Rebirth of the Tech Madman

The qualifications of joining the army also gave Jack Trammell the opportunity to obtain the guarantee of US dollars through the Veteran's Bill of Rights. In 1953, he changed from a taxi driver to an owner of an office equipment repair business. ●■■

He named this small store in the Bronx, New York City - Commodore Portable Typewriter, and the Commodore brand was born.

It means Commodore. Guy Jack Trammell likes this kind of military-style name, but it's a pity that the top titles such as admiral, genera1, general, etc. have already been used, so he can't second best

In 1955, Jack Trammell signed an agreement with a company in Czechoslovakia to assemble and sell each other's typewriters in North America.

Since Czechoslovakia is a member of the Warsaw organization, its products cannot be directly imported to the United States, so Jack Trammell took a tortuous route and founded essmaes, Commodore Business Machines Corporation, in Toronto, Canada, to work around such restrictions. It went on the market in 1962.

However, Jack Trammell's business soon suffered a setback - the influx of Japanese typewriters into the American market made Czechoslovak typewriters unprofitable.

In order to solve the cash problem, Jack Trammell sold 17% of the company's shares to Canadian businessman Owen Gould, and used the $10,000 raised to convert the product from a typewriter to a mechanical typewriter. Calculator - adder.

As a result, it didn't take long for Jack Trammell to suffer another tragedy. This new business was also hit by similar products from Japan and couldn't continue.

Seeing that the two failures were caused by the same reason, Owen Gould simply suggested that Jack Trammell go to Japan to learn - to see why they can dominate the North American market. .ww.◆

It was this experience in Japan that made Jack Trammell realize that mechanic calculators were about to enter history and be replaced by electronic calculators.

that's it. Commodore quickly released electronic calculators and successfully entered this market. Unfortunately, the good times didn't last long, and it suffered a backstab.

Texas Instruments provides integrated circuits. Now that there are unlimited business opportunities in the electronic calculator market, he was unwilling to be only a parts supplier, and decided to cut out the middle links of Commodore and others, roll up his sleeves and make money by himself, and launched competitive products with lower costs.

The blow was catastrophic. Fortunately, Irving Gould made another move, spending $10,000 to acquire one of Commodore's suppliers, and created a vertical system of product manufacturing similar to Texas Instruments, so he no longer needs to be controlled by others.

With frenzied competition,

The market for electronic calculators was soon ruined, and the situation can be described as devastated.

Edward Roberts, the developer of the first commercially successful personal computer, was one of the losers, and his company fell into debt. It hit the ground running in December 1974 to save itself.

Commodore's life was also difficult, but its acquisition and the 8-bit microprocessor it developed brought new opportunities.

Chuck Peddle, the chief designer of this cpu, told Jack Trammell that electronic calculators have entered a dead end, and personal computers are the future.

Jack Trammell's reply was very simple, first show me a result.

In September 1976, Chuck Peddle came to Jobs' garage, visited it, and quickly liked the machine, so he arranged to demonstrate it to Commodore. ■

As a result, Jobs said, You may be interested in buying our company for hundreds of thousands. Let Commodore back off.

You know, at that time Apple was just a simple partnership company composed of Jobs, Woz, and Ron Wayne, and Ron Wayne withdrew his shares because he was afraid that the company's debts would drag him into the abyss of bankruptcy. The commercial value has not been verified. It's just an empty shell.

In the end, Commodore gave the answer that he opened a personal computer by himself.

In this way, Apple and Commodore briefly intersected and then parted ways. Apple received Markkula's investment and became a joint stock company. The operation is on the right track; Commodore launched its own personal computer in April 1977.

In 1977, there were two other important personal computers—Apple's and Tandy's TRS—introduced in June and August.

And the cpu is a series of Motorola, a series of trs-.

The total sales of these three types of personal computers have reached tens of thousands of levels, bringing the development of personal computers into the second stage. Various manufacturers such as Atari have launched their own 8-bit personal computers, forming A lively scene of contention among a hundred schools of thought broke out.

The first-generation Fangyuan computer, which was successfully developed in the second half of 1979, is also one of them.

In the first stage, the most representative model, developed by Edward Roberts, although supported by Microsoft, is more like a computer that assembles all parts of a computer on a printed circuit board in terms of hardware architecture. For single-board computers, output devices are often just some signal lights. ▲▼▲.ww.▲

However, ,, trs-, the circuit board is packaged in the main box, and a more intuitive crt display is used as the output device.

Shaped like an all-in-one machine, it integrates the keyboard, the main chassis, and the display together, and it looks very small. Once launched, it became very popular and achieved success in the US and European markets.

But it is undeniable that it is almost the weakest among similar products.

So Commodore stepped up research and upgrade models. And in 1982 and 8-bit personal computer with a new platform - and .

These two types of products support the TV as a display terminal. The price is as low as $299.9 and $595.

In particular, there is a slogan - Why would you want to buy a game console that will make your children play games when you can buy a computer to prepare your children for college.

