Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 608 Uncertainty in the Personal Computer Industry

At this time, Tang Huan had several documents on hand, one of which was related to the emerging mobile communications industry.

At present, Tang Wenmao, who has been appointed, is purchasing cellular phone operating licenses all over the United States in the form of the Tang family business, and establishing a mobile communication company.

Although the commercial profit model of this business is not yet mature, and many communications industry giants, including AT&T, still have a wait-and-see attitude, some business adventurers are already eager to give it a try.

Therefore, Tang Wenmao’s acquisition process is not smooth and smooth, but will encounter opponents from time to time, especially Craig McCaw, Gates’ fellow from Seattle, Washington, who is the most active and decisive.

The cellular telephone operating license issued by the FCC is somewhat similar to the operating license of cable TV, which has already established a monopoly structure and was ruled by princes earlier. It represents hundreds of different districts, and the specific value is determined by the number of people in the district.

Craig McCaw, and his father—the entire McCaw family, relied on the great opportunity of the rapid development of the American cable TV industry from scratch, and accumulated a substantial fortune.

With this kind of family background, Craig McCaw has a deep understanding of the idea and a familiarity with the cellular phone, which is a new field that has a lot in common with cable TV.

It is true that Craig McCaw's family cannot compete with Tang Huan in terms of financial resources, but acquiring a cellular phone operating license is a very skillful job.

If the whole of the United States is described as a checkers board, then the various cellular phone system operating regions divided by the Federal Communications Commission are grids.The newly established mobile communication company naturally hopes that its jurisdictions will be connected as one, so that the chess pieces can jump all the way unimpeded.

But this is the crux of the game between all parties. As the saying goes, more success than failure, those speculators who can’t afford to acquire a large number of licenses specifically choose those key cellular phone system operating areas to compete for in the future.

In this way, Craig McCaw has played against Tang Wenmao several times, each winning and losing, and the opponent inevitably caught some good cards.

Tang Huan had expected this kind of food-grabbing chaos for a long time, and he didn't pay much attention to it. After all, he is not the only one who is optimistic about the application prospects of cellular phones and is willing to take risks and invest in the initial stage.

In fact, the indicator for considering the cost of acquiring a cellular phone operating license mainly depends on the average price per person.The sharp rise in prices caused by certain districts is nothing when divided by a huge base.

According to Tang Huan's assessment conclusion, the average price per person exceeding 80 US dollars is also very profitable, and the average price per person in the cell phone operating areas that have been won is not even 60 US dollars.

With the results of this calculation in front of him, Tang Huan naturally didn't need to pay too much attention to the spoilers from Craig McCaw and others.

Furthermore, the richest man has recently made a lot of money, and his financial resources are incomparably sufficient.Leaving aside the recent box-office blockbuster movies during the summer vacation, just a few investments in the past few years have returned hundreds of millions of dollars.

For example, the shares of Coca-Cola that Tang Huan bought for less than US$11 per share have risen to tens of US dollars.The reason is that the Coca-Cola Company, which bought Columbia Pictures, felt the threat of competition due to its diversification before. It had to start to calm down and shifted its business focus back to its old business—beverages. The results were remarkable. Greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of investors.

Another example is American Express, benefiting from the many conveniences brought about by the vigorous development of IT and communication technology, its credit card business has been very successful, which has led to a strong rise in its stock price.

Tang Huan, who has spent a lot of money, is still full of pockets due to such bright and dark returns on investment. He is too lazy to care about the intrigue in the process of acquiring a cellular phone business license; with that effort, he may find several more Business opportunity.

However, Tang Huan frowned at the impact of the booming mobile communication business on Motorola.

Seeing that the business opportunities generated by the cellular phone system are more profitable, Motorola, an established company, has a little disdain for the microprocessor business, so that the development of the next-generation MC680030 has become lazy.

Ten years later, this contemptuous attitude would seem unbelievable, even ridiculous, but now it happens naturally.

Gein Compared with the fiercely competitive microprocessor field, Motorola has a more obvious advantage in the field of mobile communications by virtue of years of hard work, and it is easier to make money.

