Video Game Empire

Sales of the Macintosh computer, the second milestone in the personal computer industry that Steve Jobs talked about before, fell far short of Apple's expectations. ￡∝Small, Sculley finally took advantage of o's power and took the opportunity to sack Jobs' last real power position - the director of the Macintosh project department, and only gave him the title of a company consultant.

Jobs originally planned to contact a group of people to attack Sculley, but the board of directors had long been disappointed with him, and other people in the company were unwilling to continue to fight with Jobs. Because Apple has reached a very critical moment, if the internal struggle continues like this, it may really be completely eliminated by the market in the future.

The betrayed Steve Jobs finally chose to resign sadly, ending his first journey at Apple. Of course, it is unknown whether the Apple company of this life can wait for him to come back after more than ten years to turn the tide.

Li Xuan put down the "Wall Street Journal" in his hand and couldn't help feeling a little sigh. He remembers another time and space where Jobs struggled until 1985 before he left Apple.

But Jobs' early departure may not be a bad thing for Apple, which is in internal and external troubles. In another time and space, it was after Sculley took over the full control of Apple that he launched the enhanced Macintosh computer, which finally reversed the sales decline and became the only computer company that could compete with the n-league.

And now Ikon Computer and the Oriental Group behind it are putting more pressure on Apple than the b and p compatible machines in another time and space.

According to the newspaper Li Xuan had just read, Sculley announced the abolition of the Lisa machine department the day after Jobs left. This computer is named after Jobs' daughter. There is a lot of overlap with the Macintosh project in terms of positioning, and Apple is ready to focus all its energy on the Macintosh project.

Li Xuan wondered if Apple could survive the new blow that Ikon had already started. Since the July 1981 release of the ab-3 computer. Aikon has finally launched a landmark product, the ab-5 personal computer.

It's not the same as Steve Jobs' previous rants. The ab-5 once again ushered in a major technological advancement compared to all models of personal computers on the market. Although the r-1 processor was a 32-bit core processor before, it was castrated in actual use, and the external interface was only 16-bit, which greatly limited the performance of the processor.

The r-2 processor adopts the latest r-2 architecture, and the internal instruction set has been significantly improved and optimized compared to the previous r-1 architecture. And in order to solve the problem that the memory speed cannot keep up with the processor speed, 4 off-chip caches are added to the r-2 processor, which greatly improves the computing power of the r-2 processor.

Although the processor is the core component of the computer, it determines the overall performance of the computer. More than just processors. According to the short board theory, how much water a bucket can hold depends on its shortest board.

And the shortest piece of wood in the previous personal computer may be the memory. When the ab-3 was launched, the memory was not inserted into a special memory slot in the form of a memory stick like the later computers, but the memory chip was directly welded to the computer motherboard.

On the early ab-3 standard motherboard, there are two solder joints for soldering memory chips. If you choose the lowest configuration of 128 memory, usually two 64 chips are soldered. If you choose the highest configuration of 512 memory, you usually solder two 256 chips.

But at the end of 1982. The research and development center of the Oriental Research Institute in Silicon Valley, after Li Xuan invested heavily in digging a number of experts, finally developed the s interface.

The Chinese translation of s is called a single in-line memory module, which is to encapsulate one or more memory chips in a unified module. The integrated circuit boards (memory sticks) that contain these modules are then connected to the motherboard through dedicated slots.

The biggest advantage of this is that it is easy to upgrade the memory, after the s-interface technology is fully mature. Later models of ab-3 computers began to use memory slots. However, the s interface originally developed is 30pn, which can only support up to 16-bit processors.

And the new listing ab-5 computer. The s interface has been upgraded to 72pn to support 32-bit processors. Therefore, the ab-5 computer can be said to be the first real 32-bit computer in the world. Its r-2 processor has not been castrated. In order to give full play to the computing performance of the processor, the memory configuration of the computer is as high as 1.

In addition, the ab-5 computer is also equipped with an independent sound card and graphics card, and the support for multimedia functions is also greatly improved. In addition to the CD-ROM and hard disk, the ab-5 computer has added a new external device for the first time, a mouse, to cooperate with the user in a visual graphical interface mode to control the computer more easily.

