Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 685 RISC and Workstations are Prospering
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A major sign of the rift between Tang Huan and Jardine at the beginning was the fierce competition between the two sides for the land where the current Exchange Square is located in early 1982.

At that time, just before the real estate bubble burst in Xiangjiang, land prices were at their peak.

The site area of ​​Exchange Square is 14.4 square feet, or about 13000 square meters.Jardine, who won in the end, paid a cost of close to 50 billion Hong Kong dollars. Although it won face, it also planted the root of disaster. Tang Huan successfully bled the blood and carried another big burden on his back.

Of course, after Qinhe took over Jardine, these burdens were also passed on to Tang Huan, but he didn't care; in order to show his strength, he successively invested 80 billion Hong Kong dollars, and quickly built the now famous trading square - Xiangjiang United The seat of the stock exchange.

In contrast, the Bank of China Tower, which is also located in the heart of the Hong Kong business district—Central on Hong Kong Island, although the area is about half the size of the Exchange Square, with an area of ​​6700 square meters, in the later months of 1982, when the real estate bubble was still Before the rupture, the price the Hong Kong government sold to Bank of China was only HK$11 billion, which is a little over a quarter of the transaction price on Exchange Square.

This transaction, which may be affected by political factors, naturally attracted a lot of attention from the outside world. Apart from discussions, people began to calmly think about the actual value of Xiangjiang Properties, which in turn led to the exposure of Carrian Group's fraud. To some extent, it induced the collapse of the Xiangjiang real estate industry.

It is entirely conceivable that the Bank of China, which originally planned to build a brand new headquarters, needs to show a distinctive architectural style to suppress the noise from the outside world.

However, the Bank of China at this time was not as rich and powerful as HSBC’s spending $10 billion on the new headquarters, and it did not have the golden finger of Tang Huan’s crazy extra money. In order to raise construction funds, the start date was delayed. In 1988 The auspicious completion date of August 8th will definitely be missed.

It is necessary to point out that the construction of the Bank of China Tower was not only affected by financial factors, but also troubled by Feng Shui prevailing in Xiangjiang——the unique shape of the Bank of China Tower is described as a knife, no matter who is hit by any side of the "blade "Indicated, will be adversely affected.

The reason why Tang Huan stopped this topic that he almost blurted out was because he suddenly felt that after keeping the historical track unaffected, he might be able to use this to further attack HSBC's superstitious status in the hearts of Hong Kong people from another angle.

Ieoh Ming Pei had no doubt that he was there. After nodding his head in agreement, he changed the subject and said, "The design you entrusted to me is almost completed. Let's take a look at it sometime."

Tang Huan wanted to build a landmark in Bai Nang, the capital of Funan, and Hanouk Port in the Special Economic Zone to demonstrate his local authority. One of the designs was handed over to I.M. Pei, who designed the Yanjing Xiangshan Hotel for mainland China and for the The Bank of China Tower designed by Xiangjiang has been widely praised for its excellent combination of Chinese and Western styles. Of course, the richest man also appreciates it.

"Okay, I'll take a look at it when the time comes." Tang Huan readily agreed.

At this time, Wang An with a sick face came over with the support of his son Wang Lie.

Tang Huan hurriedly got up and went forward, greeting with concern: "I heard that Mr. Wang is in poor health, so there is no need for you to come here from the east coast to attend the party, just send a representative."

"It doesn't matter, I just plan to visit Silicon Valley." Wang An waved his hand.

In fact, Wang An is a few years younger than IM Pei, who is 70 years old this year, but his health is not as good as the latter. It is really a pity that he was diagnosed with cancer.

Previously, the main product of Wang An Computer Company was an electronic word processor, which flourished for a while, and even IBM's similar products could not match it.However, the waves behind the Yangtze River have pushed the waves ahead, and the combination of personal computers and word processing software has provided more and more powerful and flexible functions. In the past two years, it has completely dominated the market, and the era of Wang An Computer Company is basically over.

Fortunately, although Lao Wang An was stubborn and even had a little fight with Tang Huan, he still had a technical vision and realized that the major changes in the computer industry were unstoppable. Transformation of the computer field.

