IBM has a big family, and paying some compensation to settle is not even a drizzle for it. ⊥ the top novel, but Microsoft is not, and the digital research company has demanded $1 million in damages, which is the life of Bill Gates.

Although the final settlement agreement between the two companies has not been announced, Li Xuan judged that Microsoft has suffered a lot of damage this time based on the information collected subsequently. Most of the employees recruited by Microsoft after taking over the development of IBM's operating system have been laid off. Although sales of the 86-DOS have not stopped, PC sales are sluggish, and it is likely that IBM's follow-up models will support the East-DOS system of Dongfang Software. If it weren't for the basic language, Microsoft would have estimated and would soon go bankrupt. But without the support of the DOS system, Microsoft is no longer a threat to Li Xuan.

As for Intel, its main business is still memory rather than processors, and it has recently joined forces with other American memory manufacturing companies to engage in a bitter price war with Japanese semiconductor companies.

But Intel has not given up on the processor market, and on February 1 this year, the 80286 processor was officially launched. Unfortunately, it came too late, as IBM decisively abandoned the x86 architecture as early as two months ago due to poor PC sales, and instead used the ERM-1 chip of the Eastern Company to develop the next personal computer product.

Although the 80286 processor is still a 16-bit processor, its total transistor integration reaches 135,000, and the performance is much better than the previous 8086. The new 80286 chip may not be as fast as the ERM-1, but the overall performance is only slightly inferior. If IBM continues to adopt 80286. The new computer may not be able to compete with the ABC-3.

It's a pity that Li Xuan had long expected the time when 80286 would be listed, so he controlled the pace of negotiations with IBM very well. Before the advent of 80286, IBM was successfully drawn into its own camp.

The 80286 processor lost the IBM platform, and the excellent performance naturally could not be shown. What's more important is that the 80286 processor is in terms of cost performance. It simply cannot compete with the ERM-1 chip. It costs about the same as the S-100, but the S-100 processor is a few streets away from it in terms of performance.

After Intel developed the 32-bit MC68000 chip at rival Motorola, it felt a big threat and began to develop follow-up products for the 8086.

But at that time, Intel had always positioned itself as a memory manufacturing company. The vast majority of scientific research funds are invested in the research and development of memory chips, which also directly leads to the slow progress of the 80286 project. If there is no butterfly like Li Xuan, the 8086 processor can still be popular for several years by relying on IBM's PC.

But the appearance of Li Xuan suddenly pushed the personal computer from 8/16-bit to the 32-bit era, and Intel suddenly couldn't keep up with the rhythm. The new 80286 processor is available. It has also become an embarrassing product that is not up or down. It may be half a pound and half as the ERM-1 in terms of performance, but it cannot compete with it in terms of price, and compared with the S-100, which is at the same level in price, the performance is far inferior.

Intel's x86 series processors are also a CISC architecture, which is much more complex to design than the RISC architecture. Even if Intel were to start working on the 32-bit 80386 processor right now, it would be a year or two before the product actually came out. At that time, the new ERM-2 and S-200 processors were probably already available.

The Wintel Alliance, which crushed the entire industry in his previous life, put too much pressure on Li Xuan. In fact, Microsoft is still a small company with only a few dozen employees. Even the larger Intel Corp. has a total market capitalization of less than $1.5 billion on the New York Stock Exchange. It is far from becoming the giant corporation with a total market capitalization of more than $150 billion.

And the share price of Li Xuan's Aikang Company has exceeded 20 pounds. Although the pound has been depreciating recently, the total market value of Aikang is as high as $4.3 billion in US dollars, which is nearly three times the market value of Intel.

Li Xuan's appearance left the original to Intel. There is still a window of three to five years for transformation, which is completely closed ahead of schedule. Even though Intel is now starting to transform into a processor manufacturer, it is under strong resistance from the two major architectures of ERM and MIPS. It is almost impossible for the x86 architecture to achieve the same glory as another time and space.

And Intel's top brass still seems to be putting most of their energy into it. Put it on the memory market competition, which is destined to have no advantage. Li Xuan is even considering waiting for another year or two for Intel to be strangled by the harsh price war of Japanese memory companies. Is it possible to acquire it directly after the overall decline in performance?

Regardless of the current situation of Microsoft and Intel, Dongfang Electronics quickly transformed from an initially hostile relationship to a cooperative relationship after reaching a settlement agreement with IBM at the beginning of the year. It is in response to the old saying that there is no eternal enemy, only eternal interests.

