Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 728 The Hollywood Tycoon Finally Reached Out
You must know that the hard disks equipped with personal computers at this stage are mainly 5.25 inches, and the capacity is usually tens of MB, while the 3.5-inch hard disk is still a minority, and there is no advantage in terms of capacity; like the Fangyuan personal workstation Workstation-level products such as the ones equipped with hard disks often have a capacity of several hundred MB; for advanced enterprise storage, the storage capacity provided by the hard disk can break through the 1GB mark, but the disk specifications must be increased to 8 inches, even 10 inches.

Therefore, it is entirely conceivable that when Tang Huan officially announced that Zheru R&D Center will realize 5.25GB capacity in 3.5-inch hard disks, or even 1-inch hard disks, it will bring a strong shock to everyone present.

The Albert Fair team of Zheru R&D Center confirmed the existence of the giant magnetoresistance effect at the end of last year, and completed the paper submission and other related work.

This progress is much faster than that of another independent research team, the Peter Greenberg team of the Jülich Research Center in Germany. As for the reason, I believe only the instigator, Tang Huan, knows best.

Albert Fell's team studied a multilayer material composed of iron and chromium. In the experiment, the resistance was reduced by 50%, and then it was able to accurately describe the physical principle behind the giant magnetoresistance phenomenon.

The significance of the giant magnetoresistance effect in hard disk technology is as follows: as the unit data storage density becomes larger and larger, the requirements for read and write heads are also getting higher and higher, and the read and write heads composed of giant magnetoresistance materials can do Even if the magnetic field is small, enough current changes can be output to identify data, thus greatly increasing the density of data storage.

If I had to use a concrete number to describe how amazing this technological leap is, it would be that the disk recording density can be at least 20 times higher than the current level.

Naturally, Zheru took a large class of patents into his arms.

In fact, in the field of storage, the technical standards created by philosophers and scholars have almost achieved indiscriminate coverage.

For example, in terms of data transmission interfaces, there are low-end ATA used by personal computers, and high-end SCSI used by personal workstations and network servers.

For another example, in order to achieve the goals of increasing processing capacity, enhancing fault tolerance, and improving data integration, there are a series of technologies such as RAID-0, RAID-1, and RAID-5.

Based on this status as an industry leader, when Tang Huan talked about the use of personal computers with a capacity of up to 1GB in the next few years, and then he could obtain many benefits including better multimedia experience, everyone around him had no doubts. Quickly recorded, I don't know how many times stronger than Jobs' credit.

Seagate CEO Alan Shugart, who sat beside him, cooperated with Tang Huan with a smile on his face, and interacted enthusiastically with the reporters in the audience, hoping to maximize the publicity effect of this acquisition ceremony.

At this stage, Seagate occupies approximately 40.00% of the personal computer market and provides Fangyuan Computer Company with 50.00% of the hard drives required for its products, making it a leader in the industry.

However, although Seagate was the first in the industry to launch a 5.25-inch hard drive and seized the first-mover advantage in the market, the fierce competition in this field has exceeded everyone's imagination. At this stage, there are actually more than 70 "active" companies engaged in this field. The purpose of this kind of business is to be able to share the big cake with an annual demand of more than 2000 million hard drives and a market output value of more than 200 billion US dollars.

Of course, in such a brutal competitive situation, the market is ruthless to eliminate, especially those companies that have encountered product quality accidents like IBM-PC/XT hard disk doors, and there is only one result, that is, a dead end.

Seagate, which has been tense and faced competition from its peers like walking on thin ice, has internal problems—there is a conflict of ideas among the co-founders.

Alan Shugart is keen to continuously improve hard indicators such as capacity and transmission speed on the basis of 5.25-inch hard drives; while Ferners Connor insists that for microcomputer systems, 5.25-inch hard drives Too bulky, 3.5-inch hard drives are more suitable, which is the general trend in the future, and Seagate cannot miss this technological trend.

It is really impossible to tell who is right and who is wrong in this kind of disagreement, and the strife is the result of discord, which inevitably reached Tang Huan's ears in the end.

Tang Huan's control over Seagate has been increasing, from the previous 20.00% shareholding to the current 30.00%[-].Its purpose is nothing more than to ensure the supply chain of Fangyuan Computer.The huge profits in the hard disk market are naturally an important reason.

As the largest shareholder, it is imperative to resolve the discord among Seagate's management.

Of course, Tang Huan knew that the 5.25-inch hard drive was indeed a transitional product, and eventually went into the trash can of history and was replaced by the 3.25-inch hard drive.

However, the application of technology must consider the actual situation—at this stage, the 5.25-inch hard disk that surfaced with the tide of personal computers is in the stage of flourishing and becoming popular.No one is willing to give up the huge benefits in front of him for the prospect that has not yet come, and Tang Huan is no exception.

In the end, Mr. Richest Man just made up with each other—since Ferners Connor is so obsessed with the research of 3.5-inch hard disks, he will pay his own money to let him do it all on his own.When there are real results, Seagate can consider buying it and eating a ready-made stir-fry.

In this way, the two founders broke up peacefully, and finally did not tear their faces, which affected Seagate, which was in a period of rapid growth—Fenus Connor founded another hard disk company named Connor, which developed and operated a 3.5-inch hard drive company. inch hard drive; Alan Shugart will continue to serve as CEO, leading Seagate forward.The acquisition of the hard disk business of Control Data Corporation is an important step in expanding from the personal computer market to the enterprise market.

This opportunity comes from the fact that the control data company is selling most of the company's assets. It is also the sigh of Hexi in the past 30 years.

