NOVEL WEB Chapter 13
Chapter 13 Office software war kicked off
Since the verbal abuse, Steve Jobs came to Zerone’s office several times without changing his face. He didn’t know what kind of thoughts this guy had in his mind under the appearance of the fresh-clothed angry horse, but the employees of Zerone were stimulated to work. The enthusiasm is even higher.
Although Tang Huan dismissed Jobs’ arrogance, he still couldn’t hold back the evil taste of archaeology and decided to do something so that he couldn’t make the other party so relaxed and comfortable.
So, Tang Huan went to Menlo Park while he was busy, and got his wish to find the distressed mother and daughter, Steve Jobs’ ex-girlfriend Chris Ann Brennan and his illegitimate daughter Lisa.
I have to say that under the influence of the “Beat Generation”, the relationship between men and women in this era is relatively casual among young Americans. It is not uncommon for young Americans to be unwilling to take responsibility or even to quit without admitting their lives after a life was lost.
What Tang Huan learned is that it is unclear whether Jobs has already done a paternity test at the University of California, Los Angeles, but he is currently in a lawsuit with Brennan for his daughter’s support.
In fact, as far as Jobs is concerned, the monthly alimony of 385 US dollars judged by the court is just a trivial matter, but he still vigorously denies that Lisa is his daughter in law, and it is said that he still claims that he did not. Fertility.
This entangled situation may not be improved until Jobs wants to understand that once Apple is successfully listed, lawsuits will adversely affect his future wealth.
In the name of a friend, Tang Huan supported Brennan’s mother and daughter for $500, and expressed admiration for her great maternal love, encouraging her to be strong, and seemingly inadvertently revealed that he can feel confident and boldly let the lawyers increase their demands. Jobs didn’t dare to delay the lawsuit for too long, otherwise it would affect the image of the company’s representative when he was financing. He would lose even more after Apple goes public next year.
I don’t know if this is regarded as a kind of harm to others, anyway, after Tang Huan returned from Menlo Park, he was secretly refreshed.
However, after seeing the little poor Lisa, he became more enthusiastic about his desire to start a family. However, Deng Lijun’s family on the treasure island has not yet completed the visa application process. It is said that the process is extremely complicated. Otherwise, Deng Lijun, who has been flying around Southeast Asia all the year round, would not have a fake passport.
A few days after , news suddenly came from Baodao that Father Deng was ill in bed. Deng’s mother was so anxious that Tang Yun comforted her, “Or you can go back and have a look, anyway, we are here to take care of Li Jun.”
This is the same reason Deng’s mother thinks about. Now Tang Yun regards her daughter as a prospective daughter-in-law. She is very affectionate, and she has no need to worry about anything.
So just like that, Deng’s mother hurried back to the treasure island alone, but Deng Lijun inevitably felt a little depressed. Tang Huan had to spare more time to accompany him. The two became more and more like glue. Deng Lijun even went to Los Angeles. Reading things have been delayed again and again.
Fortunately, Zerone’s staffing is getting more and more orderly, and Tang Huan is not required to do it personally. For example, after the development of the full platform version of CGrid, follow-up marketing work.
At the time, Apple’s second-generation machine was quickly accepted by users. In addition to the excellent product itself, it was also related to the public relations staff that Jobs contacted. This person was Silicon Valley marketing guru Regis McKenna.
McKenna was born in a large working-class family in Pittsburgh. He dropped out of college and worked for Fairchild and National Semiconductor. In 1970, he founded his own public relations and advertising company in Silicon Valley-Regis McKenna Marketing Consultants.
This person has two specialties. One is to leave the opportunity of exclusive interviews with his clients to reporters he knows well, and the other is to plan unforgettable advertising plans. For example, a series of colorful magazine advertisements created for Intel, with fast racing cars and poker chips as the main elements, replaced the boring performance charts of the past, and improved the brand awareness of the abstract high-tech products of microchips, and achieved good results. Ad Performance.
Historically, McKenna’s marketing plans have contributed to some of the most important technological innovations, such as the world’s first microprocessor Intel, the first personal computer Apple Computer, and the first computer retail store Byte store. The technical marketing plan he participated in also included the first computer local area network, the first micro supercomputer and the first desktop publishing system, etc., which can be described as brilliant achievements.
