Rebirth of the Tech Madman

Chapter 29 Another competitor

The last stop of Tang Huan’s east coast trip was to return to Harvard University to give a lecture. It has to be said that students are the group most willing to accept new things, and the concept of personal computer has been universally recognized by them, which can be seen from the various questions.

During the speech, Tang Huan found that a person’s questions were the most professional. After inquiring, he learned that he was greatly affected because of his rebirth. He was originally the developer of the world’s first spreadsheet software and the father of spreadsheets. , Dan Bricklin.

Obviously, Bricklin has been completely sad now, and the title of the father of spreadsheets has belonged to Tang Huan.

In the original history, in 1977, one year after leaving DEC, Bricklin was admitted to the Harvard Business School for an MBA.

During school, Bricklin’s tutors often assign some extracurricular homework-mechanically repetitively filling in receipts, accounts and statistical forms. Not only is there no fun at all, it is also easy to make mistakes if you are not careful.

Bricklin, who can play with computers, intends to hand over these repetitive tasks to the school’s minicomputers, but he found that different financial problems require different calculation methods and often need to be reprogrammed. Bricklin hates repetitive work. This led to the idea of ​​writing a general-purpose program.

At the beginning of 1978, Bricklin, who had just learned BASIC, decided to start his own programming. This time he wanted to start this work on a microcomputer. At that time, the popular microcomputers mainly included the PET of Comodo, the TRS-80 of Dondi, and the APPLE-II of Apple. Since the hardware architectures are not compatible with each other, the initial platform selection is very important.

In the end, Bricklin chose APPLE-II. It wasn’t the APPLE-II at that time. The performance of APPLE-II was so good. It was just that Bricklin could only borrow one APPLE-II at that time.

After the microcomputer got in hand, Bricklin’s programming work also officially started. Because of the use of the BASIC language for development, the software execution speed is so slow that you can make coffee and drink during the operation, but anyway, this program has initially possessed the basic features of the electronic form.

In order not to waste good ideas, coupled with his limited ability alone, Bricklin asked his friend Frankston to cooperate.

In early 1979, the two established a small company called SoftwareArts (SA), and began to work together to improve Bricklin’s program.

In order to improve the practicability of the software, its calculation speed must be increased, so it can only be rewritten in assembly language. The two worked together for more than two months and finally released their first commercial software.

This software was named “VisiCalc”, “Visible” is “visual”, and “Calculate” is “calculation”. The two words are decapitated and then superimposed to become the so-called “VisiCalc”, which means ” Visible calculations”.

Soon, Bricklin’s small software was taken by a company called Personal Software (PS), and the two parties soon signed a contract to entrust all the sales of VisiCalc to PS.

At that time, the owner of PS company was called Festral, and it was only a year or two after graduating from Harvard Business School, relying on selling chess programs for microcomputers to make ends meet.

At that time, the software sales channel was like Microsoft, dealing directly with hardware manufacturers. There is no similar precedent to follow for the specialized agency sales method, and there are no existing rules for making money. Therefore, after obtaining the sales permission of VisiCalc, Festral checked many Harvard case study books in order to find similar businesses.

As a result, he found that the closest example he could find is book publishing: the author is responsible for conceiving and completing the work, and the publisher is responsible for production, distribution, marketing and sales.

Switching to the software industry’s legal processing means that Bricklin and Frankston’s SA company is responsible for the development of VisiCalc and subsequent versions, while Festra’s PS company is responsible for copying floppy disks, printing manuals, advertising and Selling products to distributors and users created a brand-new model for the development and market sales cooperation, which became the first successful example of independent software developers or ISVs.

As for the sharing, the two parties agreed as follows: SA will obtain 37.5% of VisiCalc’s retail sales and 50% of the wholesale sales. As software becomes more and more popular in the market, this ratio has become the fuse for future conflicts between the two companies.

In October 1979, VisiCalc was officially introduced to the commercial market, priced at $100.

In the beginning, VisiCalc did not cause much response, but because it was developed for Apple II, Apple readily accepted this gadget, so Apple II and VisiCalc began to be favored by people together. In less than a year, Become the first best-selling application software in the history of personal computers.

In the era of VisiCalc’s big sales, the concept of software patents has not yet appeared in the United States. Software companies have successively launched their own spreadsheet software, such as: SuperCalc in 1980, Multiplan in 1982, Lotus 1-2 in 1983, 1984 AppleWorks in 1985 and Excel in 1985. During this period, VisiCalc not only failed to withstand the pressure of competition, it also gradually faded out of the market due to internal strife due to the distribution of benefits.

