game trailblazer

Chapter 19 Venture Capital Funds
And IBM's PCs are also performing better and better. Since they were equipped with the Kylin system, orders have poured in like snowflakes, and sales have been rising steadily. It's time for the end of the year.

The original cloud-like PC turned into a gold mine in a blink of an eye. Needless to say, Estridge must be smiling. Even Ombre, who feels sorry for Bill's mother, is now smiling from ear to ear. I don't know where the guilt has gone.Immediately, the high-morale IBM continued to open more factories, and a large number of spare parts were continuously shipped to the workshop. Within two months, the output of PCs soared to [-] units per month. IBM's strong attack quickly attracted the attention of other microcomputer companies in the United States. Almost everyone felt insecure and rushed to tell everyone: the monster is coming.

With the help of IBM's great development, VisualSystem has also begun to develop rapidly, occupying the vast majority of operating systems on PCs.During this period, Microsoft was unwilling to give up so easily. After half a year of deliberation, it launched the second version of DOS in an attempt to counterattack the Jedi.But strong players have their own strong players. VisualSystem launched an enhanced version of the Kylin system (Kylin1.1) almost simultaneously. With the help of Joey, this version of the system has more powerful functions and more stable performance. Failed.The two consecutive failures made many people in Microsoft lose their confidence in competing for the hegemony in the operating system, and even Allen began to waver. Bill had no choice but to temporarily give up his efforts in the operating system, trying to find a new breakthrough.

Joey joined the VisualSystem company and soon started working, and the company's business situation gradually got on the right track. Zhang Lexing no longer needed to be as busy as before and tired like a dog, and began to have some free time. At this time, the World Cup in June has also arrived.

This year's World Cup was held in Spain in Europe, and it was also the first time that the team expanded to 24 teams. Although the United States was still a football desert at this time, it did not affect Zhang Lexing's timely access to news about the World Cup. More importantly, there were gaming companies. Handicap about the World Cup has been opened.This year’s World Cup was the one that Zhang Lexing remembered most clearly before [-]. VisualSystem’s business performance was very good, and its monthly income continued to rise. However, Zhang Lexing had many ideas that he wanted to implement immediately, such as setting up a venture capital fund. It needs money, and Zhang Lexing is unwilling to affect the normal operation of VisualSystem. After all, the company is still a start-up, so this World Cup is a good opportunity.

Zhang Lexing originally made a lot of money from his first software, VisualForm, but later basically invested it in VisualSystem and Kunpeng Animation in Hong Kong. worry free.Fortunately, these two companies are relatively competitive. At the end of last year, they paid a lot of dividends. Zhang Lexing took an inventory of his money. After basic living expenses, he should still have 900 million US dollars to use.

After opening an account and making a few phone calls, Zhang Lexing quickly settled the number of games he was planning to bet on this time. Although he remembered the results of all the games, he only bet on a few key games this time. The money came quickly, but it was too ostentatious, and everyone said that it was a big tree attracting the wind. For people like Zhang Lexing who have no foundation, it is better to keep a low profile.

On June 6th, in the opening match between Belgium and Argentina, Zhang Lexing bet more than 13 million dollars for Belgium to win. As a result, Belgium really beat Argentina 100-1. As a result, Zhang Lexing won 0 at 1 to 9. How much.It was the same in the days that followed. Several key matches were as expected by Zhang Lexing, and it was like this until the end of the World Cup. Fortunately, Zhang Lexing finally earned more than 1000 million US dollars.

The first thing for Zhang Lexing, who has money, is to spend 5000 million US dollars to set up a Honghe venture capital fund. The daily management of the fund will naturally be handled by professionals. In fact, Zhang Lexing just hopes to invest in some promising technologies or companies. It is a period of great development of IT technology, and Zhang Lexing also hopes to get a share of it and make more reserves for his future.After the establishment of Honghe Fund, Zhang Lexing chose Adobe as his primary target, which will be the overlord of the electronic publishing industry in the future. Zhang Lexing remembered that this company seemed to be established this year.

I handed over the search for Adobe to the investigation company, but after a week, Zhang Lexing couldn't find it. Zhang Lexing began to beat his heart, maybe he remembered the wrong time.Fortunately, Zhang Lexing still remembered that John Warlock was one of the founders of Adobe, and he had worked at Xerox before, so he asked the investigation company to change the target and search again. This time, it was very fast. In less than three days, he was found up.

At this time, John Warlock had left Xerox and was starting a business with his old boss, Charles, trying to combine workstations and printers into one product to sell to users.

Just doing what he said, Zhang Lexing asked Yang Xinxin for a few days off, and went with Anderson, the investment manager of his own fund.When Zhang Lexing brought Anderson in front of John and Charles, the two brothers were still thinking about the future in distress.

"Mr. John, Mr. Charles, I heard that you have developed a printing control language called Interpress." Zhang Lexing asked.

"That's right." John Warlock replied proudly: "This is a device-independent printing control language, and I believe it will be widely used in the future."

Of course Zhang Lexing knew how popular this thing would be in the future, so he immediately followed the topic, relying on some technical information about the printing control language left in his memory, Zhang Lexing successfully chatted with these two brothers, what kind of data storage method, What kind of mixed processing of text and images and so on.This conversation immediately aroused the interest of Warlock and Charles, and the more they talked with Zhang Lexing, the relationship between the two became much closer.

After chatting and talking, Zhang Lexing felt that the stuff in his stomach was almost gone, and he was going to make a fool of himself if he went any further, so he slowly turned the topic to the company's management. As a result, Warlock felt it more deeply and began to talk about it. Pour bitter water.At that time, laser printers were terribly expensive, and they were generally embarrassed to buy one without a price of [-] US dollars. However, Warlock and Charles envisioned combining workstations and printers into one product for sale, but they did not expect that the competition would be so fierce. This year alone, six newly established companies are planning to make the same product, and they all have more funds than them, so they don't know what to do now.

"You can consider selling graphics software to computer companies, designing Interpress print controllers, and selling Interpress fonts." Zhang Lexing suggested, this is not his idea out of thin air, in fact, he does not propose such an idea. Sooner or later, it will develop in this direction, so why not do it.

"We have also thought about it, but unfortunately due to early management mistakes, our finances are very tight now, and we don't have enough funds to develop new products." Warlock sighed: "Hey..."

"Gentlemen, I think this is not a problem now." Zhang Lexing said with a smile.

"Could it be that you are here for investment? I want to know what conditions are there?" Warlock's eyes lit up, and he asked eagerly. It seemed that the financial pressure had made him unable to maintain his restraint.

"We are here because we are very optimistic about the development prospects of your technology. If you accept it, I will invest in your technology. Of course, we must have reasonable shares accordingly, but we will not dictate your daily operations. Yes. Of course, we have an additional condition, VisualSystem will set up an applied technology research institute in the future, and I hope you will arrange a certain time to give some guidance on graphics processing technology."

This request is not too much. Warlock and Charles briefly communicated for a while, and both nodded in agreement with Zhang Lexing's request.The next thing will be handled by Anderson. After careful negotiation, the two parties reached an agreement that the Red River Fund will invest 800 million US dollars to establish a new company for Warlock and Charles. Intervening in the company's daily operations, of course, also includes the Honghe Fund's exit method after the company's IPO in the future. In early September, Warlock and Charles' new company was established. The name was Adobe, but now Interpress has changed its name to Postscript.

After finalizing Adobe's shareholding agreement, Zhang Lexing began to pursue the next target, the future database tycoon Oracle.It was still the investigative company, and there was still no gain. It took several weeks, but no company named Oracle was found. The investigators were still relatively clever. At the end of the report, a small company named RSI was mentioned. This company The database product sold is called Oracle.

Zhang Lexing didn't know whether RSI was the future Oracle company, so he could only ask the investigation company to investigate this company in detail, and soon a new investigation report was sent to Zhang Lexing. RSI was founded in 1977, when the company name was still called SDL, and it was not changed to the current name until 1979.The company is mainly engaged in the research of relational database, but the current development of the company is not ideal.

Although RSI has listed the two big names of the US Central Intelligence Agency and the Naval Intelligence Agency, due to the repeated bugs in the second version of Oracle, these two users are about to become RSI's voluntary fault finders. The service attitude is excellent. Once a problem is found, it will be solved immediately. I am afraid that even these two users will not be able to keep it.At this time, the competitor RTI from the University of Berkeley launched the Ingres database with better performance and quality, and has won many users.In order to maintain its leading position, RSI must speed up the development of the new version of the database, but it has encountered financial difficulties. It can't even afford a new development machine, and it doesn't even choose a C compiler for development. Portability, the main reason is to save money.At this time, the RSI company can be said to be precarious, and may face the danger of bankruptcy at any time.

Now the timing is quite good, so Zhang Lexing brought negotiators to RSI company.Ellison originally didn't want anyone to inject capital to buy shares for the time being, and wanted to persist, but the increasing pressure from competitors and development difficulties finally made Ellison choose to compromise.Of course, this old fox has not forgotten to strive for greater benefits. In the end, Zhang Lexing paid more than 300 million US dollars to get back the 20% equity of RSI company. However, the corresponding RSI company also promised to develop on the operating system of VisualSystem company in the future. database software.

RSI, which received capital injection, acted quickly, and finally completed the third version of Oracle the next year, claiming to have good portability, connectivity and compatibility. At the same time, RSI changed its name and took the company's product Oracle as the new It seems that Zhang Lexing made the right choice.

(End of this chapter)