Rebirth of the Tech Madman

Actually, I left a trick of the goddess scattering flowers on the layout of the browser. I plan to use it according to the situation, but it can have the effect of deceiving people and confusing people. Tang Huan mused thoughtfully.

Meng Jing asked curiously, What's the trick of the goddess to scatter flowers, which is described so nicely?

You don't understand the technical tricks. Tang Huan shook his head, Well, you should introduce Sun Zhengyi to Yahoo! He happens to be busy here with comdex—the effect of Softbank's intervention is the same. , while keeping us in a state of detachment.”

Let's just sell it, and find an excuse that I'm technically blind. Meng Jing muttered dissatisfiedly, and left to deal with the things ordered by her cousin.

Tang Huan turned his eyes back to the document listing the domain names, and smiled slightly. He had worked hard on Yahoo, which was so crude that it was not worth mentioning. If the road can be more correct, perhaps the leading companies in the Internet 2.0 era such as Google in the original time and space will not be so glamorous.

According to Tang Huan's thinking, whether America Online, which is becoming popular, Yahoo, which is just emerging, or Amazon, which is only in its predecessor stage of cadabra, all belong to the category of technology application, while Zheru is in the category of technology provider - let those technology applications The company, revolving around the philosophers who provide technology, is one of his goals.

With the explosive growth of the number of Internet sites, hardware servers, software operating systems, databases, World Wide Web website service systems, e-mail service systems and other high-end products with huge profits will also be sold at a high price. Companies that burn endless cash make real money.

Take AOL as an example, although its own profits are not worth mentioning, it has contributed considerable profits to Zheru Software-this is one of the tricks for the richest man to make money.

Therefore, Tang Huan's real focus must return to Zheru.

In terms of internal situation: Compared with Tang Huan who was able to single-handedly create spreadsheet software, word processing programs, and operating system freedos by himself without sleep for a few days, the current software system is getting more and more complicated, and the workload has reached thousands. Tens of thousands of lines of code are not surprising-the priority of execution has long surpassed creativity, and project management is becoming more and more difficult.

In terms of external environment: Zheru Software is indeed the leader in the industry now, but looking around, almost all of them are enemies-Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, etc. in terms of operating systems, office software, desktop databases, programming tools, etc., and enterprise databases. IBM, Oracle, Sybase, Infomix, etc., Lotus Software, Netscape, etc. in the world wide web website service system, email service system, etc., are far more lonely than Fangyuan Company.

It can be said that if Tang Huan, the leader of the company, is not the central point of the entire network, it would not be an exaggeration to describe Zheru Software as a lonely family.

The more Zheru software companies are enemies all over the world, the more they must be the number one in technology, so as to attract and control technology application companies and form an ecosystem that can kidnap the whole world.

This year's Comdex Las Vegas Autumn Exhibition has already demonstrated this industry opposition situation very clearly - all software products of competitors, whether they are official versions or demo versions, are all targeted The software products of Land and Zheru Software are fighting against each other. The only difference lies in the area of ​​confrontation between the two armies in the product line. Among them, Microsoft and Zheru software have the most friction.

On the power distribution map drawn by his subordinates, Tang Huan can clearly and vividly see this kind of murderous and dangerous situation everywhere-of course, in the eyes of the richest man, there is also a sense of majestic and heroic beauty.

Now that the situation has developed to the point where there is such a visual sense, Tang Huan naturally mobilized all the generals under his command to fight - one by one he found the executives who were directly responsible to him,

Talk and communicate alone.

The first person to report to the richest man's office was EA CEO Trip Hawkins.

That's right, EA is also a digester of philosophy and technology, from the previous game console operating system and game engine, to the current Battle.net platform that adapts to the wave of the Internet, all of which are listed here.

Tang Huan first asked, Sony released it this year, is it easy to deal with?

The main energy of the company is still in the local market; the US market is in the tentative stage. Trip Hawkins replied: As far as technology is concerned, Sony is a newcomer, and Sony can naturally learn from the industry's existing In the experience, it has learned from others, and its execution is good. This home TV game console is remarkable, and it has really attracted a group of game developers.”

Having said that, Trip Hawkins frowned slightly, We are discussing whether the licensing system should be tightened to prevent powerful third-party game developers from supporting it.

Although this trick can quickly produce results in the short term, in the long run, it may be a quick success and lacks technical content. Tang Huan directly stated his attitude.

Trip Hawkins has followed Tang Huan for more than 10 years, so he can naturally understand the true meaning of the big boss' words.

He sighed, Third-party game developers' support for EA is based on interests. If we take drastic measures to prevent them from obtaining an additional game console sales platform, it may destroy the long-term stability. Ecosphere.

However, with the increasing influence of capital on the company, the attitude of the management team will inevitably change in the direction of pleasing Wall Street - the company has become an absolute tool for making money. Ideal store.

You leader, if you can not forget your original intention and realize the problem, then EA won't get lost. Tang Huan nodded with satisfaction, Don't forget, the root of EA's dominance in the video game industry is to have a sufficiently good and A leading technology platform can not only support one's own creativity and produce pleasing video game works, but also open to third-party game developers to play their fists with acceptable technical difficulty, and finally achieve equal benefits. With such a foundation, those The icing on the cake can only be icing on the cake if there are rules and regulations that play a restrictive role; if you play too much power, you will soon lose the vitality of the company.