It can be said that the listing of ab-5 has once again made all computers on the market obsolete! But the new ab-5 computer is priced at $5,299, and its portable model, the ab-p5, is $5,499.

Relying on the special relationship with the Oriental Research Institute, Aikang has begun to develop the ab-5 computer simultaneously as early as the beginning of the development of the r-2 processor. Taking advantage of the fact that other computer manufacturers have not had time to launch new computers based on r-2 processors, Ikon naturally has to plunder profits with high prices when the competition is not fierce.

The positioning of the ab-5 computer is the high-end business market. In fact, the more high-end customers are, the less sensitive they are to price. For example, the flagship store of Computer Garden Company in New York received a large order from Wall Street on the first day that the ab-5 computer was listed.

Lehman Brothers is about to purchase 200 ab-5 computers to replace a fleet of older computers they are using. For Wall Street behemoths like Lehman Brothers, the back office is most concerned with computer performance and quality. As for whether the computer costs $4,000 or $5,000, it's not a big deal at all. Because of the extra 200,000 US dollars in equipment procurement costs, it is simply a drizzle for the Wall Street investment bank of Rijinjindou.

So Ikon's new computer is expensive. But Li Xuan is not worried that sales will be cold. First, Ikon before the launch of the new computer. It has already done a large-scale marketing campaign and fully mobilized the appetite of potential customers.

Second. Although the price of ab-5 is high, it is worth every penny. The performance of the ab-5 is already comparable to that of many low-end workstation computers on the market, which cost at least $10,000.

The teaching of ba (Master of Business Administration for Senior Management) is not full-time. Columbia University adopts a centralized teaching once a month, each time is four days, one weekend plus two working days, and the daily work of the students is minimized. Impact.

Depending on the learning progress of each college, the length of schooling is generally 18-20 months. Since Li Xuan has applied for Columbia's ba course, he naturally hopes that he can really learn some knowledge. With the growing scale of the Oriental Group. His leadership also has to become more efficient and creative.

Li Xuan did not fly back to Hong Kong directly from New York after his March lecture, but went to San Francisco on the west coast. Several important subsidiaries of Dongfang Electronics, as well as the group's North American headquarters are located in Silicon Valley.

As soon as he got off the plane, he received good news that the Oriental Research Institute had reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the American os company. In fact, this cooperation was requested by os company. Previously, it participated in helping China to build a deep-sea microelectronics semiconductor wafer fab with the help of Dongfang Commercial, and its relationship with Dongfang Group began to become closer.

As the former leader of the memory market in the United States, the os company has been very miserable in the past three or four years. Under the pressure of the life-threatening price war of Japanese semiconductor companies, os companies have been losing money for three consecutive quarters. Several securities firms have even downgraded the stock from hold to sell.

in such a dire situation. os must launch a rescue operation. The previous participation in the project of the Deep Sea Microelectronics Company was actually part of the self-rescue action of starving for food. But that's just a one-off snack and doesn't really solve the crisis the os is now ordering.

The global processor market has become unprofitable amid irrational price cuts by Japanese companies. And the emergence of s interface. Let os company see a glimmer of light. Because this means that the memory chip will not be directly applied to the computer, but will be inserted into a special slot on the motherboard in the form of a memory stick package.

In the past, the Oriental Research Institute used cash purchases and other methods. Obtained the authorization of dozens of pre-patents, and then cooperated with dozens of core patents and peripheral patents related to s interface. A copper wall has been erected on the patent of the s interface.

If other companies want to develop memory sticks, it is absolutely impossible to completely bypass the patent barriers of the Oriental Research Institute. Either they obediently obtain authorization from the Oriental Research Institute. Either give up the s-interface directly and develop a more advanced next-generation memory technology to replace it.

When the s interface first came out, the controversy in the industry was actually very big. The first-generation 30pn s interface needs to be inserted into four memory at the same time to work properly. This not only increases the cost of consumers on a single component of memory, but also increases the failure rate and maintenance cost due to the excessive number of memory sticks.