As a result, fierce price wars broke out in the home video game console market and the low-end personal computer market.

last year. That is, in January 1983, Commodore launched a new round of price wars, taking the lead in reducing the price of - to $139, and the price of - to US dollars.

Texas Instruments fought back a week later, lowering the price of its product to $149.

See this scenario. Commodore directly lowered the price of - to US dollars, forcing Texas Instruments to continue to follow up, and cut the price directly to US dollars. ▼

Commodore is still relentless, wants to occupy more market share, and continues to lower the price to US dollars.

Then... there is no more, Texas Instruments announced the largest loss in history and admitted that it was out.

As for competitors at the same price in the field of home video game consoles, they fell apart because of the collapse of the entire market.

In this shopping spree, Commodore had the last laugh. -The total sales volume exceeded 10,000 units earlier, and the sales volume of the company is also in the millions. The company's sales exceeded 100 million US dollars last year.

Behind these glorious records, it is naturally the credit of Jack Trammell's command.

The cheapest 8-bit company is researched and belongs to Commodore.

In this way, Jack Trammell created a vertically unified management system for Commodore, enabling a series of predatory price competition.

In addition, Commodore has a wide range of sales channels, discount stores, department stores, and even toy stores. All within its sphere of influence.

More importantly, Jack Trammell is very good at company management. Like Japanese companies, he controls costs in all aspects. To support him to fight a price war.

Of course, Jack Trammell has his own problems. For example, he runs the company almost to the point of doing everything by himself, and the budget is almost complete, and all expenditures in US dollars must be signed by him.

But then again. Without these extraordinary qualities, Jack Trammell might not have been able to go from a concentration camp survivor to the boss of a large company with hundreds of millions of sales.

What Tang Huan likes is Jack Trammell's ability to turn the technically strong personal computer into a more down-to-earth electronic consumer product, and then push it to thousands of households.

Tang Huan felt ashamed of the sophisticated means of cost control he showed in this process.

As for the danger of the other party breaking the rules of the existing system, compared to the catfish effect it can bring, it is completely within the acceptable range.

If President Reagan is a 'great communicator' in politics, then Don is a 'great communicator' in business. Although we haven't been together for a long time, you make me feel like an old friend for many years. In At the dinner table, Jack Trammell said happily.

My principle has always been to be kind to others and make money with harmony. No matter what happens, as long as everyone is patient, there will be no miscommunication. Tang Huan smiled slightly, Of course, in the face of interests, my harmony sometimes fails , Steve Ross has been fighting with me until now.

You brokered the Atari deal between me and Steve Ross, which can be regarded as helping Warner solve the big trouble. He must show affection to some extent, right? Jack Trammell asked curiously.

It's just an exchange of benefits. Of course, a business man like Steve Ross can be flexible. Tang Huan raised his glass for a moment, and then said seriously: Actually, the reason why I did this was selfish. The purpose is to further expand the popularity of Fangyuan personal computers.

Understandable. Jack Trammell nodded nonchalantly, Just like when I bought Atari, I also wanted to prove that since I can create Commodore, I can also replicate this brilliance to the next one. enterprise.

Boldness! Tang Huan laughed loudly, I appreciate the sentence you said the most, 'The computers we manufacture should be aimed at the public, not the upper class'.

Tang Huan pointed out his classic quotations like a few treasures, Jack Trammell couldn't help getting pregnant, picked up a cigar, and lit it contentedly.

Steve Jobs is also claiming to allow everyone to have a computer, and we have all seen the press conference. Tang Huan smiled playfully, I think that what he actually made was an elite computer, not a public computer.

Jack Trammell thought about it for a moment, and then nodded deeply.

I hope to bring the marketing system you formed in Commodore, that is, to make professional computers a mass electronic consumer product, to the Fangyuan PC standard platform. Tang Huan expressed his plan.

The products of Fangyuan PC and Commodore are very different. One of the important impressions they gave me is that the system architecture is very flexible, but whether a product like that can be launched, I still can't guarantee it.

Jack Trammell's attitude was very cautious, and he asked in a deep voice, Don, do you have any suggestions for me?

I do have some ideas. Tang Huan said slowly and carefully, What do you think, how about introducing the direct sales model to the personal computer industry? After removing the middleman, manufacturers can sell products directly to customers, which in turn enables companies to sell products at a lower cost. Prices provide customers with a variety of products, and can even achieve on-demand production, that is, there are orders first, and then computers are assembled according to customer requirements, which is equivalent to selling products before they are produced.”

Bold and subtle idea. Jack Trammell's eyes shone with wisdom, However, this model is a test of the company's internal management level.

Isn't it your specialty to tap the internal potential of the company and strive for excellence in all aspects. Tang Huan smiled and complimented, Recently, the company has been working on computer information in agement—customer relationship management—agement—supply chain management. The solution has become a product-level achievement, which may help the implementation of the direct sales model.”

Don really came prepared. Jack Trammell had such an expression on his face, Then I'm going to ask you about the inside knowledge... (To be continued.)

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