And McKenna’s network resources are also eye-catching. Many companies that finally became famous in the industry have received his help in their early days, such as AOL, Apple, Microsoft, and so on.
Based on McKenna’s ability at this time and future energy, Tang Huan personally contacted his high-tech marketing company and negotiated the cooperation matters. Of course, the corresponding expenses were high, but in front of Zerone’s strong ability to attract money, it appeared. It’s commonplace.
Actually, software companies are not as profitable as hardware companies in this period. For example, in 1978, Microsoft’s sales revenue was $1 million, and Apple has already launched a second round of financing this year.
But this limitation is not a problem for Tang Huan, a reborn person. Both the intellectual cost and the time cost are horribly low. After the product is successfully developed, he only needs to buy some copies compared to the production line of the computer manufacturer. The software disk will do.
With extra effort, Tang Huan developed another heavyweight office software for the CP/M platform, namely a word processing program, named WordEasy, which made other technicians working together a little ashamed. Psychologically, my boss is too capable.
In fact, Tang Huan’s research and development process is so easy, because there are too many open source projects in this area in his previous life. But where do other people know how to go, they just feel bathed in the brilliance of the chief software architect, and the pressure is very high, because the development of WordEasy on the Mac platform falls on them, and everyone feels that it would be too embarrassing if the progress is slow.
Since word processing software is also available, let McKenna’s company make a promotion plan together.
So, starting in July 1979, the microcomputer market ushered in a sales boom. The root cause is that CGrid and WordEasy have produced a huge pulling effect. Since then, these two software have repeatedly appeared in computer professional magazines, and even traditional media have frequently mentioned them, and they have exclaimed that office methods will usher in a new round of revolution.
Under such circumstances, traditional tycoons such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard whose main business is mainly on mainframes and minicomputers have also turned their attention to evaluate the business opportunities hidden in them, and for the first time they saw the spreadsheet software CGrid. Frank Cary, the chairman and CEO of IBM, was even more shocked. He immediately called in the company’s president, John Obel, to discuss its possible impact on the company’s business. Even Watson Jr. was shocked. , They feel that they can no longer underestimate the value of personal computers.
Compared to CGrid’s solitary begging for defeat in the market, WordEasy met its competitor, MicroProInternational’s WordStar, at the beginning of its listing.
In history, WordStar, its predecessor “ElectricPencil” and its later replacement “MicrosoftWord” are first-class word processing software. In the 1980s, it was in line with WordPerfect to dominate the market, and it was not over until the 90s were driven out by Microsoft Office. This situation ended.
In 1982, WordStar, with its sales of more than 1 million sets, made its sales nearly 70 million US dollars that year, helping the company become the world’s largest microcomputer software company in 1983.
Encountering such a dangerous competitor naturally made Tang Huan attach great importance to it, especially the person who runs WordStar is Seymour Rubinstein, and even Gates has suffered from this person’s secret loss in the promotion of the BASIC interpreter.
Compared with Tang Huan’s targeted and organized response to market competition, Jobs gradually felt the heavy pressure.
The two consecutive releases of Zerone on office software, UU reading www.uukanshu.com let users know that the original microcomputer can also do so many valuable business tasks, naturally spawning a huge demand, and currently CGrid includes There are two versions of Mac and CP?M, but WordRasy only has the CP?M version. It is hard to assess the specific impact of this on the market share of Macs.
Jobs grabbed the phone irritably and contacted Gates, “How is your development progress?”
“Very smoothly, but it will take a while to complete.” Gates replied swearingly.
“Damn, why are you so procrastinating, but Don can launch products one after another?” Jobs dropped the phone annoyed.
Gates shrugged helplessly, put down the phone gently, and came to the office of his entrepreneurial partner Paul Allen.
“That fellow Jobs called again to remind him.” Gates finally showed a trace of worry on his face.
Allen took his gaze back from the computer screen and rubbed his eyes, “The office software market is so huge, we must be involved in it, but you have also seen that to achieve the functions of CGrid and WordEasy, more is needed. Engineers and more time.”
“Look for an opportunity, I’ll visit that Tang again, he seems to be very hospitable, he was very warm to me when we met last time.” Gates thought slowly and said.
“I will go too. Recently, this person has been acting frequently. Some newspapers say that he is leading an office revolution. I would like to see what kind of outstanding person he is.”