Therefore, in addition to Aikang, other computer companies have not followed up on the use of s-interfaces on their own computers. However, with the emergence of the second-generation 72pn s-interface technology, not only the operation rate of the memory has been greatly improved, but also it can work normally only by inserting two memory sticks.

Anyone with insight can already see that the trend of replacing directly soldered memory chips with memory sticks on computers is irreversible. As long as the os company can obtain the relevant patent authorization of the s interface from the Oriental Research Institute, it can effectively avoid the price war of the Japanese company in the memory.

Because after adding the link of the memory chip packaging to the memory stick, it is difficult for the price war in the memory field to be transmitted to the memory market. Because the Oriental Research Institute, which controls s-related patents, is bound to not authorize its own patents without restraint.

Because that will only lead to the emerging memory market, and fierce competition will break out. In the end, it is definitely the market leader of the Oriental Research Institute that will suffer the most. That's right, only the "Dongfang" brand memory sticks entrusted by Dongfang Research Institute to be produced by Dongfang Semiconductor are being sold on the market. In the case of insufficient market competition, the Oriental Research Institute's profit in memory is also very good, relying on the orders of the Aikang company.

Li Xuan is not prepared to swallow the entire memory market alone, as this is likely to lead to antitrust investigations. But just as the os company guessed, he is not ready to authorize a large number of s patents.

Before the os company came to the door, in fact, many Japanese companies had already begun to test the position of the Oriental Research Institute. In the end, the Oriental Research Institute reached an agreement with the os company first. Because the os company is currently facing the worst conditions, and its position on the negotiating table is also the most correct.

The Oriental Research Institute did not ask for a huge patent fee for the os company, but hoped to use the s patents to exchange for a large number of memory basic patents held by the os company.

After all, os company was the largest semiconductor company in the United States five years ago, and a series of important basic patents it holds can completely open the door of Oriental Research Institute to enter the memory market.

After all, the current tragic price war in the memory market cannot continue forever. The memory market has always been the largest market in the entire semiconductor field. If it fails to obtain enough basic patent authorizations, Orient Group simply pays various patent royalties to other companies, which will greatly weaken the competitiveness of Orient Corporation in the memory market.

It is Dr. Yu Youcheng, assistant dean of the Oriental Research Institute, who is in charge of negotiating with the os company. After Li Xuan arrived at the Oriental Group headquarters in Silicon Valley, he immediately learned about the situation.

"Since the os company has bowed its head, then our negotiations with Toshiba and Hitachi can be tougher! Especially Toshiba, it is said that a technician named Fujio Okaoka has just invented a non-volatile unique memory device.

I demand that Toshiba must put this new type of memory-related patents, called flash memory, in the list of exchange s patents! "Li Xuan said to Yu Youcheng with a smile.

The Oriental Research Institute is not short of money, so cash is not very attractive to Li Xuan~www.readwn.com~ The reason why he chose to negotiate with Toshiba and Hitachi instead of other Japanese companies is because he values ​​them. They are all one of the largest companies in the Japanese semiconductor industry and have a large number of technical patents of interest to the Oriental Research Institute.

"I have spread the news that os company has reached a battle with us. Toshiba has just sent a fax and is going to send another director as a plenipotentiary representative to Hong Kong for negotiation!"

Yu Youcheng nodded and continued, "It's not us who should be worried now, I will slowly grind it with the Japanese, and try to bite down two pieces of meat from Toshiba and Hitachi!"

"How's your talk with Aikang?" Li Xuan asked again.

The patent of s mainly includes two parts, one part is related patents of memory sticks, and the other part is related patents of sockets. Li Xuan Equipment transferred all the patents of the slot to Aikang, which became part of Aikang's new ab-5 computer technology standard.

Facing the competition of compatible machine manufacturers, Aikang always has some trump cards, and the brand-new ab-5 technical standard will not be authorized for free, but will charge a certain patent fee, which is the stable profit of Aikang. , and pushed up the cost of all competitors, it can be said to kill two birds with one stone! (To be continued..)