Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 869 Computer Animated Feature Film

……

In fact, Microsoft is not the only IT company currently being targeted by Wall Street. For example, there are also Lotus Software and Apple Computer.

With the help of the spreadsheet software Lotus1-2-3, the former was on the personal computer platform for most of the 1980s.However, the working method of using assembly language development has certainly brought leading execution efficiency to the product, but it has also increased the difficulty of program code maintenance and upgrading, which eventually led to a serious lag in the progress of the platform upgrade from the disk operating system to the GUI operating system. , Lost the market helplessly.

Fortunately, Lotus Software did not hang itself on the tree of office software on the fiercely competitive personal computer platform. It entered the enterprise software market in the late 1980s and successfully created another flagship product-Lotus_Domino/ Notes.

This is a typical server/client architecture, and the concept of "collaboration software" is the selling point of IT product solutions, that is, multiple people cooperate with each other through the network to improve productivity as a whole.

Its server is Lotus_Domino, and its client is Lotus_Notes. The specific functions include email, calendar, contact management, task tracking, instant messaging, file sharing and so on.

"Collaborative software" is definitely a beautiful concept, but it is not so easy to implement-just imagine, several people edit a document at the same time, how should the result be guaranteed to be correct in the end?
Therefore, after the success of Lotus_Domino/Notes, it has dominated the enterprise market together with similar products of Zheru Software, and it can be said that the income is stable and generous.

But because of the collapse of office software on the personal computer platform, Lotus Software was "beaten" by Wall Street, so that IBM took advantage of the opportunity and used about 30 billion US dollars in funds to forcefully acquire it.

Originally, Big Blue planned to win Lotus Software in a gentle way, but the negotiation process between the two parties went through several iterations, and the employees of Lotus Software, who did not understand the actual situation, opposed it on the grounds that the corporate cultures of the two parties were too different. .

Seeing that this rare opportunity was about to slip away, IBM took drastic measures immediately.

The reason why Big Blue is so reckless is that although the performance of Lotus software has attracted dissatisfaction from Wall Street, its value is still there, especially enterprise application solutions like Lotus_Domino/Notes, which are extremely complementary to IBM's product line. powerful.

Lotus_Domino/Notes has a strong point in architecture design, that is, it is open enough to attract a large number of third-party applications like browser "plug-ins", and form a considerable ecosystem.

Even the Lotus_Domino server can easily assume the role of a website server.

After the successful acquisition of Lotus Software, IBM quickly occupied a website server node in the Internet ecosystem in addition to the original hardware server and software database. With such an important strategic significance, how can Big Blue care about it? What gentleman?
Originally, Microsoft was very happy to see Lotus, an opponent that had forced it to retreat in the field of office software, end up like this.

But what I didn't expect was that Wall Street would whip the whip of lessons to itself so quickly.

The tears on the faces of the laid-off employees of Lotus Software have not yet dried up—how ​​can Microsoft and Gates not be frightened?
In contrast to Lotus Software's forced acquisition, Apple Computer is actively seeking to be acquired - its CEO, Michael Spindler, is actively promoting the company to IBM, HP, and even Sun Microsystems, so as to get rid of the bad news. operating conditions.

It's just a pity that Apple, which has been spurned by Wall Street to the point that its stock price has dropped below 10 US dollars, unlike Lotus Software, has almost irreplaceable chips such as Lotus_Domino/Notes, so it is really difficult to arouse the interest of buyers. .

After all, the current personal computer market structure is very clear - Fangyuan personal computer has become the mainstream; while IBM-PC compatible machines, Apple computers, etc., have become niche.

It has to be said that Michael Spindler's future in-laws of Apple Computer——IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems, each of them can be called "good-looking" and enough to "entrust for life".

But the problem is that the computer hardware product lines of IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems all focus on servers and workstations, while personal computers are placed in a supplementary position.

Among them, Hewlett-Packard has long embraced the Fangyuan personal computer standard; after IBM entered the 1990s, under the pressure of reality, it had to switch to the Fangyuan personal computer camp; Sun Microsystems has never been very interested in personal computers.

As for NC, as a concept hype, a bargaining chip layout, there is nothing wrong with it, but whether it is worth spending a lot of real money to acquire Apple Computer Company as a processing plant, it needs to be carefully weighed.

In this case, Apple is like a troubled young lady whose heart is higher than the sky and whose fate is thinner than paper. She wants to find a tall, rich and handsome man to marry—it is not so difficult!
Of course, the value and charm of Apple Computer still have special meaning that cannot be replaced by certain people - for example, founder Steve Jobs was kicked out by the board of directors ten years ago.

……

San Francisco Bay Area, Redwood City, Oracle headquarters, in the luxurious CEO's office, Larry Ellison said coquettishly: "Steve, I can raise $30 billion in financing, directly Take Apple Computer—maybe after a while, when its stock price has fallen further, and the grasp will be greater, and the cost will be more cost-effective."

Glancing at the expensive golf club that was broken in two in the corner, Jobs shook his head slightly and said, "I don't want to hostilely take over Apple Computer."

Larry Ellison frowned, and asked unceremoniously: "If you don't take this approach, can you still hope that the current Apple Computer Company will invite you back?"

These two personalities in Silicon Valley have deep personal relationships. For example, Larry Ellison often invites the Jobs family to go out to sea on his private luxury yacht, so that he is called "our rich friend" by Jobs' son. .

