Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 510 An unexpected encounter with ORACLE
Although Intel unexpectedly once again became a pawn fighting for IBM, Tang Huan was not caught off guard. He still achieved the main purpose of this trip, which was to further consolidate trust with Andy Grove and establish a A tacit understanding that is not enough for outsiders to understand.

In the Intel parking lot, Tang Huan happened to meet Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore to send Arthur Locke off, which made him repeat the name of Arthur Locke, the king of venture capital, several times after getting in the car.

At that time, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore took the business plan and went to Arthur Locke to seek investment for the establishment of Intel. It took only 5 minutes to negotiate a deal of 250 million US dollars.

Later, the matter was played up by the media as a myth, how Arthur Locke knew the pearl, how Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore gave advice.

But the actual situation is that the two parties have long been old acquaintances. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore are at their peak in the Silicon Valley semiconductor industry, and they are worth the price.

When Jerry Sanders was raising investment to start AMD, although he was also from Fairchild Semiconductor, he did not have enough reputation, so it was a bit difficult.

Arthur Locke later invested in Apple and met Tang Huan.

To a certain extent, so-called venture capital means making systematic bets. As long as one or two of the ten companies go public, you can make a lot of money.

Tang Huan, who has the advantage of information asymmetry, is also engaged in venture capital on the surface, but he is fundamentally different from Arthur Locke and Don Valentine.
Even though the latter has the title of a venture capitalist, he is still very careful when it comes to actually spending money, and then attaches various harsh conditions.

But Tang Huan is different. If a conventional venture capitalist can reach [-] out of [-], it is enough to be called Bole, but he can reach [-] out of [-], and his moves are steady and ruthless. Such as investment in SUN and SGI.

Those in the venture capital industry are all top-notch people, and they gradually became aware of this kind of competition. The most obvious example is that some promising entrepreneurial projects could have taken the opportunity to choke their necks, but the other party turned around and got it. Tang Huan, an angel investor, gave him the generous help.

But who made Tang Huan the richest and most generous? Others have nothing to say.

But as Tang Huan gradually cultivated Apple as a younger brother who reduced the risk of antitrust prosecutions, Arthur Locke couldn't sit still, and expressed his position from time to time, believing that Apple's development had been artificially set up as a ceiling.

Tang Huan took advantage of the aura of "the father of spreadsheets" to become a shareholder of Apple, and won the title of billionaire as quickly as possible, and then left Apple to develop his own personal computer business. extreme.

The three founders Markkula, Jobs, and Woz could benefit from Zheru, so they were too soft-spoken to say anything. However, other shareholders who had thought about it might not be resentful.

Arthur Locke actually jumped out and used his influence to help IBM lobby Intel, which is likely to be a reaction to such conflicts of interest.

It seems that it is increasingly imperative to secretly help Andy Grove build his own power group within Intel.

……

After returning to Cupertino, Jerry Sanders rushed over as soon as he got the news.

Seeing this guy's cheerful expression, Tang Huan couldn't help being a little speechless.

"I didn't expect Intel to be so stupid, not honestly abide by the duty of the supplier, and even enter the muddy water of the competition between Fangyuan Computer and IBM. It seems that AMD's opportunity has come." Jerry Sanders said happily.

"I didn't invite you here to listen to your analysis of the general trend." Tang Huan waved his hand angrily, "The opportunity for AMD's CPU to replace Intel 80286 is indeed right in front of us, but the question is, when will your Am286 be mass-produced? "

"In the first quarter of next year, versions running at 8 MHz, 12 MHz, and even 16 MHz will be launched one after another." Jerry Sanders replied confidently.

"Then I will trust you." Tang Huan nodded slightly, "The other second suppliers of Intel 80286 are expected to produce results. Everyone makes money based on production capacity and yield. Fangyuan Computer Company will How much to buy."

……

On November 11, the romantic film "Terms of Endearment" invested and released by United Artists and MGM was released. Tang Huan, who came to Los Angeles, attended the premiere ceremony that day.

This is only a low-cost movie worth 800 million dollars, but Tang Huan is still very optimistic about it, but the main purpose of his trip is to meet a few people.

The film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" written by George Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg - "Raiders of the Lost Ark" has begun filming.

Tang Huan once hoped that Lucas and Spielberg could change the story of this movie to revolve around the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shihuang, but due to the competition with Paramount and Lucas had already set the outline in his heart, In the end no agreement was reached.

Since we can't reach an agreement, we can go it alone. Anyway, we have accumulated enough resources. Tang Huan doesn't care too much. He just hopes that Spielberg can serve as the producer and check it. After all, he has directed "The Seize" twice. "Bao Qi Bing", he has quite a lot of experience in how such adventure-themed works can please the audience.

Seeing that Tang Huan spoke in person, Spielberg had to find a way to adjust his schedule no matter how tight his schedule was.

Later, Tang Huan and Ted Turner met, and on a luxury yacht, they secretly met Barry Diller, CEO of Paramount Pictures.

After Charles Bluedorn passed away unexpectedly due to a heart attack on his private plane, the huge industry he was in charge of naturally had a lot of struggles, and Paramount was not spared either, but it has not yet affected It just works.

Barry Diller has served as the CEO of Paramount Pictures since 1974, and has gathered a group of loyal followers including Michael Eisner. As a result, the board of directors is deeply afraid, and each other The contradiction can no longer be suppressed.

