, he is a reborn person who knows a little bit about the industry. Even if the entire country of China is reborn, it will be difficult to think of a better acquisition strategy at this critical node. SUN may have some value, but with limited resources, the priority should indeed be placed behind the foundry.

But unexpectedly, Chen Qin was just a little curious and asked more about it.

Now that I have obtained Liu Chengzhi's information, plus the news that Sun Xiazhang inquired about, I almost know the so-called "regret of missing out before rebirth".

But thinking back, this SUN company may not be suitable for the country, but it is very suitable for him, a middle school student.

Of course, the important thing is not just the chip design - SUN's server market is mainly lost to the ecosystem. The chip is actually very powerful. Although Mr. Tan also said just now that there are design errors, the problem is actually the multi-core CPU, and SUN is the earliest One of the players entering the multi-core CPU market is that the Dark Silicon Theorem has not yet been discovered and the process technology has not kept up, so its new multi-core CPU performs poorly. As long as the process is improved in the future, multi-core will naturally become an advantage.

What's more, chip research and development itself is a relatively compatible capability within the track. If it can be used for CPUs, it should not be much different for other chips.

In addition, there are other software businesses...such as databases. Chen Qin's investment in MySQL was not just to make money. Databases are the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. However, he did not have the money to completely acquire them at the time, nor did he have the ability to expand overseas. Operations, so I just invested some money, and then arranged for some engineers to participate in the maintenance of that open source project, as if I also had this business.

Although we already have some in-house technology, the MySQL brand itself is worth a bit of money. Since we are doing cloud computing ourselves, why not just buy it outright.

When it comes to cloud computing, most of the difficulties for engineers now are to cross the river by feeling the stones of SUN. So why not just acquire SUN directly? This will complement your existing business and quickly To expand the existing business, some of the servers can be produced and sold by oneself. Although vertical integration is inherently inefficient, it is also beneficial.

Of course, there is also Java.

Java is a product of SUN. The benefits of buying it are not only the technology - I still remember that in the original history, I saw Oracle fighting Google with Java patents every three days. It was annoying to watch. .

Now Chen Qin copied Google's homework, and Google's own homework didn't say anything about acquiring SUN...

But Google itself is a bit of a nerdy company. This question should be asked of them, why didn't you acquire SUN in the first place? The amount of money Oracle is claiming from you is more than the amount they spent to acquire SUN. Your CEO Shi Shi Mitt himself came from SUN. Is he so afraid of hardware?

Of course, historically, Oracle and Google had been fighting for more than ten years, and Oracle lost the lawsuit in the end.

But Google is a bit retarded in doing business, but they are not good at litigating. They could even handle the safe harbor bill back then. If the same lawsuit were to be fought again, Chen Qin was not sure that he would be able to reach their level.

And now that Chen Qin is a Chinese company, if another lawsuit breaks out, it is normal practice for the local judicial system to favor local companies, so...

So why didn't you think of it before?

Chen Qin patted his head and his thoughts became clearer. Just at this moment, the assistant had arrived: "Mr. Chen, Mr. Peter Thiel directly contacted the CEO and Chairman of SUN, but he has something to talk to." Just ask..."

Then Peter Thiel's voice came from the computer: "Chen, what's the matter with you? Why are you asking SUN? This company is currently in a bad situation. The only business we can talk about is acquisition. After all, IBM has entered the market... "

After getting a positive answer, he added: "The situation of this company is very complicated. I don't know how much you know. Their founder is the soul of the company, but now he has little interest in the company's business, and the investors are even more interested." Support the current CEO, and no matter which party, they have failed to save the company's previous poor cash flow. Now the company not only has a plunge in stock, but also has high debt of nearly 20 billion this year, and their next-generation hardware products are poor. Market expectations, these are all issues we must consider..."

Chen Qin remembered the previous problem again. Now the foundry that originally acquired AMD is a bit stretched.

Of course, now that things had happened, his thinking began to become more active. He thought of the group of domestic bosses downstairs holding banknotes and eager to go to the table to share the cake. He also thought of Mr. Li’s previous promise - he was not originally the one who wanted to share the cake. He suggested that Lenovo acquire SUN from his own position, and told Chen Qin, "If you have any questions, just ask," which probably meant the same thing.

Of course, these issues can be discussed later. After a brief exchange, Peter Thiel and Shen Nanpeng helped him find someone at SUN as soon as they got up on the West Coast.

But before that, there was one more thing. Chen Qin suddenly turned around. Ah Yue was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at him curiously: "What's wrong?"

"Something's wrong, come here."

Chen Qin waved, and Ah Yue stood up and came to him. Today, in order to help Chen Qin introduce the elders, she wore this cool little skirt, her hair was loose, and she was much cuter than usual.

"I have something to discuss with you," Chen Qin said. "We started making games last year. Look at what the media has become today. You can be considered one of the biggest contributors."

Ah Yue said modestly: "There are others, like you...what's wrong?"

"But it's still not working well now. The games will become obsolete, customers will lose, and there's an economic crisis..."

A Yue stood beside her with her hands behind her back, but made a smiling expression: "I know, but now I also have something I want to pursue, but its name is very meaningful after all. As long as it can live, I will be happy. , speaking of which, it’s also thanks to your galaxy software..."

"What is my galaxy software? I just have an idea." Chen Qin defended as usual, but this matter is not important today. "But what I want to say is another thing. Come and sit down first." .”

After saying that she got out of the way, Ah Yue didn't know what she meant. She gathered up her skirt and sat in front of the computer: "What's the matter?"

"I changed my mind. I still wanted to buy that company just now, but now I don't have that much money."

Ah Yue was a little embarrassed: "I have some at home, but certainly not as many as you..."

"The little money your family has is not enough." Chen Qin said, "What I mean is that we don't need your bamboo sticks now. Now we can mainly use some merger and acquisition capital operation methods, which can help us save a little money, and then your family can quickly It seems that it’s not going to work anyway, so why don’t we work together..."

A Yue blinked her big eyes: "What are you talking about?"

"Galaxy Software has some business, and I can buy it for your family. You don't need to pay for it, just use shares to offset it."

"Oh...then you won't be at a disadvantage?"

"The ratio can be negotiated. If your investors don't want to, they can also withdraw."

"Okay, then what?"

"Then we can invest in Kuaikan Media."

A Yue hesitated: "But the company doesn't seem to be short of money now..."

"There is no shortage of money, but the company's business is shrinking, which is actually not a good thing for investors and company employees." Chen Qin said, "Because our two families are sitting on the bank, we have to ask for your opinion. If so, it won’t actually bring much short-term benefit to everyone, but now I need to use it as a fulcrum to acquire a large company, do you think this is okay?”

(End of this chapter)