Of course, the circle also needs to emphasize "the right family".

At this stage, Jobs has three main achievements in his career - the boss of NeXT computer company and the star director of Pixar, as well as a famous and successful investor of Zheru Group.

NeXT is the painstaking work of Jobs' revenge after he was kicked out of Apple; Pixar is a substitute for Jobs who went to Mr. Richest Man to inject capital for NeXT from time to time, but was dismissed impatiently by the other party.

Therefore, compared to this period of time and space, Jobs’s personal financial situation is quite good. At least there is no huge pressure from Pixar to burn him 5000 million US dollars. The main investment loss comes from NeXT, which has given up the hardware business. , and this pit is funded by many investors, including Canon.

If it’s just a matter of wealth and status matching, or the so-called congenial temperament, Jobs may not be able to make Larry Ellison, who is in a strong upward phase of his career. The "style" shown by Jobs is obviously more popular and more sought after, and Larry Ellison, who lacks this "trait", needs to learn and master this.

Now, one of the usefulness of Jobs is reflected-compared with other IT companies of the same level that are favored by Wall Street and whose stock prices are constantly rising, Apple Computer is being ignored and its stock price is constantly falling, which makes Larry Ellison move to acquire Thoughts, and Jobs, who still has great influence, should be a good collaborator.

It's just that Jobs' attitude of "not wanting to hostilely acquire Apple Computer" made Larry Ellison very puzzled.There is one very annoying thing that he didn't say - now Apple Computer is still picky and self-righteous, no, it would rather have a hot face and a cold ass at IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems, and it doesn't matter Oracle.

Of course, Jobs knew what Larry Ellison was thinking about when he acquired Apple Computer and so-called helped him return. It was not that easy for the NC promoted by Oracle to challenge the already full-fledged PC.Take the "authentic" NC product built by Oracle using ARM microprocessors. The cost control is indeed satisfactory, but the user experience is a bit miserable.

In this case, Larry Ellison took down Apple Computer, which could be used to further enrich his NC camp.

But Jobs couldn't really be a pawn for Larry Ellison. He also had his own ideas, so he replied directly: "You have to understand that I am married now and have a stable and happy family. It’s about to be born—some of the previous concepts will naturally change accordingly.”

"Do I want to retake the helm of Apple? To be honest, I want to! I really want to!"

"But the way I want to return to Apple must first occupy the moral high ground."

"Are you trying to use this to show how stupid it was for the board of directors of Apple Computer to make the decision to drive you out 10 years ago?" Larry Ellison asked angrily: "So, Steve Husband, come and teach me, how to win Apple without forced acquisition?"

Jobs shrugged, "To be honest, I don't know what to do now."

Upon hearing this, Larry Ellison immediately put his hand on his forehead.He felt that his plan might be ruined.

Jobs is still feeling disappointed—of course he wants to turn the tide and return to Apple Computer, which was created by himself, but is currently falling rapidly, but the solution Larry Ellison came up with Too "low", the degree of slap in the face of the guys who drove me away was not hard enough!

But then again, Jobs didn't lie - he doesn't have a clear idea of ​​how to slap his face harder.

Seeing that Larry Ellison no longer had the excitement of spitting and talking about acquiring Apple, Jobs stood up and said: "In the closing session of the Zheru Spring Developer Conference, there was a preview of a Pixar production. The industry's first full-length computer-animated feature film, I'm going to attend related events. Would you like to learn about the latest developments in this field?"

Larry Ellison waved his hand sullenly, "That's Don's territory, I'm not going there!"

Jobs thought for a while and then said seriously: "I have never had a real direct conflict with Don. I advise you not to do that either? Don is a person who is very good at protecting himself, like a nail wrapped in cotton. The harder you punch and attack, the more serious the damage you will suffer.”

Larry Ellison sneered disapprovingly: "Why should I use my fists? Don't I have a hammer?"

Jobs was not a patient person at all. Seeing that Larry Ellison didn't listen to his advice, he said so much and left - as a friend, he had fulfilled his duty of reminder.

……

It is still necessary to compare with the original time and space to explain the "difference" most clearly - the current Pixar is not like Jobs is in charge of, hardware, software and animation, the three lines go hand in hand with losses, and have to expand after a high-spirited expansion. Ruthless layoffs.

As a technical application test field of the powerful Tang IT Kingdom, Pixar does not need to waste unnecessary resources on too many low-level details of the system. It only needs to focus on how to make the most exciting computer animation and polish the used software tool, you can.

As far as the specific results of these years are concerned, Pixar has a set of computer animation production tools including a rendering engine. In terms of business, in addition to undertaking commercials, it has been trying to make breakthroughs in computer animation films—— From the original 150-second "Little Desk Lamp" short film, to "The Little Tin Soldier", which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1988, to the truly computer-animated feature film "Toy Story" launched this year.

"Mickey Mouse" endows cartoons with sound; "Snow White" endows cartoons with color; "Toy Story" brings the production of cartoons into the computer digital age in an all-round way, which is described as the third leap in the history of cartoons. It is not an exaggeration, it is also appropriate to show off the powerful technology of Tang's IT Kingdom.

In this way, at the closing session of the Zheru Spring Developers Conference, the preview of "Toy Story" became a unique scene.

(End of this chapter)