When it comes to the R&D department of Penguin Computer, it is simply miserable.

With the exception of a handful of companies that do have important patents, the vast majority of computer manufacturers are similar to Penguin, purchasing and assembling from various component manufacturers.

The shell and brand are different, but in fact, there is not much difference between changing the soup and not changing the medicine, and the reason why Penguin's market share cannot be greatly increased is mainly because there is no core technology.

Most of them are Intel's central processing units, Microsoft's graphics desktop operating system, etc., so why should customers buy Penguin's products?

To say that the price of promotion, the production of a computer includes patent fees, labor costs, transportation costs, etc., dealers also have to make money, how can it be easy to reduce the price of products, may not be able to attract consumers, but Penguin company must not be able to bear it first, and the company is not charity, the profit margin is not high, and it always has to make some money.

At the end of last year, Su Mu saw the predicament faced by Penguin's company, and discussed it many times with Blake, the actual person in charge of the company, and found that there were only three ways to go.

One is to merge with a company that owns the technology, and the other two are to acquire a company or invest in R&D yourself.

The first two were abandoned by Su Mu, and Blake did not support it, and set up his own research institute...... It sounds quite simple, but behind it means tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of capital investment, even if you are willing to pay this money, you may not be able to really drum up cutting-edge technology, and it is likely to be directly floating in the water and becoming a mistake that crushes the company.

All in all, Su Mu and Blake can't see through the future development prospects of Penguin company, they can only take a step by step to see one step at a time, and now the company is not bad, but it is quite difficult to grow again.

Therefore, in the past two years, Penguin company, as always, assembled a finished computer for sale, without the advanced technology of pressing the bottom of the box, it relies on after-sales service to win the favor of users, in fact, it does play a very good effect, the disadvantage is that it costs too much money to provide after-sales service.

Six computer engineering experts, usually the company will spend money to hire experts or professional research institutes to help design computers, but most of the work is done by them, and there is absolutely nothing to say about their ability, Su Mu often deals with them, and can call these names.

At this time, when I saw Su Mu, a middle-aged white man with a slightly chubby figure and a beard asked him: "What a rare guest, you haven't been to us for a long time, are you satisfied with the new computer?"

It's the one codenamed Dream-2, and there's no better PC on the market today, and of course, I mean, at the same price, I came up with the idea of a metal case, and it looks pretty good, right?"

"It's really beautiful, but the cost is more than 20 dollars all of a sudden, you must know that my profit is not high, and the cost is too much, which will inevitably lead to an increase in the selling price.

Rowan, what about the laptops that you designed, Dell, Compa, IBM and other companies have already launched laptops, and our company is a big step behind. ”

Obviously dissatisfied with Su Mu's answer, the designer named Rowan rolled his eyes and retorted: "Only by spending more money can you make a beautiful product, and I think in the face of such a beautiful personal computer, users are happy to spend this extra money."

We recently tried to design a laptop, you should know that it and the PC are two different things, all the parts are compressed in that little bit of a large case, there are not enough people, we don't know a lot of technology, we can only buy it from other companies, in fact, I don't think it's a good time to make it, no one wants to buy a laptop. ”

A young man named Billy next to him said: "I also think so, the sales of laptops on the market today are not good, even if it will become mainstream in the future, and lightweight and portable laptops are widely used, but the current market potential is really bad." ”

Su Mu was very skeptical that it was because they couldn't design it, so he made excuses and said not to design it, this thought only flashed in his mind, and then he denied himself, because he also felt that it was not a good idea to produce laptops now, and the sales prospect was difficult to guarantee.

It was more of a gimmick for other manufacturers to show off their prowess, and laptops came out a few years later than desktops, just in the early stages of development.

The two designers couldn't say it well, Su Mu thought about it briefly, opened his mouth and said: "Then let's put it first, I'll talk to her over there, Blake, even if it is not put into production now, you still need to know the structure and manufacturing process, in case you need it one day in the future, you can make it soon." ”

Billy made an OK gesture and asked, "What are you doing here today, is there a problem with the new generation of products?" No, we are next to the production line, and I haven't heard of anything wrong. ”

"Do I have to have something to do? I can't stop by to visit you?"

Su Mu walked to a new Dream series computer, the white shell, with a metal sound when knocked by hand, the volume is smaller than the previous generation of products, the screen color is very good, and the desktop pattern is a fat penguin.

At present, Penguin only has two series, corresponding to the mid-range and high-end products, don't think that this is pitiful, before September 1987, only one product was sold to the outside world.

The high-end series is named "Dream", and the middle end is "Star", such a literary name must have come from Blake's handwriting, according to Su Mu and Li Ping'an's original idea, it was originally intended to be named "Big Penguin" and "Little Penguin".

The competition in the low-end machine market is too large, after being carved up by IBM, more than 200 small enterprises seized the low-end market, coupled with the low profits, simply started directly from the mid-end products, when I helped IBM sell computers, I found that individual users prefer to increase the configuration, few people are willing to buy the most ordinary version, from the company's current development situation, the first few years did not seize the low-end market, is a correct decision.

If there are customers who need low-end products, they can also provide customized services, according to the general speed, the process from placing an order to delivering to customers can be completed within five days, and the more dealer stores opened, the faster the delivery speed.

Billy and Rowan, as well as the other four present, shook their heads in unison, completely unbelieving that Su Mu would stop by to visit them, judging from countless previous experiences, they would only find them here every time something happened, and rarely saw Su Mu in the factory.

"Well, I do have something to ask you for, did Blake tell you that I plan to develop a top-of-the-line gaming and entertainment computer?"

Su Mu said: "I came to check the production progress of the new model today, and by the way, I asked you to design it cooler, and the cost and the like don't need to be considered for the time being, but it must be ahead of other products to provide customers with the most perfect entertainment experience."

You don't have to limit yourself to the form factor of the Dream and Star series, it's better to make people think it's cool at first glance!"

"Don't worry about the appearance, find an industrial design firm, you can always design a product appearance that satisfies you, and you don't have to worry about the hardware, but in order to adapt to the game, you have to make some improvements, such as a more powerful fan, and the best graphics processor, the performance of the central processing unit must be strong enough, otherwise you can't play some slightly more demanding games, and now the memory required to run computer games is getting bigger and bigger." ”

As soon as Billy finished speaking, a black girl named Maria shook her head and said, "Today's graphics processors are not very good, I heard that you asked Galaxy to develop a big game, if you really want to design a product like this, we need to develop a more advanced graphics processor."

And then there are mice and keyboards, and more advanced keyboards, mice, and especially keyboards, even if they are only a little bit comfortable, can make customers tend to buy from us, and the appearance is also very important. So that our company has more money to spend on R&D, and every time I think about it, I feel pitiful. ”

“...... Look at Maria, what a good suggestion. ”

Su Mu slapped his swollen face and became fat, deliberately ignoring the word "pitiful", adding: "If it is listed, of course, I can get funds, but when I make a decision in the future, I will also encounter obstacles."

It's time to recruit some more researchers, Maria, and give me a project plan that needs R&D, the company doesn't have enough money, but it's not a problem to support a few small R&D projects. The game will definitely get better and better in the future, and the graphics processor should be very marketable. ”

......