Rebirth of the Tech Madman

Chapter 24 Dangerous competitor

I looked at the schedule sent by Wang Xuehong. The trip to Southeast Asia will have to wait until September at the earliest.

Because before that, he had to do at least one thing personally, and that was to send Zhuang Menghua to Harvard University.

Although this girl has always said no, but she can’t be ungrateful not to take Elder Zhuang’s entrustment seriously, and the inconvenience of the girl’s family and living in a foreign country is obvious, and she must make arrangements properly.

I have to say that, as the chairman and president of Zerone, plus the chief architect, Tang Huan is very busy and has a lot of business and private affairs. He feels that it is time to look for a professional CEO with the help of a headhunting company.

Wang Xuehong also sent a summary report. Recently, many new competitors have appeared in the personal computer word processing software market. In particular, a few small orders of WordEasy were snatched away by the old rival WordStar with the strategy of low-price competition.

Now that Zerone’s product sales method, in addition to the company’s own operations, Tang Huan also encouraged a large number of qualified students to use the summer vacation to promote sales in various parts of the United States. Several of them with good performance can take root as agents. Even began to consider taking a break from school to concentrate on earning money.

From this point of view, Tang Huan is very harmful, but he is quite proud of the sales method he named “Wolves Tactics”.

The situation in the report was reported by these students separately.

Tang Huan frowned. It seemed that WordStar, a dangerous competitor, had already started handing over with him, so he was really careless.

WordStar was the overlord of the personal computer word processing software market in the 1980s. In the mainland of Long Kingdom, this advantage can be more reflected. At that time WordStar was synonymous with word processing, and dBase was synonymous with database. The four-way Chinese typewriter, Qiu Bojun’s WPS has not learned much from WordStar.

Moreover, Seymour Rubinstein, who now runs WordStar, is very smart in business. So far, he has pitted two famous people, CP/M developer Kildare, Microsoft Gates, and industry reviews. “This Guys are geniuses who tease geniuses.”

At that time, Rubinstein had not founded the current MicroPro company, but worked as a software supervisor at the “copycat king” IMSAI company.

In 1975, MITS’ Altair computer was sought after by the market, but its production capacity was extremely low. Many users could not get the product after paying the money. The IMSAI company, which was on the verge of bankruptcy due to a failure in its business strategy, saw the opportunity and launched it quickly. Imitated the product, which grabbed a lot of orders from MITS, and users couldn’t tell the difference between the two computers.

Although the hardware is a good copy, IMSAI is at a disadvantage in terms of software, because MITS owns Microsoft’s BASIC language.

At that time, MITS and Microsoft formed a very close alliance. Microsoft was almost embedded in MITS. For example, in addition to operating Microsoft, Gates also worked part-time at MITS, and Microsoft’s other founder, Allen, was also The software supervisor of MITS. Even Gates took part in the singing and dancing caravan of MITS to cheer for Altair’s promotion.

So, Millard, the boss of IMSAI, asked Rubinstein to solve the software problem. He had only one clear request, that is, everyone has it and I have it.

The scheming Rubinstein didn’t want to stretch out his neck and be slaughtered, so he didn’t go to Gates directly, but first focused on the operating system. He found Kildare, and took advantage of his company’s mentality of urgently needing cash shortly after its opening, and obtained the right to use the CP/M operating system in batches at a price of $25,000, instead of charging for each copy according to the number of copies.

Obviously, this deal has made a lot of money, and even Rubinstein told others afterwards that it was almost stolen.

Then, Rubinstein aimed at another young genius, Gordon Eubanks, a student of Kildare.

Eubanks has developed a program similar to the BASIC language. Although the function is not as good as Microsoft’s product, it can also be used. Rubinstein found him, paid a computer and printer, and obtained the right to use the program.

In this way, Rubinstein combined the Kildare mentor and apprentice’s software together, and successfully provided a superior software combination for the copycat hardware of IMSAI at a very small cost.

Rubinstein didn’t stop there. He went out and wanted to use the market advantage of IMSAI computers to vigorously promote the Eubanks version of the BASIC language. The news naturally reached Microsoft soon.

Although Gates was young at the time, his business strategy was very sophisticated. Compared with profit, he paid more attention to the market share of the product. IMSAI was naturally a major customer he was striving for.

Rubinstein’s knocking on the mountain and shaking the tiger made Gates anxious, so the rhythm of the subsequent business negotiations was in Rubinstein’s hands.

After completing the negotiation with Gates, Rubinstein said triumphantly: “Everything that can be moved is brought in. It’s almost impossible to move.”

Gates naturally has a corresponding self-deprecation, “I respect Seymour Rubinstein very much, he has done everything he can, but I can’t help but let him restrain him.”

“Rubinstein is a master of negotiation. I am just a child in front of him.”

In the end, under Rubinstein’s plan, IMSAI had the right to use the best operating system and BASIC language at the time, and the cooperation between Gates and IMSAI deteriorated the relationship between MITS and Microsoft to some extent.

Of course, the “cottage king” can’t always rely on these means to continue to be proud of it. After Woz’s second-generation Apple machine turned out, it directly crushed IMSAI.

Seeing the bleak prospects of IMSAI, Rubinstein began to figure out his own way, founded MicroPro, and brought his colleague Rob Barnabi over to develop WordStar, thus becoming Zerone’s current competitor.

