Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 589 Jobs' Birthday Party
……

IBM wants to sell its Intel shares. Although the action is quite covert, there is no impenetrable wall in the world, and the news is revealed soon.

Fortunately, nothing went wrong.Observers generally believe that this move could not be more normal. After all, Intel, a Silicon Valley semiconductor company, is deeply involved in the market quagmire caused by the Japan-US memory price war, and its prospects are worrying.

But it is precisely because of this well-known reason that IBM's plan to find a buyer to take over is not going well.

First of all, Intel's decline is obvious, and no one is willing to make a loss-making business, so there is a direct disagreement on the price.

Secondly, IBM requires a one-time delivery, so as to quietly improve its own cash flow data at the fastest speed, which further increases the risk of the transaction.

This industry dynamic naturally alarmed Tang Huan, and he even speculated that IBM's move was not only for the purpose of stopping losses in investment, but also for the purpose of eliminating business crises and making money.

There is no doubt that this is a good opportunity to buy bottom.Although under his own influence, Intel may not be as prosperous as it was in the original time and space, but just as IBM bought this part of the shares first for strategic value, it has a non-negligible effect on the layout of the microprocessors used in Fangyuan personal computers. effect.

However, Tang Huan was not in a hurry to jump out to make an offer. The passive party was IBM. He was going to wait and see to suppress Big Blue's psychological bottom line.

So, Tang Huan asked the special staff to watch, and at the same time called the team that cooperated with Intel to find out the situation.

It must be pointed out that Intel's existing microprocessor products, even the latest Intel80286, are not as good as Motorola's MC68000 series. This gap is determined from the most basic architecture design.

Intel also knew it well, so as early as the 1970s, among its microprocessor product blueprints, the Intel 8086 family was a spare tire, and the one with high hopes was the InteliAPX432.

It is a pity that despite the joint efforts of Intel, Tang Huan and Siemens, the specific performance of InteliAPX432 is still unsatisfactory due to the limitation of the existing semiconductor level, and the actual performance is even significantly behind Intel80286. capital punishment.

In fact, it is true that the InteliAPX432 project failed, but it is not without value, otherwise, Tang Huan would not have participated in it as soon as he was invited.

Some core achievements of the InteliAPX432 project are realized in the form of RISC, and the product prospect is still very promising, especially in professional fields such as military use.

But Intel urgently needs to make a profit now, so how can it afford to burn a lot of money to engage in protracted research and development.

Therefore, everyone parted ways, Tang Huan and Siemens helped Intel deal with this mess, and then carried out subsequent research and development separately.

Naturally, on Intel's side, the Intel8086 family, whose business performance has always been stable, has changed from a spare tire to a genuine brand, and the successor of Intel80286--Intel80386 has entered into intensive research and development.

Seeing that Tang Huan's floating-point coprocessor for the MC68000 series CPU has been highly praised by the industry and users, Intel did not develop its own floating-point coprocessor as before in order to make the Intel80386 project bring profits as soon as possible. Intel8087 and Intel80287, but Tang Huan was brought in again to use his solution.

In addition, Intel was not convinced that Motorola MC68000 series CPUs were popular in high-end personal computers, workstations and other products. I often asked Tang Huan for design specifications, hoping to surpass the competitor MC32 series in performance.

This is the catfish effect. If you think about who first introduced 64-bit technology to x86 desktop processors in the original time and space, you can understand the benefits of this microprocessor with both wings.

Tang Huan, who was happy to see the success, did not hide it, and actively helped Intel's Intel 80386, which is being developed, to enter the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer system.

Overall, the cooperation between the two parties is getting closer and closer.

After understanding the progress of the project, Tang Huan nodded slightly, thinking that Intel has not lost its due value, and it is worth buying the 20.00% shares in IBM's hands.

After listening to the reports from his subordinates, Tang Huan called Craig Barrett and Paul Otellini, representatives of the Intel side of the cooperation team, and asked directly: "I just heard that IBM is going to sell Intel's Stocks, what is the reaction within your company?"

"Of course I'm very dissatisfied." The younger Paul Otellini answered first.

Intel is under tremendous pressure from its Japanese counterparts outside, and there is a fierce quarrel inside whether the company's business should be transformed.

Now that IBM has suddenly come to sell such a stock, it is simply adding fuel to the fire and making things worse.

In the previous cooperation process, IBM has always been a strong party. For example, it has obtained the right to modify and manufacture Intel8088 and Intel80286-although it has hardly been exercised seriously; it tried to prevent Intel's products from flowing to competitors such as Fangyuan Computer Company.

Although the restrained Intel was unhappy, but for the sake of the status of the other party's industry leader and the importance of business cooperation, they endured it.

But the final result in exchange is that IBM is not optimistic about the value of Intel and wants to sell its stocks.

You must know that a large number of employees within Intel hold the company's stock, and seeing their wealth shrink a lot out of thin air, no one is happy.

Tang Huan nodded, thinking that as long as Intel gets through the current difficulties, it will definitely be at odds with IBM in the future.

……

On February 2th, the Lunar New Year, before and after, Tang Huan inevitably walked around intensively with the Chinese circle in accordance with the tradition.

On this day, Tang Huanzheng gathered a lot of his little ones together to count the red envelopes and had a great time. The housekeeper sent an invitation card, which read:

……

There is an old Indian proverb that goes like this, "In the first 30 years of your life, you form your habits; in the last 30, your habits shape you."

Come celebrate my 30th with me.

April 2

Steve Jobs.

……

While receiving the invitation, Tang Huan asked casually, "Who can tell me what day is the 24th of this month?"