Tang Huan, who has a keen sense of smell, immediately noticed this trouble, so he planned with Ted Turner to see if he could lure Barry Diller to CNN to develop the cable TV business.

Tang Huan could tell that Barry Diller was moved, but he still seemed to miss Paramount, so he remained patient and agreed to wait for the other party to think carefully before giving an answer.

Looking at the back of Barry Diller leaving, Ted Turner frowned and said: "This is a great god. I'm really worried about CNN, and I can't tolerate him."

"The development momentum of CNN is so good, and it is just around the corner to surpass the traditional three major TV networks. Of course, Barry Diller can afford it." Tang Huan turned his eyes to Ted Turner, and said bluntly: "Barry Diller is very interested in cable news. The development of the TV network has a very unique ability, as long as you, the boss, do not suspect, the cable news network will enter a new period of development."

"You underestimate my strength too much. I wish I could take it easy." Ted Turner laughed awkwardly, "I just don't know if Barry Diller is willing to leave Paramount."

"Keep paying close attention. I don't think Barry Diller can stand up to this round of infighting at Paramount." Tang Huan judged firmly, "I hope CNN will not miss this person. If such a great talent cannot be I use it, regrettably, it may be won over by competitors, and it will become a serious worry."

"I will personally follow up on this matter." Ted Turner nodded kindly, and then said: "By the way, the sailboat we sponsored will participate in the Australian sailing competition after Christmas. How about going to the scene to cheer together?"

Ted Turner is a professional player in marine sports. He is very proficient in surfing, sailing, etc. Tang Huan was also pulled by him to participate, and he became interested in playing.

"Okay, then go to the southern hemisphere for Christmas." Tang Huan readily agreed.

……

On November 11, 28, the autumn COMDEX opened in Las Vegas. Tang Huan, who was absent from the spring COMDEX, of course had to be there, otherwise he might be interpreted by the media and be afraid of IBM.

With the growing influence of COMDEX in the IT field, many companies have begun to consciously adjust their industrial R&D cycle to adapt to this kind of national IT industry exhibition twice a year or once a year.
The same is true for Big Blue. It used this much-anticipated platform to release a new generation of personal computers, IBM-PC/AT, with the product model IBM 5170, where AT means Advanced Technology.

Compared with previous personal computer products, the most obvious enhancement of IBM-PC/AT is to upgrade the ISA bus from 8-bit to 16-bit to match the Intel 16 with a complete 80286-bit design.

In order to reduce the cost, the former IBM-PC with the product model of IBM 5150 and the IBM-PC/XT with the product model of IBM 5160 used the Intel 8086, which is a shrunken version of the Intel 8088, and the data bus width is 8 bits. The corresponding ISA The bus is also 8 bits.

However, IBM's grasp of the personal computer market is clearly far behind Tang Huan's. The performance gap between 8-bit and 16-bit is not 01:30 points. Although Tang Huan's 16-bit bus solution is slightly more expensive, it is The performance advantages are enough for business users to be willing to pay the extra cost.

IBM realized this backwardness and quickly caught up with its new generation product IBM-PC/AT.

Its minimum memory capacity is 256 KB, and like the second-generation Fangyuan computer, it introduces a "memory stick" design.

In addition to the 5.25-inch 1.2 MB floppy disk drive, a hard drive with a storage capacity of 20 MB comes standard.

Microsoft has developed a new version of the operating system MS-DOS 3.0 for IBM-PC/AT. As for the previous competition with VisiCorp’s VisiOn graphical user interface system, the smoke bomb Windows 1.0 released was shamefully delayed according to the plan. There is nothing to display.

On the other hand, VisiCorp, which has been under siege, is also very disappointing. Although VisiOn is shown, it is obviously not yet completed, and various problems exposed have seriously hit people's expectations.

After seeing this scene, Tang Huan shook his head with emotion, "These people have impure motives, and they act too hastily, they are simply bringing shame on themselves!"
At this time, Charles Simonyi walked over quickly and reported in a low voice: "Database manufacturers have made great moves and have begun to support multiple hardware platforms. DBase has launched a minicomputer version of DEC, and Oracle has launched Fangyuan Computer. and the IBM-PC version."

Tang Huan frowned, and asked in surprise, "Has the Oracle database entered our hardware platform?"

"Yes." Charles Simonyi nodded. "The latest version of Oracle 4, using the compatibility and consistency of our operating system's programming interface, can be used on Fangyuan servers, Fangyuan workstations, and Fangyuan personal computers. Runs on all hardware platforms.”

"I didn't expect that people like Larry Ellison are really brave enough to make a blockbuster success." Tang Huan waved his hand, "Let's go, I want to observe it on the spot."

……

As early as 1977, Larry Ellison-Larry Ellison, Bob Miner-Bob Miner, Ed Oates-Ed Oates jointly founded a company called Software Development Laboratories-Software The development laboratory is the company of SDL.

By 1978, the first version of the Oracle database developed in assembly language came out.

In 1979, the company name was changed from SDL to Relational Software, Inc - RSI, a related software company.

With the success of Oracle database products, RSI simply changed its name to Oracle Systems Corporation again in 1982 - Oracle Systems Corporation.

The operating platform of the Oracle database was initially minicomputers from companies such as DEC and mainframes from IBM. The target customers were large organizations such as the Central Intelligence Agency.

With the powerful computing power provided by Fangyuan personal computer, Fangyuan workstation and Fangyuan server, the EBase market expanded rapidly, and the unexpected encounter with Oracle database happened naturally.

(End of this chapter)