Even if we learn from others' strengths, we are still a latecomer. Even if we use the marketing tactics of killing one thousand and self-defeating eight hundred, the distance from EA with complete channels and a complete network cannot disappear all of a sudden.

Three generations of Xiaobawang game consoles have been working hard to launch optimized new models, and the performance is definitely not inferior to that of others. Moreover, on our product development roadmap, there are still 64-bit game consoles waiting.

Compared with the two, EA doesn't need to rush to use unique tricks, but should take advantage of this time gap and continue to work hard on its own platform,

Battle.net, which is currently being tried, is the best Internet expansion for traditional game console platforms. Once it takes shape, those third-party game developers will be more scrupulous when they are poached by Sony, rather than on the surface under our forced pressure. yield.

It has been almost 10 years since EA officially provided Internet community services for players; after entering the 1990s, on this basis, Zheru provided technical support and established a brand-new Internet interactive platform—— At present, the number of active users has accumulated to hundreds of thousands, and there are three-digit new users joining every day. The popularity can be called the only one in the industry.

The main function of Battle.net at this stage is to provide an online game environment, process user data, and assist in the digital distribution and digital rights management of games, but its performance is mediocre for the time being.

After all, due to the limitation of Internet bandwidth, it is not realistic to download complete games on a large scale. Similar to the distribution of computer security software virus database upgrade patches, downloading small game upgrade patches, the effect is not bad.

As for digital copyright protection, it is more reflected in conception and planning. Gein, even without Battle.net, console games have inherent advantages in this regard; while PC games only stay at the level of product serial number registration.

The Battle.net project, which has been burning money, reflects the difference in competition strategies between EA and old rivals such as Nintendo and Sega, that is, in addition to the hard battle of game consoles handed over from hand to hand, the battle for resources in the Internet community of players has begun. grab.

Trip Hawkins has increasingly tasted the benefits of this soft platform. Seeing that Tang Huan suggested that EA should seize the opportunity to vigorously build Battle.net, he immediately nodded and said: Now EA and Hollywood movies The company is almost done, and the game production mechanism of itself and the studios below is very complete; while Battle.net is equivalent to a soft new host platform, which is more sticky to players. Competitors vying for market share in game consoles will certainly panic.

Tang Huan laughed loudly, I guess, within a few years, companies like Nintendo and Sega, there will be people who can't even handle the competitive pressure of game consoles, and have to withdraw from the scramble for hardware platforms.

The boss's vision has always been very forward-looking. Trip Hawkins complimented him sincerely.

In the early years, Tang Huan frequently asked about specific games, but now he only pays attention to strategic issues, but no matter what, he grasps them quite accurately.

This made the ever-growing Trip Hawkins have to keep up with the boss's footsteps, not daring to be complacent or slack in the slightest—even if EA became the industry leader, there are still many goals ahead!

Tang Huan didn't absolutely ignore specific matters. After discussing the item system, scoring system, ranking system and other ideas on Battle.net, he mentioned the real-time strategy game Fengshen produced by DreamWorks Game Studio.

At this stage, real-time strategy games with complete standard elements continue to appear, such as Dune 2 launched by Westwood Studios in 1992, and Warcraft: Humans and Orcs launched by Blizzard Entertainment this year.

It can be said that real-time strategy games have begun to enter a stage of vigorous development; the foreseeable golden age is not far away.

DreamWorks Game Studios released several role-playing games such as White Snake to pave the way for the theme of oriental mythology, and then fully developed the real-time strategy game Fengshen with a more complex structure, and released it this year. Completed in half a year.

Just like selling Hong Kong movies, if Fengshen wants to make a lot of money, it has to focus on rb and the US market, and the distribution outside the Greater China region depends on the leader of ea.

Trip Hawkins spoke highly of Feng Shen. He said enthusiastically: I played this game myself, and I was very impressed with some of the heroes and operating units in it.

Speaking of this, Trip Hawkins also ostentatiously listed nouns such as Nezha and Fantianyin.

Tang Huan couldn't help smiling when he heard this—in order to let Westerners understand the meaning of these terms, DreamWorks Game Studios spent a lot of money on translation, and it seems that the effect is good.

At the upcoming Comdex Las Vegas Fall Show, Fengshen will be one of EA's main promotional games. Trip Hawkins finally said.

The operating space of the video game industry is indeed very large. Tang Huan said leisurely: A real-time strategy game with a strong confrontation like Fengshen should have the appreciation of the event, so you might as well try to organize it.

Trip Hawkins' eyes lit up when he heard it, After I go back, I will immediately ask the people below to make a plan to hold activities in various universities on the west coast next year and see how the response is.

...

The next day, Fangyuan CEO John Chambers followed. He first chatted with Tang Huan about some company adjustments after Fangyuan went computerized.

Then, John Chambers said: The products of the server must be further refined. We have done market research, and the servers that run the web site alone can be divided into at least three levels in terms of performance requirements.

Tang Huan nodded knowingly, The operating system of Zheru software will be refined in conjunction with the version.

There is also the quotation. John Chambers emphasized again, The charge is based on the number of processors or the number of access users. It is better to be more flexible to help guide Fangyuan to promote some flagship product models. .”

Although this was also one of the many collusions between Fangyuan Company and Zheru Software that was invisible to the outside world, Tang Huan did not express his position immediately.