At the beginning of the speech event, Bricklin was directly confused when he saw the various powerful and mature functions displayed by CGrid on the Apple computer.

He never imagined that he and his friends worked so hard for so long to develop the program. As a result, he found that the same product was already available in Silicon Valley on the West Coast, and compared with other people’s products, his own program was weak. It burst, like a toy, Bricklin can only describe his feelings by crying without tears.

But very quickly, his dissatisfaction and curiosity drove Bricklin, persistently questioning Tang Huan and exploring the various details of CGrid.

Regarding this, Tang Huan was a little bit dumbfounded. Could it be that someone discovered that he had robbed him of his golden rice bowl and came to collect debts.

“These questions you asked are very specific. Did you develop such programs?” Tang Huan tentatively asked.

Bricklin did not hide it, “Yes, I made a Mac version with a friend, but compared with CGrid, our program is not competitive.”

Looking at Bricklin’s bitter expression, Tang Huan couldn’t help feeling sympathetic, “In this way, you have a lot of experience in the application of spreadsheets. Why not join my technical team. Zerone is very demanding. I’m thirsty.”

Bricklin thought for a while, and finally shook his head firmly, “I feel that my creativity and design are relatively mature, and I am not reconciled to give up. Since there is no chance on the Mac, I will try it on other platforms. .”

I rub, this little brother has not succeeded in soliciting, and he will become another competitor in the near future. Tang Huan sighed silently and sighed secretly that he was really going to be defeated.

is also good, since you are not afraid of the embarrassment of bankruptcy and loss, then just come over.

……

Zhuang Menghua adapted to the environment of Harvard University very quickly. Tang Huan was relieved after detailed investigations and set off directly back to Los Angeles on the west coast.

Through a relationship with an Apple director, Tang Huan settled Madonna’s affairs with just one phone call. The future gold-sucking queen is about to start her superstar road, and the old and beautiful celebrities are about to suffer. Think about it. It’s a great pleasure.

The mansion in Beverly Hills, the slightly plump Deng Lijun, is smiling and admiring some souvenirs that Tang Huan brought back from the east coast. The servants were very considerate and served her. Only in terms of material conditions, she had already passed. The life of a beautiful young woman.

Seeing that Deng Lijun looked good, Tang Huan was also happy, thinking about her going to university, and asked about it.

“I have started taking classes at the University of California, Los Angeles, majoring in English, Japanese, biology, mathematics, and other courses.”

Deng Lijun said happily, while he brought a photo album and handed it to Tang Huan, “This is a photo I took on campus.”

Tang Huan took a look. Deng Lijun’s smile on the photo was very sweet, and it seemed that she was in a good state of mind.

“Is the university curriculum adapted?” Tang Huan asked casually.

“What class do you want to watch?” Deng Lijun showed a twisted look on his face, “Mathematics must be difficult, but when I was in Japanese class, I pretended that I didn’t understand anything, but when the teacher asked questions, I answered all of them correctly www . The teacher was so surprised that I repeatedly praised me as a genius.”

Tang Huan was amused and laughed, “You are about to be a mother, you are still so naughty.”

Deng Lijun showed a happy expression on his face, and gave Tang Huan a white glance, “It is precisely because of this that I have to keep a happy mood.”

Tang Huan took a look at the Rolex watch that Deng Lijun sent on his wrist, “I have to go to catch the flight time, and the headhunting company sent me a batch of information. I have to carefully screen the available talents.”

“I’ll give it to you.” Deng Lijun nodded, “By the way, I bought you a gift. Let’s go to the garage and have a look before I leave.”

“Go to the garage to see the gifts. Didn’t you buy me a car?” Tang Huan guessed.

“Just go and see, you’ll know.” Deng Lijun whispered.

Tang Huan came to the garage and saw that, as expected, Deng Lijun really prepared a luxury car for himself. The Mercedes-Benz 450SEL6.9, which went on the market in May 1975, belongs to the top model in the series, because it was the first in the world to be equipped with ABS anti-lock. The dead brake system, so while enjoying the extreme speed, safety is also reliable.

circled the car, Tang Huan exclaimed, “I will drive this car when I come to Los Angeles in the future, but my wife, this will cost you money.”

Deng Lijun pursed his lips, “I can’t talk about it, I heard the company say that my records are still selling well, and there is a “Small Town Story” record to be recorded, so this overhead is not a problem.”

Tang Huan nodded and gave a thumbs up, “You are so popular.”