The sales of Macintosh computers, the second milestone in the personal computer industry that Jobs had made a lot of vogues, fell far short of Apple's expectations. Scully finally took advantage of his position as CEO to remove Jobs' last powerful position, the head of the McIntosh program, and gave him only the title of corporate consultant.

Mr. Jobs had planned to contact a group of people to challenge Mr. Scully, but the board had already become disillusioned with him, and the rest of the company was reluctant to continue the quarrel with Mr. Jobs. Because Apple has reached a very critical moment, if it continues to fight like this internally, it may really be completely eliminated by the market in the future.

The betrayal of Jobs finally chose to leave his job, ending his first career at Apple. Of course, it is unknown whether the Apple company in this life can wait for him to come back more than ten years later to turn the tide.

Li Xuan put down the "Wall Street Journal" in his hand and couldn't help but sigh. He remembers another time and space, when Jobs struggled until 1985 before leaving Apple.

But Jobs' early departure may not be a bad thing for Apple, which is in trouble. In another time and space, it was after Scully took full control of Apple that he launched the enhanced Macintosh computer, which finally reversed the decline in sales and became the only computer company to compete with the Wintel alliance.

And now the pressure exerted on Apple by Aikang Computer Company and the Eastern Group behind it is far greater than that of IBM and PC compatible machines in another time and space.

According to the newspaper that Li Xuan had just read, Scully announced the elimination of the Lisa machine department the day after Jobs left. This computer is named after Steve Jobs' daughter. There is a big overlap with the McIntosh project in terms of positioning, and Apple is ready to focus all its efforts on the Macintosh project.

Li Xuan didn't know if Apple would be able to survive the new round of strikes that Aikang had already launched. Since the release of ABC-3 computer in July 1981. Aikang finally launched a milestone product, the ABC-5 personal computer.

It's different from Jobs's previous big words. Compared with all other models of personal computers on the market, the ABC-5 has once again ushered in a major technological advancement. Although the ERM-1 processor was a 32-bit core processor, it was castrated in actual use, and the external interface was only 16-bit, which greatly limited the performance of the processor.

The ERM-2 processor adopts the latest ERM-2 architecture, and the internal instruction set has been greatly improved and optimized compared with the previous ERM-1 architecture. And in order to solve the problem that the memory speed cannot keep up with the processor speed, the ERM-2 processor also adds 4K off-chip cache, which greatly improves the computing power of the ERM-2 processor.

Although the processor is the most core component of the computer, it determines the overall performance of the computer. It's not just processors. According to the short board theory, how much water a bucket can hold depends on the board with its shortest.

And the shortest board in the previous personal computer may be the memory. When ABC-3 was launched, the memory was not inserted into a special memory slot in the form of a memory module like later computers, but the memory chip was directly soldered to the computer motherboard.

In the early days of the ABC-3, two solder joints were provided for solderable memory chips. If you choose the minimum configuration of 128K memory, it is usually soldered to two 64K chips. If you choose the highest configuration of 512K memory, you usually solder two 256K chips.

However, at the end of 1982. Oriental Research Institute is located in the R&D center of Silicon Valley, and after Li Xuan invested heavily to recruit a number of experts, he finally developed the SIMM interface.

The Chinese translation of SIMM is called single in-line memory module, which is to encapsulate one or more memory chips in a unified module. The integrated circuit board (memory module) that contains these modules is then connected to the motherboard through a dedicated slot.

The biggest advantage of this is that it is easy to upgrade the memory, after the SIMM interface technology is fully mature. Later models of ABC-3 computers began to use memory module slots. However, the original SIMM interface was 30-pin, which could only support up to 16-bit processors.

And the newly launched ABC-5 computer. The SIMM interface has been upgraded to 72 pins and can support 32-bit processors. Therefore, the ABC-5 computer can be said to be the world's first true 32-bit computer. The ERM-2 processor it is equipped with has not been castrated, and in order to give full play to the computing performance of the processor, the memory configuration of the computer is up to 1M.

In addition, the ABC-5 computer is equipped with a separate sound card and graphics card, and the support for multimedia functions is greatly improved. In addition to the optical drive and hard disk, the ABC-5 computer also adds a new external device, a mouse, for the first time, to cooperate with the user in the visual graphical interface mode, making it easier to control the computer.

