Soon, the marketing director of Xinlang contacted the founder of WinZip: Philip Katz through Lisa Online.

I didn't know if I didn't contact him, but after contacting, I found out that Philip Katz was actually a hacker.

A well-known hacker in the United States. However, what they do is different from that of traditional hackers.

Traditional hackers show off their skills by overcoming the U.S. military's defense system.

This hacker is not.

He was originally a programmer and a self-taught hacker, and his usual hobby was to dig for all kinds of vulnerabilities, but he didn't make a profit from it. It's purely a personal hobby.

It's like ordinary people get off work and like to play "Glory of Kings", watch "The Demon Life of Rebirth", or go on a trip.

It's purely a personal hobby. Philippe Katz's hobby is digging holes.

And he found one of the most infuriating things. That's the data compression technology, and it's all in the hands of big companies, big companies like IBM.

You know, today's hard disk space is very small, which forces users to pay a high price to buy a hard drive with a larger space.

Often, those large companies have very mature data compression technology, which can achieve ultra-high compression ratios.

Philip Katz was furious about this kind of thing.

In particular, in that DOS era, that is, in 1988 AD, when the Internet was still beginning to take shape, and the most popular one was to use telephone lines to dial in to the service platform that others had built at home - the electronic bulletin board (BBS) system for exchanging information.

This system is somewhat similar to today's forums and newsgroups, and has become a huge information network (Huiduo Network) due to the transfer of messages between webmasters.

In the Internet era when Qin Feng did not introduce cable modem technology into China, there were dozens of such BBSs in the land of China, and Qiu Bojun, the author of the famous word processing software WPS, and Zhu Chongjun, the author of CCED, were very famous individual webmasters. This can not only pass text messages, but also allow users to upload files to the site's computers for other users to download. Due to the poor speed of the phone line, it is a pain to transfer large files over BBS.

Therefore, using file compression technology to reduce the size of a file and compress multiple files into a single envelope has become a must-have skill for BBS users. At that time, the most popular compression technology in the American BBS was called ARC, and since it was a compression technology developed by a commercial company, it was necessary to pay for the use of this software to work.

A lot of people, and don't have that much money. So, you can only choose to transfer slowly.

At that time, Philip Katz was a hairy guy who was addicted to BBS, because he often mixed with BBS, he was very dissatisfied with the ARC charges, and he developed a program called PKARC, which is fully compatible with ARC, and can compress and decompress ARC files. As a result, a large number of ARC users naturally switched to Philip Katz's free software.

In a fit of rage, ARC's production company took Philip Kaz to court, and the court naturally ruled that Philip Kaz was forbidden to continue developing and disseminating PKARC. This verdict did not dampen Philip Katz's fighting spirit, but instead inspired his determination to fight ARC to the end. In the virtual world, freedom and equality are always the permanent pursuit of real programmers. He abandoned the development of PKARC and vowed to write a better compression software than ARC to beat ARC. This lawsuit led to the birth of a programming genius and a later standard of documentation in the age of the Internet. A few weeks later, the ZIP format, which would later rule the entire BBS world and indeed the Internet world, gave the first loud cry in the hands of Philip Katz!

This was the birth of the zip format. Naturally, with the advent of the zip format, ARC quickly disappeared. After all, there is only one charging software, and a company with such a single charging model will naturally not be able to operate for a long time.

However, Philip Katz was also retaliated against, and he was fired from the software company where he worked. As for the reason, it is unknown. But some in the industry speculate that ARC is likely to do it.

After all, Philip Katz was the first person in the world to beat a company with a single piece of software.

This kind of cutting off people's financial means is like killing their parents, and it is actually natural for people to retaliate.

Philip Katz, who lost his job, also tried to find a job. But helplessly, no company was willing to hire him. So, he made a living by doing odd jobs and writing a little code for people.

This kind of pressure in life, as well as the huge pressure brought about by the constant update of Winzip, made him suffer from alcoholism!

Once you drink heavily, this income is even more embarrassing.

This is also the reason why Philip Katz sold 35% of his shares so easily when Jiang Yong contacted Philip Katz. As for the cost, very little.

Jiang Yong spent only a few tens of thousands of dollars to acquire a 35% stake.

After all, this is free software in itself, and Philip Katz didn't get a penny of the benefits before that. At the same time, he also got into huge trouble, which led to his poor life.

Tens of thousands of dollars, for him, is already a lot of money.

As for regret, for Philip Katz, the question is a bit too cruel.

He relied on his enthusiasm and the spirit of sharing with the Internet to create Winzip without seeking fame and fortune, but because of this, he caused trouble and made himself impoverished, which he never expected.

It would be too cruel to ask him if he regrets it.

"Mr. Wang, I did contact its owner, but the problem is that he is dead!" said the marketing director.

"What, dead?" Wang Zhidong was stunned, "How did you die?"

"Died at home, with a bottle in his hand when he died. The news came over there, it seems that he died of alcohol overdose!" said the technical director.

Wang Zhidong frowned. Wait, he's dead, won't we have to pay for it?

"It depends on the other party's will. If there is no will, then it depends on whether you have a family member. So, Mr. Wang, we need to send someone to the United States immediately to contact his family. The legal adviser said, "With the authorization of the family, then we may even be anti-customer-oriented!"

"Yes, quick, leave for the United States!" Wang Zhidong immediately got up and went to the United States!

At this moment, Qin Feng also learned the news here.

"Dead, how could he suddenly die!" Qin Feng was surprised.

"He said he was an alcoholic, but I don't know the details. I'm going to the United States to attend his funeral!" Jiang said.

"Well, I'll go with you! Such a person deserves respect!" Qin Feng nodded.

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