IBM's chairman, Frank Carry, also hinted to Li Xuan many times, asking whether IBM had the possibility of fully acquiring Dongfang Electronics. Li Xuan didn't want to refuse directly, this was the cause he was fighting for.

IBM is most interested in the Oriental Research Institute, followed by Aikang Computer Company. But both companies are absolutely controlled by Li Xuan, and without his nod, IBM would not even have the opportunity to launch an acquisition.

In particular, Akon Computer was one of the best listed companies on the London Stock Exchange last year. A number of investment institutions have given the highest rating of Strong Buy to the stock of Aikang. Since the company's stock was listed, the stock price has doubled in just half a year, but the turnover rate has continued to decline.

A large number of shareholders who hold shares of Aikang choose to hold the company's shares for a long time, so that there are fewer and fewer shares circulating in the market. The board of directors of Akon Corporation has recently been mulling a stock split plan to improve the liquidity of the company's shares.

With such a good upward momentum, Li Xuan will not choose to sell cheaply now as long as he is not a fool. With the exception of the Oriental Research Institute and Aikang, IBM is not very interested in the most profitable Oriental game company, but is more interested in Oriental Software Company.

The role of a series of software developed by Dongfang Software Company in the sales of ABC series computers is clear to everyone in the industry. In another time and space, Microsoft's total market capitalization at its peak exceeded $600 billion, and even if its glory was no longer after the bursting of the Internet bubble, it was still a giant company with a market value of more than 3,500.

According to the current development momentum, Dongfang Software Company is likely to dominate the PC operating system market like Microsoft. Moreover, Li Xuan's ambitions for the enterprise-level operating system market and the digital library software market are also not small. If Yiqiē continues to develop smoothly according to the steps he designed, then the future value of Dongfang Software Company will be more terrifying than that of Microsoft in another time and space.

But the premise of this is that Dongfang Software can really grow. Li Xuan is not afraid of market competition, Dongfang Software relies on the east wind of ABC series computers, and its prestige in operating system software has surpassed that of CP/M system. A large number of third-party software companies have begun to take the initiative to apply for relevant technical information of the East-DOS system from Dongfang Software Company, and develop various application software on the East-DOS system.

Li Xuan is really worried about some competitive factors outside the market, such as Dongfang Software's status as a foreign company, and the possible antitrust investigation by the US Department of Justice. In later generations, there have always been doubts about Microsoft's Windows in government software procurement in China for the sake of information security.

The US government's forced paranoia is by no means smaller than China's, not to mention that the United States has a more difficult parliament besides the White House. Competitors only need to lobby a few lawmakers to launch a proposal, and then the media will follow up and hype it up, and it may escalate into a hot topic that affects the security of the entire United States. Later, when domestic companies such as Huawei and ZTE entered the U.S. market, they did not suffer this kind of loss.

Therefore, Li Xuan has long planned to let Dongfang Software Company go public in the United States, and may even move the first headquarters of Dongfang Software Company to Silicon Valley in the future. But this is not enough, if there is a giant like IBM among the major shareholders of Dongfang Software, its ability to withstand wind and waves will undoubtedly be much higher immediately.

Therefore, although the current Oriental Software Company has not really shown its value, and it is actually a loss to give up its shares too early, Li Xuan still agrees to IBM's request for shares. Of course, even if it is sold cheaply, Li Xuan must sell it at a good price.

The 10% stake asks $200 million, the 20% stake is $500 million, and the 25% stake is $650 million. This is Li Xuan's offer to IBM, the higher the shares, the higher the premium. Of course, the maximum stake that Li Xuan allows the other party to invest in is only 25%, and the real power of Dongfang Software Company must be firmly in his own hands.

But for IBM, it doesn't make sense to buy too little. Now that the board of directors of Dongfang Software has a total of 5 seats, with at least 20% of the shares, Li Xuan will agree to IBM getting a board seat.

IBM, on the other hand, valued Dongfang Software at only $1 billion, and its initial plan was to acquire a 25% stake in Dongfang Software in the form of a share swap. IBM and Dongfang Software are not at all the same company, and it is impossible for Li Xuan to exchange enough IBM shares to give him a voice in IBM. So he directly rejected the other party's share exchange plan.

Later, IBM offered to use $250 million in cash to acquire a 25% stake in Dongfang Software. This price is very different from the $650 million offer given by Li Xuan, so the two sides have been negotiating since the beginning of the year. (To be continued......)