In the product line of Wang An Computer Company, apart from electronic word processors, minicomputers are also pretty good.Relying on this foundation, Wang An did not directly enter the extremely competitive personal computer market, but aimed at a higher-level product in the system-workstations.

Tang Huan, who wholeheartedly wanted to bring Wang An Computer Company into his camp, had no objection to this.After all, to be friends is to keep a proper distance. Wang Anna is a veteran in the computer industry for decades, so he naturally has his own judgment. He doesn't need to be meticulous and annoying.

What's more, in Tang Huan's view, Wang An's decision was actually very wise, and Wang An's computer company had a solid foundation.It does have the ability to directly target the more profitable workstation market.

After getting the Fangyuan computer standard from Tang Huan and joining this camp, Wang An Computer Company began to concentrate on developing its own workstation products at its headquarters in Boston.

Because during the decades when IBM ruled the computer industry, Wang An developed a habit of completely controlling the enterprise, power, products and other elements in his own hands. Therefore, the transformation of the entire enterprise with too deep impression is not so easy. Workstation research and development is not as smooth as imagined.

Since Tang Huan said frankly from the very beginning that the supply of high-end models of his RISC microprocessor Holder was in short supply, and he could only sell low-end and mid-end models, Wang An chose the best-performing RISC microprocessor from the many types of CISC microprocessors on the market. The powerful Motorola MC68000 series is used as the CPU of Wang An's workstation.Other parts are basically designed and manufactured by ourselves.

It can be seen that Wang An's independent business philosophy is quite deep-rooted.

Tang Huan, who did the same thing himself, could understand how strong Wang An was, and felt that the other party could make a name for himself, so he stopped obsessing over the details and paid little attention to them.

And compared with the rapidly changing personal computer market, the ecological environment of the workstation market is much more stable.As long as his Fangyuan work station has an absolute advantage in this field, Tang Huan will not waste energy interfering with his subordinates' full performance.

Therefore, when Wang An went to rest, his son Wang Lie tactfully stated that his Wang An workstation was in a dilemma in the market, and Tang Huan was quite surprised.

"We and Apollo Computer Company, also located in Massachusetts, became sworn enemies in the market competition. As a result, we both suffered losses and were taken advantage of by Sun Microsystems. Now it is the third largest workstation manufacturer after Fangyuan and DEC. ." Wang Lie smiled bitterly, "I heard the news that HP here in Silicon Valley is very interested in Apollo Computer Company and plans to acquire it to strengthen its strength in the workstation field."

Tang Huan raised his eyebrows and asked with some confusion, "Compared to Sun Microsystems, you are definitely an established company, but you can't do it?"

"Sun Microsystems' workstation products are extremely price-impacting, and they even launched products with a price as low as 25000 US dollars." Wang Lie replied helplessly, "In essence, Sun Microsystems and The models of Wangan Computer and Apollo Computer are different. They adopt an open mechanism closer to the field of personal computers, including directly adopting the off-the-shelf technology of Fangyuan Computer Standard, so that the product update speed is faster and the price is lower. Low, poached many customers away."

Seeing that Tang Huan was speechless for a while, Wang Lie had no choice but to continue to add: "If HP acquires Apollo Computer Company, then Wang An Computer Company will fall into an embarrassing situation of entanglement with HP and IBM, which rank lower in the workstation market share."

"It seems that Wang Lie is afraid." Tang Huan, who knew it in his heart, muttered to himself, and then asked directly, "What is Mr. Wang's opinion on this?"

"My father is still planning to rely on the company's own strength to make breakthroughs in technology; but I think that since Fangyuan computer standards have been followed, it should use public technology and supply chains as much as possible to reduce costs like personal computers. "Wang Lie, who was already taking over from his father, finally showed his attitude clearly, "For so many years, Wang An Computer Company has accumulated quite a lot in various aspects. This time I come to San Francisco, I want Wang An Computer to The company has established a closer capital relationship with Fangyuan Computer Company, so as to obtain higher-level technology and supply of key components.”