It can be said that the launch of the ABC-5 has once again made all the computers on the market obsolete! However, the new ABC-5 computer costs as much as $5,299, and its portable model, the ABC-P5, is as high as $5,499.

Relying on the special relationship with the Oriental Research Institute, Aikang has begun to develop the ABC-5 computer as early as the beginning of the development of the ERM-2 processor. Taking advantage of the fact that other computer manufacturers have not yet had time to launch new computers based on ERM-2 processors, Aikang naturally wants to rush to plunder profits at high prices when the competition is not fierce.

The ABC-5 computer is positioned in the high-end business market, and in fact, the more high-end the customer, the less sensitive it is to price. For example, the New York flagship store of the computer park company received a large order from Wall Street on the first day of the ABC-5 computer's launch.

Lehman Brothers is planning to purchase 200 ABC-5 computers to replace an aging batch of computers they are using. For a Wall Street giant like Lehman Brothers, the back-office department is most concerned with the performance and quality of the computer. As for whether the unit price of the computer is $4,000 or $5,000, it is not a big problem at all. Because of the extra $200,000 in equipment procurement costs, it was a drizzle for the Wall Street investment bank that made Jindou into it.

So the price of Aikang's new computer is high. But Li Xuan is not worried that sales will be cold. First of all, before the launch of the new computer. Large-scale marketing has been done, which has fully mobilized the appetite of potential customers.

Secondly. The ABC-5 is expensive, but it pays for what you pay for. The performance of the ABC-5 is already comparable to many low-end workstation computers on the market, which cost at least $10,000 or more.

The Executive MBA (Executive Master of Business Administration) is not taught on a full-time basis, and Columbia University uses a four-day intensive program once a month, with one weekend and two working days to minimize the disruption to the daily work of students.

According to the different learning progress of each college, the duration of study is generally 18-20 months. Since Li Xuan applied for the EMBA program of Columbia University, he naturally hopes that he can really learn some knowledge. With the growing size of the Eastern Bloc. His leadership style must also become more efficient and invasive.

After finishing his classes in March, Li Xuan did not fly directly back to Hong Kong from New York, but went to San Francisco on the west coast. Several important subsidiaries of Dongfang Electronics, as well as the group's North American headquarters, are located in Silicon Valley.

As soon as he got off the plane, he got the good news that the Oriental Research Institute had reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the American company Mostek. In fact, this cooperation was requested by the Mostek company. Previously, it participated in helping China to build a deep-sea microelectronics semiconductor wafer factory under the guidance of Oriental Trading, and its relationship with Oriental Group began to become close.

As the former leader of the memory market in the United States, Mostek has been miserable in the past three or four years. Under the pressure of the desperate price war of Japanese semiconductor companies, Mostek has fallen into the red for three consecutive quarters. A number of brokerage firms have even downgraded their stock ratings from hold to sell.

Under such a grim shape. Mostek must launch a self-rescue operation. The previous participation in the project of Shenhai Microelectronics Company was actually part of the self-rescue action of hunger. But that's just a one-time fast food and doesn't really solve the crisis that the Mostek company is now ordering.

The global processor market has become unprofitable amid the irrational price cuts of Japanese companies. And the advent of the SIMM interface. Let Mostek see a glimmer of light. This means that the memory chip will no longer be used directly on the computer, but will be inserted into a special slot on the motherboard in the form of a guò memory module.

Before the Oriental Institute through guò cash purchases and other methods. Obtain the authorization of dozens of pre-patents, and then cooperate with dozens of core patents and peripheral patents on SIMM interfaces applied for by themselves. A wall has been erected on the patent for the SIMM interface.

If other companies want to develop memory modules, it is impossible to completely bypass the patent barriers of the Oriental Research Institute. Either they obediently get permission from the Oriental Institute. Either simply abandon the SIMM interface and develop more advanced next-generation memory technology to replace it.