In the 1960s, Control Data Corporation was, like IBM, one of the few important mainframe computer companies.The product CDC-6600 is considered to be the first successful supercomputer, occupying the throne of the world's fastest computer from 1964 to 1969.In recent years, the Clay Research Company, which has been chasing after each other on supercomputers with Fangyuan Computer Company, was founded by Himur Cray, who was born in Control Data Corporation, with the support of his old employer.

But after entering the 1980s, Control Data Corporation, the pioneer of supercomputers, had a series of decision-making mistakes and had to decide to sell most of the company's assets and leave the computer manufacturing industry.This phenomenon also proves the decline of the mainframe business from another angle.

As the first step in a cumbersome liquidation process that could take years, Control Data first put the hard drive business up for sale.This is a sweet pastry. Compared with the outdated mainframe products, its storage technology still has a lingering fragrance. It was immediately targeted by Seagate and snatched it into its hands.

Alan Shugart has reason to believe that after this step, Seagate, which has been relying on Fangyuan Computer for several years, can really stand out from the industry.

"After the personal computer has a larger capacity hard disk, users can process pictures, audio, and even video more freely, so as to obtain an extraordinary multimedia experience; network servers can store more data and adapt to countless applications on the Internet. Request." Tang Huan elaborated tirelessly that the popularization of G-class capacity hard drives will bring bright prospects to the development of the entire computer industry.

In the end, Alan Shugart vowed to say: "Seagate will cooperate with Zheru R&D Center to transform the research results of giant magnetoresistance effect into the hard disk industry within three years."

After the signing ceremony, Seagate's shares on Nasdaq skyrocketed.Even IBM, the ancestor of hard disk development, attached great importance to this technological breakthrough, regardless of its own business crisis, and immediately announced that it would enter the ranks of competition.

……

Fortunately, no matter how Seagate steals the limelight, it is only limited to hard drives and does not affect everyone's attention to the NeXT computer conference.

Jobs, who has no constraints, can pursue the details he emphasized more unscrupulously this time, and even spent an extra $6 to hire a subsidiary under Zheru that specializes in video projection applications to be in charge of the entire product launch Audiovisual technical support.

This obsession with details also includes Jobs personally checking the list of invited guests, and even asking what mineral water, croissants, cream cheese, and bean sprouts are used for the lunch menu.

There is no doubt that Jobs wants to surpass himself through this well-planned public show, clarifying all kinds of outside doubts that have been raised since he was kicked out by Apple.

In the end, the NeXT computer conference was held at the San Francisco Symphony Hall. What was presented to everyone was a stage with a simple design—a black background, a black cloth covering the table, and a simple bottle of Flowers, the perfect black cubes of the NeXT computer, are revealed in this elaborate arrangement.

Jobs lived up to the expectations of more than 3000 spectators at the scene, and his opening statement full of profound meaning - "I am glad to be back" immediately aroused the cheers of everyone in the audience.

After telling the history of the development of the personal computer architecture, Jobs promised the audience that they were about to witness a "historic event that only happens once or twice in 10 years--a new architecture is coming out, and it will change computing. face".

Sitting next to Tang Huan, Ross Perot obviously admired Jobs' demagogic performance and kept raising his hands to applaud.

Similar to the original MAC press conference, Jobs mainly showed the multimedia functions of the NeXT computer such as voice playback and live recording. The interactive part of the design still won a lot of applause.

During the questioning session of the media, when a reporter was worried about Jobs’ repeated skipping tickets for the NeXT computer, Jobs replied indifferently, “It’s not too late at all. The NeXT computer is 5 years ahead of the times.”

Ross Perot, who enjoyed the atmosphere very much, asked Tang Huan excitedly, "Tang, what do you think of the monthly sales plan of 10000 NeXT computers?"

"It's hard to say." Tang Huan replied lightly: "Nowadays, customers' requirements for computer systems are actually very simple. On the premise of ease of use, the more powerful the product, the faster the speed, and the larger the capacity, the easier it is to be favored. , if we can achieve the step of high quality and low price, it will definitely be all the rage.”

Ross Perot rubbed his stiff face with a smile, and said to himself: "Being disturbed by Gates, commercial software has indeed become an obvious shortcoming on the NeXT computer platform."

……

The NeXT computer conference ended in an optimistic and lively atmosphere. The media also gave Jobs the attention he expected, but the market sales were not satisfactory. It is far from the goal of monthly sales of 1000 units.

To be honest, after Tang Huan was recruited, Jobs' work results were considered reliable. At least the factory production did not lose the chain - the computer could come off the production line without any quality problems, but it was not well received.

The reasons for this are very complicated. In addition to the fact that NeXT computers have shown Jobs’ flashy appearance as always, the competition in the workstation market is also intensifying. Just a Sun Microsystems company that also developed RISC microprocessors, NeXT has no fabi,

Bill Joy, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, offered a compliment with wit and good humor—"NeXT was the first yuppie terminal"; ".

Tang Huan didn't care about this. The loss of NeXT was no big deal. When the homogeneity of products in the entire industry was serious, the value of Jobs was reflected, and he was worthy of being "supported".

……

After finishing the excitement of the NeXT computer conference, Tang Huan immediately set off for Los Angeles, preparing for the unprecedented 60th Academy Awards to be held in the Shrine Auditorium.

The media paid a lot of attention to this early on, interpreting it as the fact that this Hollywood tycoon who is usually aloof from Hollywood, but is a real Hollywood tycoon, has finally reached out and used his energy.

At this year's Academy Awards, two films with the same Chinese theme——"Mulan" and "The Last Emperor" led the way with 9 nominations, while at the previous Golden Globe Awards, "Mulan" gained even more. rich.

This is understood to mean that the richest man is about to really start flattering people.

(End of this chapter)