Tang Huan complained endlessly about this. The current analog mobile phone system, that is, the more well-known first-generation mobile communication technology, 1G, is just a foreshadowing for the digital 2G.At that time, regardless of the front-end terminal or the back-end equipment, the role of the microprocessor will only become more important.Motorola's absent-mindedness is simply too short-sighted.

Moreover, Tang Huan is very satisfied with the effect achieved by the Fangyuan PC's CPU usage strategy with both wings flying together. He hopes that Motorola will continue to play the role of one of the wings.But now it seems that there seems to be some kind of uncertainty.

In addition, the documents submitted by the subordinates also mentioned the latest progress in the US-Japan semiconductor industry negotiations. Japanese semiconductor companies will certainly not be able to continue the current wayward product dumping.

In other words, in the next one or two years, the price of memory may increase.This is the second uncertain factor for the promotion of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer.

For a 32-bit platform to exert its power, the memory needs to be at least 1MB-a higher-capacity memory is helpful for programmers to stuff more functions into the operating system and application software.

If there is a shortage of memory supply, the harm it will cause to the growth of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer market share is far greater than the uncertain factors on the CPU.

It was at this time that Intel CEO Andy Grove came to see Tang Huan, who was busy calculating unexpected factors, and proposed that Intel did not intend to continue to implement the second supplier system on Intel80386.

Seeing that the CPU with both wings flying together was about to appear uncertain, Tang Huan subconsciously rubbed the center of his brows.

After more than 10 years of development, the pattern in the field of microprocessors has been formed.

Among them, the 8-bit and 16-bit microprocessors are the most mature. Not counting those second suppliers, there are many companies such as Motorola, Intel, Texas Instruments, Zilog, MOSTechnology, WDC, National Semiconductor, etc., which have completely their own architecture. And technology.

As for the latest 32-bit microprocessor, in addition to Motorola and Intel continuing to follow up, competitors such as National Semiconductor and AT&T Western Electronics are not far behind. Zilog will also launch its own 32-bit product Z80000.

And this kind of situation where all the heroes come together has not yet included the RISC processors that have already shined in practical applications.

It is completely foreseeable that in the next few years, this market will definitely have a processor war that determines life and death.

Tang Huan, who is a latecomer in the field of general-purpose microprocessors, currently holds two CPU factions that are entirely his own. One is the Holder series of RISC-based microprocessors used in communication equipment and mid-to-high-end microcomputer products. , and the other is a low-energy microprocessor that is still in the research and development and perfection stage, which is jointly responsible by Wang Xuehong's team and WDC.

As for the desktop-level microprocessors used in personal computers, Tang Huan thinks that companies such as Motorola and Intel, which have a first-mover advantage and have mature technologies, can play well. Anyway, he can get a share of it, so there is no need to personally stand on the front line Go up and grab it.

But now it seems that due to changes in the relationship between interests, Motorola and Intel are not very law-abiding.

For a while, Tang Huan couldn't figure out whether this change was good or bad, so he could only act according to his feeling for the time being, and asked in silence: "Then how does Intel guarantee the supply of Intel80386?"

"We plan to completely withdraw from the memory field, concentrate on the development of the microprocessor business, build new factories, and fully expand production capacity. At that time, we don't even need the help of Tang's semiconductor factory OEM." Andy Grove couldn't help Surprisingly, another piece of news broke.

Hearing this, Tang Huan frowned even tighter.I was already worried that the price of memory would increase in the future, but Intel quit again, which just added fuel to the fire.

"Under the active efforts of Robert Noyce, the U.S. federal government is finally willing to negotiate for the U.S. semiconductor industry, and favorable results will soon be determined. However, Intel will completely withdraw from the memory field at this time Isn't Robert Noyce's busyness becoming a wedding dress for others? Isn't it good that Intel takes care of microprocessors and memory together like before?" Tang Huan was curious about what the other party thought, so he made a Such a radical decision.