In the end, only Zhao Yazhi's twins, Jinying and Jinjie, honestly stretched out five fingers; among the rest, the younger one was clumsily throwing a paper airplane made from empty red envelopes; the older one was protesting. Looking intently at the lucky money that Tang Huan "searched" on the table.

"You guys still have some complaints about me." Tang Huan laughed, "For Jinying and Jinjie's sake of answering the questions correctly, I'll give you five dollars each."

……

To celebrate his 30th birthday, Jobs held a very formal but fun party in the ballroom of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, and the scale reached 1000 people.

It’s not surprising that it’s so lively. Although Jobs’s temperament is perverse now, it’s not an exaggeration to say that he is a second-year student, but in the United States, a place that values ​​individuality, he has successfully portrayed himself as an idol, and thus met many people. people.

On February 2th, Tang Huan came to the St. Francis Hotel in accordance with some out-of-the-ordinary dress suggestions, wearing a black tie and tennis shoes, and presented a collector's record as a gift.

The arrangement of guests in the banquet hall is also divided into circles.

For example, in addition to Woz and other veterans of Apple, Tang Huan sat with Microsoft's Gates, Lotus Software's Mitchell Kapoor and other IT celebrities.

Compared with the favorable situation in which the entire personal computer market continues to expand, IBM has not been able to reap the benefits of growth. Gates and Mitchell Capol have both benefited, regardless of whether it is a genuine IBM-PC or a compatible IBM-PC. Microsoft's operating system MS-DOS and Lotus's electronic form Lotus1-2-3 are both selling well.

Plus, Don Valentine was seated with the other venture capitalists.During the recent period, he managed to find a start-up company in Silicon Valley without Tang Huan's involvement - Cisco.

But only Tang Huan knew that the greatest significance of the company's existence was to serve as a foil to avoid industry antitrust investigations.

The interesting thing about this celebrity-gathered and grand birthday party is that it reflects Jobs' artistic taste, such as his love for music.

Originally, Jobs wanted to ask his idol Bob Dylan to sing, but the other party refused, and finally changed to Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald.

This lady's nickname is LadyElla - Mrs. Ella, that is, First Lady of Song - the first lady of jazz, and is recognized as one of the most important jazz singers of this century, which is enough to calm down this scene.

Ella Fitzgerald, who can span three octaves, is known for her pure timbre, near-perfect articulation and intonation.And her scatsinging-onomatopoeic singing, especially shows the talent of improvisation like trumpet sound.

For today's occasion, Ella Fitzgerald brought these musical talents to light with her traditional repertoire, accompanied by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Of course, Ella Fitzgerald also performed live improvisations, such as adapting "The Girl From Ipanema" - "The Girl from Ipanema" into "The Cupertino Boy".

Tang Huan joked while listening, "I'm also a Cupertino guy."

The person next to him laughed, "It seems that I have to consider whether to move the company to Cupertino."

Ella Fitzgerald asked the audience to order songs, and Jobs ordered a few.Finally, she ended the performance with a slow-paced "Happy Birthday".

I have to say that the atmosphere of the birthday party was very good, but Tang Huan still noticed from the short speeches of Jobs, John Sculley and others that there were other purposes such as public relations.

The relationship between Jobs and John Sculley, once close enough to be mistaken for gay, has long since ceased to exist with disagreements over Apple's management.

In Jobs' view, John Sculley was still the manager who sold sugar water and did not understand the MAC he designed at all; and John Sculley was increasingly unable to understand Jobs's almost extreme approach. Computers and Coke are essentially the same thing. It is a commodity, so we have to find a way to sell it to make the financial statements look good, right?

This kind of communication between chickens and ducks, not on the same channel, naturally inevitably leads to mutual disgust.

However, in order to reverse the current decline of Apple and under the pressure of the board of directors, Jobs and John Sculley had to try to ease the conflict and repair the relationship. This birthday party is a good opportunity.

This is the internal effect, and the external effect is to restore the bad influence caused by Apple's advertising at the beginning of the year.

The dismal sales of MAC made Jobs hope that he could create a similar advertisement in 1984 to reawaken people's interest in MAC just like MAC's advertisement "1985" aroused people's emotional resonance.

It is a pity that this advertisement called "Lemmings" - "Lemmings", although the planning, production and other links are almost the same as the original crew of "1984", but the effect is fundamentally different.

While "1984" ends on a heroically optimistic note, "The Lemmings" is about a group of business executives in dark suits and blindfolded, marching off a cliff to their death.

In other words, the story described in this advertisement is an insult to every business manager who buys IBM-PC, even including Fangyuan Computer—you have blind eyes and don’t know the value of MAC.

In fact, just like "1984", the advertising creative team that relies on innovation to create a sensational effect has insulted even the target user group of MAC this time, which simply makes Apple shut itself out of the personal computer industry.

After seeing the "Lemmings" commercial, ordinary viewers didn't respond, which is considered good; but the industry with a greater voice gave a negative evaluation-Apple, I know you like to play with personality the most , don't bring such a spoiled person!
Jobs and John Sculley made up for previous mistakes by entertaining guests from all over the world at the birthday party.

Watching these two people put on a show, Tang Huan shook his head secretly. Some things were unavoidable, but they had nothing to do with him. He had enough to worry about.For example, Fangyuan Computer Company, which has been touted as the number one market capitalization company, is not without its own problems.

After the banquet was over and Tang Huan got into the car, the assistant hurriedly reported that there was another buyer who was also interested in the Intel shares that IBM was about to sell.

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(End of this chapter)