Although he valued Wang An Computer's brand very much, Tang Huan didn't want to get involved in the other party's internal differences and cause some misunderstandings to the outside world, so he waved his hands and said, "I'm afraid Mr. Wang doesn't like this, and it's not fair to Sun Microsystems. After all, the relationship between me and the partners in the Fangyuan standard camp has always been maintained at the technical level, and we will not support anyone or attack anyone."

"I am afraid that the idea of ​​Sun Microsystems is not that simple. For example, they have launched a network file system and released its source code so that more people can adopt it; recently, Sun Microsystems has successfully developed A RISC microprocessor. Such signs indicate that this company is likely to want to establish a set of standards under its own control." Wang Lie began to enumerate the various "big rebellions" of Sun Microsystems.

When Sun Microsystems was first established to raise funds, Tang Huan once invested a sum of money to pull it to expand its Fangyuan computer standard camp.

But in the autumn of 1984, Sun Microsystems had a coup. One of the four co-founders, the first CEO and chairman of the board of directors, Vinod Khosla, who was of Indian origin, was ousted by venture capital. Gone, another co-founder, Scott McCreary, took full reins.

This incident is actually quite ironic. Vinod Khosla, who fell out with venture capital, left Sun Microsystems and switched to venture capital, and he is doing very well.

The essence of this coup reflects the conflict between some venture capitalists, including Don Valentine, and Tang Huan, a hunter who picks one and grabs a lot of high-quality projects.

However, Sun Microsystems did not leave the Fangyuan Standard camp after the coup, and Tang Huan did not intend to make a big move. Didn't care too much.

Therefore, although Tang Huan was a little surprised by the new information provided by Wang Lie, he was not surprised.

In the end, he just said calmly: "I will pay attention to possible changes in Sun Microsystems. On your side, it is best to reach a consensus with Mr. Wang."

……

After hosting the meeting of 1980 people, Tang Huan began to pay special attention to the dynamics of the workstation market.It belongs to a new field that emerged with the boom of personal computers in the [-]s. Its direct competitors are traditional minicomputers.

At this stage, Fangyuan Workstation is the overlord of this market, occupying more than half of the market share.

The second place is DEC, the big player in the field of minicomputers. It has a very keen sense of technology. When it finds that some advantages of workstations cannot be achieved by traditional minicomputers, it decisively joins the ranks of workstation manufacturers.

No.3 is Sun Microsystems, which has grown rapidly. One of its products is cheap, often $5000 lower than the Apollo computer, and even launched a $25000 workstation, which can be regarded as a rule challenger in this field. Sales in 1986 approached $2 million.

Further down are Wangan Computer and Apollo Computer, which have tragically lost both sides, as well as IBM and Hewlett-Packard, as well as small companies such as Prime with relatively unique technical solutions.

The whole echelon.The hierarchy is clear, and the status of Fangyuan workstations is high. Even IBM and Hewlett-Packard want to be younger brothers in this new field, but with the prosperity of this market, the competition is obviously becoming more and more fierce.

Tang Huan put down the file and frowned, because he realized that behind the competition of workstation products, which were becoming more and more charming, was the competition of the RISC microprocessor that was about to be upgraded.

The reason why the Fangyuan workstation has become the overlord is because it has a powerful core—Holder. Especially with the continuous improvement of the manufacturing process, the performance of this RISC microprocessor family is often higher than that of the '6' microprocessor including Motorola. CISC microprocessor family, Intel's '8' microprocessor family, including exponential levels of CISC microprocessors.

Holder microprocessor, Vientiane operating system, 19-inch Sony OEM Trinitron monitor... have become the main symbols of Fangyuan workstation, and countless professionals yearn for this dream configuration.

In contrast, DEC workstations used another RISC microprocessor, MIPS; IBM and Hewlett-Packard also had their own RISC technology, but they were not commercially successful.

Now, Sun Microsystems, a newcomer, has also joined the RISC camp and successfully launched SPARC, which shows that the industry is paying more and more attention to RISC.

(End of this chapter)