Tang Huan quickly made a decision that he must deal with Rubinstein, an old traitor, or he would suffer from the enemy after WordPerfect came out.

Therefore, at the subsequent Zerone staff meeting, Tang Huan vigorously rendered the threat of WordStar, and ordered the marketing department to pay attention to it, and make a new plan for CGrid and WordEasy as a supporting sales as soon as possible, under the double-sided attack of electronic forms and word processing. , Do not believe that you can’t kill WordStar.

After the meeting, Tang Huan called Simeone for a face-to-face instruction.

“Rubinstein worked at IMSAI as a small accomplishment, and now he has jumped out to do it alone. I guess I have learned a lot of copycat skills. We must add copyright statements to our programs.”

Simeone nodded, “In fact, WordStar also has many shortcomings that are quite obvious. For example, the typesetting rules are complex, the operation is very cumbersome, and the number of shortcut keys has reached dozens. We can address these weaknesses in the product. Fight back.”

Hearing Simeone’s specific analysis, Tang Huan waved his hand happily, “You do things, I’m relieved, just do what you want.”

After Simeone left, Tang Huan considered for a while, and felt that he should take further pay, visit Kildare, and cooperate. He didn’t believe that this person could fully let go of what Rubinstein had done.

In fact, even if WordStar didn’t jump out to grab food, Tang Huan had the idea of ​​going to a digital research company. Since there is a display enhancement card designed by Tang Huan on the Mac platform, the functions of CGrid and WoraEary are more powerful than the CP/M version of the program. He wants to discuss with Kildare to see if it can be at the operating system level. To provide a certain degree of coordination and enhancement.

Moreover, according to Tang Huan’s vision, the current personal computer software market is best stabilized in a three-point world. The operating system is Kildare and Digital Research’s CP/M, and the programming tools are Gates and Microsoft’s BASIC. The application software is the office software of Tang Huan and Zerone.

CGrid, which is the leader in the market, gave Tang Huan a taste of the sweetness, so Tang Huan became more and more firmly convinced that only a partnership and a monopoly can make business easier.

It’s a pity that Gates’ attitude is a bit unclear, and it depends on whether Kildare can make his wish.

……

Although she is reluctant to leave, Celine’s summer dream trip is still over as scheduled, and she must return to Canada.

When 　　 sent Xiao Lori on the plane, seeing that she was still depressed, Tang Huan promised once again, “When your school is off, let your brother take you over to play.”

“Don, don’t forget me.” Celine warned worriedly.

Tang Huan nodded without a smile, and exhorted the brother Celine who was also reluctant, and the two parties said goodbye.

Celine, the little clever, has helped Tang Huan get the contact information of Brooke Shields and Judy Foster, but only through the phone did he know that the former had returned to New York, and the latter was still staying in San Francisco.

So, Tang Huan asked the girl who would win two Oscars before the age of 30 in the future, and found a high-end coffee shop to sit in front of each other, talk about art, talk about life, and make love.

Parents divorced before Foster was born. There are two older sisters and one older brother on it. After her mother Evelyn was abandoned by her husband, she became a filmmaker in order to raise her four children. So far, the 17-year-old Foster has performed in more than 40 movies or TV shows.

With such a wealth of experience, Foster appears to be very independent and full of personality. In other words, this girl is not easy to fool, which can be shown in the neat dress and direct conversation.

“Did you get my contact information from Celine? There seems to be some conspiracy.” Foster said unceremoniously.

“It doesn’t count. When I sent Celine back to Canada, I accidentally glanced at the phone numbers of you and Brooke Shields and I remembered it in my heart.”

Foster snorted, his face showing the strange look of believing you.

Tang Huan shrugged, took a novel brought by Foster, turned a page casually, glanced at it, then put the book back in front of Foster, and recited it again.

Foster snorted, and looked up and down Tang Huan in surprise, “I didn’t expect you to have this ability Do people in the East know magic?”

“It’s just that memory is better.” Tang Huan pointed to his head, “Don’t forget what I do, the invention and creation of computer products, every day I come into contact with a lot of boring data, poor memory is not enough. ”

Foster nodded, he recognized Tang Huan’s statement, and accidentally got his own contact information.

Then, the atmosphere of the conversation between the two became much more harmonious.

“Being a child star for so many years, it’s time to transform. I heard that this process is full of uncertainties. Many talented young actors in Hollywood history are therefore dimly lit.” Tang Huan picked one. The right opportunity shifted the topic to a difficult problem that Foster must face now.

The girl did not shy away, “It is true, so I plan to go to university next year to enrich myself.”

“It’s a good idea, but if you don’t appear in the newspaper for a month in your circle, you are in danger of being completely forgotten. Will your mother agree?”

Foster rolled his eyes, “I don’t care, I’m tired of life now.”

Tang Huan smiled and said nothing, it seemed that Foster was in the original life trajectory.

Foster thought was independent again, but after letting go of his vigilance, he couldn’t stand the bombardment of the many memories in Tang Huan’s mind, and unknowingly, he became enthusiastic about the madman’s knowledge.

On parting, Tang Huan personally sent Foster away from the coffee shop. The distance between the girl and him was obviously narrowed to the extent that a good friend could only have.