"Originally, Gordon Moore and I also wanted to maintain this model, but after the U.S. semiconductor industry slump, the situation is different after all. There are many contradictions in how to allocate resources between the memory and the microprocessor. The microprocessor department Contributing more than half of the profit, but receiving less than one-third of the resource investment, it is inevitable to feel dissatisfied; the memory department, which considers itself the boss, complains that it has not received full support in resources, which has hindered the development of new products. Instead of this In a dilemma, it is better to make a clean break as soon as possible. Moreover, even if the US-Japan negotiations achieve a result that is beneficial to the US semiconductor industry, it will be difficult to compete in the memory business, which has few advantages in terms of technology, cost, and quality. Compared with domestic counterparts in the United States, even current users are only habitually maintaining a relationship with Intel."

After Andy Grove explained, he smiled wryly and said, "Although this decision is painful, we have no choice. I hope that Don can support our ideas on the board of directors."

Tang Huan thought for a moment, and realized that this was really the case.Although Intel will not have to worry about dumping products from its Japanese counterparts in the future, it does not have a decisive advantage in the memory field, so that until now it has not come up with 256KB DRAM.

It's not that Intel engineers are stupid and have poor technical ability, but that the implementation methods are different, which makes the manufacturing plan too difficult and has been delayed for a long time.

Or, it would be more appropriate to describe Intel's memory business at this stage as "going too far on an unpredictable fork in the road".

Tang Huan nodded slightly, and accepted Andy Grove's explanation, "No matter what, since I promised to support you, I won't break my promise."

"However..." Tang Huan asked playfully: "I remember that in order to resist the massive attack from Japanese semiconductor companies, in the industrial alliance advocated by Robert Noyce, Intel reached a patent cross agreement with AMD very early. To avoid repeated investment in R&D resources by both parties. Now that Intel has decided to control the Intel80386 alone and not distribute the second supplier license, strictly speaking, it is a breach of trust, so how to deal with AMD's response?"

Andy Grove coughed lightly with a red face, and then replied coldly: "Intel is in a life-and-death situation where it has to transform. It doesn't care about so much. If it really can't be solved through negotiation, then we will have a legal confrontation. Preparations. Anyway, the longer it takes, the more favorable the situation will be for Intel."

"That's ruthless!" Tang Huan murmured in his heart, and praised him loudly: "That's right, Andy, in the highly competitive IT industry, Intel needs a decisive leader like you."

After receiving Tang Huan's affirmation, Andy Grove cheered up and quickly made a specific request for support, "In addition to asking Tang Huan to stand on my side on the board of directors, I also hope that Fangyuan PC will increase the Intel CPU." amount of usage.”

"This is a reasonable thing." Tang Huan nodded and agreed, "With the release of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer, old products including the third-generation Fangyuan personal computer and their various compatible machines will inevitably give up their mainstream status. Going to the low end will stimulate shipments and increase the demand for Intel80286 and Intel8086. In addition, other terminal equipment including printers will also be similar. As for Intel80386, it depends on the specific output. But Fangyuan Computer, Zheru software will help build momentum, and even provide an implementation plan for the third-generation Fangyuan personal computer equipped with a low-frequency model Intel80386. After all, even if the 80386-bit feature of Intel32 is not used, its performance improvement in a 16-bit environment is commendable, so it can Alleviate the pressure on the yield rate of Intel80386."

When Tang Huan talked about his support, Andy Grove was overjoyed.The specific extent of these measures has exceeded his expectations, and he cannot be dissatisfied.

But Tang Huan's straightforwardness also made it difficult for Andy Grove to say, "Tang, once Intel announces that it will change its main business and withdraw from the memory market that has been in business for more than ten years, it will inevitably arouse investors' doubts. From The transition period from a memory company to a microprocessor company will inevitably be turbulent. Please help me resist these external pressures."

"Andy, you just need to concentrate on your job as CEO. If Gordon Moore can't protect you from the wind and rain..." Tang Huan pointed to himself, "Then you come to me."

Andy Grove, who received Olympic aid, felt a lot lighter. After chatting for a while, and expressing his loyalty, he left and quit. Just in time, he saw an extremely enchanting young girl wearing sunglasses waiting in front of him. Outside.

Andy Grove was not surprised at all. After all, Tang Huan's identity was very complicated. For example, besides an IT industry leader, he was also a Hollywood tycoon. Naturally, there were various visitors.

After a glance, he left quickly, while the other party quickly stood up and walked into Tang Huan's office.

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(End of this chapter)