When the SIMM interface was first introduced, there was a lot of controversy in the industry. The first generation of 30-pin SIMM interfaces required four lines of memory to be inserted at the same time in order to work properly. Not only does this increase consumer spending on a single component of memory, but the excessive number of memory modules also increases failure rates and maintenance costs.

Therefore, in addition to Aikang, other computer companies have not followed up with the use of SIMM interfaces on their own computers. However, with the advent of the second-generation 72-pin SIMM interface technology, not only the computing speed of the memory has been greatly improved, but also only two memory sticks need to be inserted to achieve normal operation.

People of insight can already see that the trend of replacing direct soldering memory chips on computers has become irreversible. As long as Mostek can obtain the relevant patent license for the SIMM interface from the Oriental Research Institute, he can effectively avoid the price war of Japanese companies in memory.

Because of the addition of memory chips to the memory module, the price war in the memory field is difficult to transmit to the memory market. Because the Oriental Research Institute, which controls SIMM-related patents, is bound to not authorize its own patents without restraint.

Because that will only trigger the emerging memory module market, the outbreak of tragic vicious competition, and in the end, the biggest hurt is definitely the Oriental Research Institute, the market leader. That's right, now only the "Oriental" brand memory modules commissioned by the Oriental Research Institute to be manufactured by the Oriental Semiconductor Company are being sold. In the case of insufficient market competition, close to the order of Aikang Company, the profit of Oriental Research Institute in memory is also very good.

Li Xuan is not prepared to swallow the entire memory market alone, because this is likely to attract antitrust investigations. But as Mostek suspected, he was not prepared to license a large number of SIMM patents.

Before Mostek came to the door, in fact, many Japanese companies had already begun to test the position of the Oriental Research Institute. Eventually, the Oriental Institute reached an agreement with Mostek first. Because the conditions facing Mostek are the worst, it is also in the right position at the negotiating table.

The Oriental Research Institute did not demand a huge amount of royalties from Mostek, but hoped to exchange the SIMM patents for a large number of memory basic patents held by Mostek.

After all, Mostek was the largest semiconductor company in the United States five years ago, and the series of important basic patents it holds can completely open the door for Oriental Research Institute to enter the memory market.

After all, the current tragic price war in the memory market cannot last forever. The memory market has always been the largest market in the entire semiconductor field. If it fails to obtain sufficient basic patent authorization, the Oriental Group will simply pay various royalties to other companies, which will greatly weaken the competitiveness of the Oriental Company in the memory market.

The person in charge of negotiating with Mostek was Dr. Yu Youcheng, assistant director of the Oriental Institute. After Li Xuan arrived at the headquarters of the Oriental Group in Silicon Valley, he immediately learned about the situation from him.

"Now that Mostek has bowed its head, we can be tougher in our negotiations with Toshiba and Hitachi! Especially Toshiba, whose company is said to have a technician named Fujio Masaoka, has just invented a unique memory device that is non-volatile.

I ask Toshiba to put the patents related to this new type of memory, called flash memory, in the list of exchange SIMM patents!" Li Xuan said with a smile to Yu Youcheng.

The Oriental Research Institute is not short of money, so cash is not very attractive to Li Xuan. He chose to negotiate with Toshiba and Hitachi over other Japanese companies because he valued them as one of the largest companies in Japan's semiconductor industry and had a large number of technology patents of interest to the Oriental Research Institute.

"I have already spread the news that Mostek has reached a battle cooperation with us, and Toshiba has just sent a fax to prepare to send another director to Hong Kong as a plenipotentiary representative to negotiate!"

Yu Youcheng nodded and continued, "It's not us who should be in a hurry now, I will grind slowly with the Japanese, and strive to bite off two pieces of meat from Toshiba and Hitachi!"

"How did you talk to Ai Kang?" Li Xuan asked again.

SIMM's patents mainly include two parts, one is related to memory modules, and the other is socket-related patents. Li Xuan Equipment transferred all the patents of the socket to Aikang, which became part of Aikang's new ABC-5 computer technology standard.

In the face of competition from compatible machine manufacturers, Aikang always has some hole cards, and the new ABC-5 technical standard will not be authorized for free, but will charge a certain royalty, which is not only for Aikang to wear a stable profit, but also push up the cost of all competitors......, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone!