game trailblazer

Chapter 22 Office Software Controversy ([-])

For Zhang Lexing now, he really can only think about setting up a game studio. Now the entire VisualSystem company is paying attention to the upcoming new version of the spreadsheet software. This software can be said to have been devoted to more than a year. Zhang Lexing started thinking about it long before he came to the United States. The success of the software release will directly affect whether the company can continue to develop. Therefore, although Zhang Lexing has already aroused his interest in game production, he can only temporarily put it in his heart.

The spreadsheet development team on VisualSystem’s PC platform was established shortly after the launch of the Kylin 1.0 operating system, led by Kevin, the veteran of the company. In fact, this set of software was basically completed as early as the end of June, and the main work in the later stage was software debugging.In order to encourage everyone to work hard, Zhang Lexing also spent a lot of money to improve the lives of everyone in the development team from time to time. When the time came to the end of October, the new version of VisualSystem's spreadsheet software was ready to go.

Microsoft is not idle here either, and their move on spreadsheet software was even earlier.Microsoft encountered Waterloo on the operating system last year. Gates has been brooding over this matter. Unfortunately, the situation is stronger than others. Several improved versions of the DOS operating system have been launched one after another. On the one hand, the sales are not bad, otherwise the company's cash reserves would have bottomed out long ago.In this case, Gates had no better solution, so he had no choice but to temporarily give up the competition for the operating system market, and Microsoft began to devote its main energy to the development of new markets.

Electronic watch software first became popular from the Apple II, and as the new favorite of business users, PCs are also indispensable. Unfortunately, there are no better new products except for a bunch of imitations of VisualForm, and many PC users enjoy faster But the machine can't experience faster software computing speed.Microsoft keenly noticed this situation and decided to put the first development target on spreadsheet software.

Spreadsheet software belongs to application software, but what Microsoft knows best is only programming language. It was almost impossible to come up with a decent spreadsheet software quickly, and at this time a former Xerox employee, Charles Simeone, jumped in and brought much-needed application software development experience to Microsoft, so Simeone did not come out. Accidentally became the project manager of the Microsoft spreadsheet project.

Since the launch of VisiCalc, electronic form software has begun to form some unspoken rules in the industry, such as using A1, A2, B1, and B2 to represent grids, but Gates doesn't like it very much. He thinks that since Microsoft is going to make a new electronic Table software requires innovative ideas, and soon Gates proposed a representation method that he thought was very intuitive.

"Simone, our spreadsheet needs to use symbols such as L1C1 and L2C2 to represent the grid. L (Line) is the row number, C (Columns) is the column number, so isn't L1C1 the first row and the first column, you see It’s so intuitive, much better than Bricklin’s A1B1.” Gates explained his idea and asked the development team to change it according to what he said.

"But a lot of software uses A1B1..." Simeone tried to explain that the standard is very important, and you can't change it casually in the heat of your head.

"It doesn't matter, our Microsoft's choice will definitely become the new standard!" Gates interrupted Simeone before he finished speaking. In his opinion, the standard should be set by Microsoft, and others' ones are nothing.

"But..." Simeone tried to make an effort again, but was interrupted again just as he spoke.

"There is nothing but, you just need to execute it." Gates' face became serious, "Also, our spreadsheet software must be installed on every microcomputer, so it must be installed under various popular operating systems. can run, of course, in order to reduce the workload of transplantation, it can be developed in C language."

"Then should we also develop one under the Kylin system?" Employee A, who was not open-eyed, interjected.

Gates' complexion darkened all of a sudden, and he yelled at the unlucky employee A: "Don't mention this damn name, get out of here!"

Poor employee A ran out of the door in desperation, Gates glanced at the development team again, everything was harmonious under his angry eyes.Soon the spreadsheet development team started working according to Gates' idea, but it didn't take long for new problems to arise between the development team and IBM.

Gates was still worried about IBM's impromptu replacement at the beginning, but who made IBM so huge, if the tiny Microsoft wanted to challenge IBM, it would be like an ant fighting an elephant, and a large part of its own high-level language The sales still have to count on IBM's orders, so even if it is smashed by IBM, it can only knock down teeth and swallow blood.This time it's the same again. Simonyi has conceived many new functions for this spreadsheet software, but many of them have relatively high memory requirements, which cannot be satisfied by ordinary *KB memory, but IBM recently plans to mainly promote *KB memory. machine, so they repeatedly sent staff to request that the spreadsheet software be executed under *K memory.Simeone also fought against the unaffected software functions, and even persuaded Gates to support him, but he did not expect that the pressure from IBM was so great that it crushed his resistance in an instant, and he could only follow IBM's instructions obediently. As a result, some functions with high memory requirements had to be shrunk.

Fortunately, these are just small obstacles on the road to development. Relying on the efforts of everyone, the development team finally completed the project smoothly. The proud Gates named this spreadsheet software Multiplan. Multi means "multiple" and plan means "multiplan". Planning", Gates believes that this name can well reflect the functional characteristics of this spreadsheet software-multiple windows and multiple tables. In mid-August, Multiplan on the Apple II was first released, followed by the CP/M version of Multiplan. In mid-October, Multiplan running on Microsoft's own operating system MS-DOS was also released. This version of Multiplan is still available. Relying on the key points of Gates' plan, he hopes that after Multiplan becomes popular, more people will be attracted to use MS-DOS, and maybe his own operating system has a chance to turn around.

At the beginning of November, the autumn Comdex exhibition opened in Las Vegas. In order to promote their own spreadsheet software, Gates, Simeone and others brought Multiplan to set up a booth at the exhibition.Gates proudly announced to the passing visitors: "This is the second-generation electronic form, a new era electronic form, powerful and easy to use. Anyone who can use a calculator can quickly master Multiplan."

After hearing Gates' propaganda, many interested visitors soon gathered around. Simeone turned on a computer and began to demonstrate the use of the software, but within 10 minutes, he found that the people around him became less and less Alright, the original double-digit audience has only single-digit numbers left.

Seeing that the last few people were about to leave, Gates couldn't sit still, so he quickly grabbed someone and asked, "Dude, where are you going in such a hurry?"

"There are two companies fighting against each other over there. It's so exciting, don't drag me!" The person who was caught left a word, broke free from Gates' clutches and ran away.

"Simone, go and see, what is it?" Gates felt very strange and decided to send someone to investigate.

Desperate, Simeone hurriedly followed the flow of people. After walking for a while, he found that there were more and more people in front of him. After finally squeezing through, he found that there were two adjacent stalls inside, and the crowds were extremely lively.One was VisualSystem, which had robbed Microsoft of its operating system job, and the other was called Lotus Software, which was relatively unfamiliar. What surprised Simonyi was that the two companies were competing with spreadsheet software.The publicity of the two companies is different. The banner of the company called Lotus is "Lotus 1-2-3, there are a lot of spreadsheets, databases, and commercial graphics. With Lotus in hand, you can ask for nothing!", while VisualSystem The company's signboard is "Professional electronic form - VisualSheet, the fastest calculation speed, diverse statistical graphics, your best choice!"

Simeone doesn't care about these empty words at all. Professionals like him only care about the functions and performance of the software itself.Following the flow of people, Simeone went to the two booths to get the promotional materials, and then pretended to be a visitor to experience the demo machine. Unexpectedly, the more he looked at it, the more chilled he became, and the more he worked hard, the colder he became, and finally he left the two booths in a daze. home stall.Along the way, Simeone felt as if he was stepping on cotton on his feet, and there was only one sentence in his head that kept echoing—"It's over!"

After finally moving back to his booth, Simeone sat down on the chair, as if he had lost all his strength and collapsed.Seeing how his subordinate's love would become like this, Gates also panicked, and hurriedly called someone to bring water.

After drinking a few sips of water, Simeone slowly recovered. He grabbed Gates' hand and said in pain: "The two companies over there are both doing spreadsheets. Our Multiplan and those two new software are simply not the same. Language, even if we modify it immediately, it is too late, Multiplan is gone.”

"How could this be? Our Multiplan is not as good as them!" Gates yelled unwillingly.

Simeone shook his head and said weakly: "It's useless, their software is not only more powerful than ours, but more importantly, they didn't consider IBM's damn *KB limit at all, they were designed according to 256KB of memory, That alone is a death sentence for us, we were off course from the start."

……

Subsequent market feedback confirmed Simeone's conjecture. During the next few days of the exhibition, both VisualSystem and Lotus received orders worth more than one million dollars, while the poor Multiplan only received less than 1 orders.After the exhibition, VisualSheet and Lotus 2-3-1 continued to make efforts to sweep out the predecessors who occupied the spreadsheet market, while Multiplan, a latecomer, had nowhere to go.Soon, the electronic form software market in North America was divided up by VisualSheet and Lotus2-3-[-], and if the poor Multiplan hadn't received overseas orders by accident, I'm afraid it would have died in the year it went public.Frustrated again, Gates couldn't help crying with Simeone, and he lamented in his heart: "Why am I so unlucky!"

(End of this chapter)