The summer vacation is still going on, and in just a few days, because of Caesar's arrival, the originally spacious house suddenly seems to be countless times more lively, at least every morning, watching Caesar eat has become a regular program at home. www.biquge.info Even, just to see him drinking milk, eating biscuits, and playing with everyone, the grandparents didn't miss their home in the Midlands, and stayed in Culver for a long time before going back.

On the first day of August, the sun had risen and Alice had just returned home from her morning run, followed by Oscar, who was tired as a dog.

"Yo, Caesar, is this what to eat?"

At the dinner table, Caesar was munching on cookies with a satisfied expression, and James was hiding his head behind the newspaper, but he couldn't see it.

"Woo~Woo~"

Seeing Alice enter the house, Caesar waved happily at her.

James put down the newspaper when he heard the voice: "Vivi, when you went out just now, Mr. Gates hung up the phone at home, and his tone was a little anxious, and I told him that you will be back soon." How about a quick call back?"

Alice hadn't eaten breakfast yet, she frowned and said, "Dad, are you sure he came at this time?"

James shrugged: "Of course, and I listened to his tone, and I was really anxious." You should call back quickly, or ...... Oh, voila!"

The telephone rang in the hallway, and for many years, the phone at home rang non-stop in the morning, and this kind of thing almost never happened. Alice gulped down the bowl of milk and walked down the hallway with a puzzled expression.

"Hey, Bill?"

It was indeed Gates' voice on the other side of the phone: "Alice, big business, we have a big business!"

Alice raised her eyebrows, and her original uncaring mood was suddenly withdrawn. Big business that can surprise Gates, especially in this period, is definitely an important event that can affect the development of Microsoft.

"Big business, does anyone want to cooperate with us?"

I just heard Gates say, "That's right! uh...... Alice, I think you should know that we have a close business relationship with Microsoft, right?"

Alice nodded clearly: "Yes, didn't the DOS system be developed for them in the first place, and then Microsoft just took this hitch." Before I came, didn't you rely on it for your annual marketing volume of 100 million? ”

"You know that very well. But now, there is new business coming to the door, and IBM also wants to install Windows on its computers!"

Gates spoke excitedly, but Alice rolled her eyes silently.

I thought it was a big deal.

She leaned casually against the wall: "Then sell them a hundred dollars for an installation plate, and see how many they want." ”

Gates paused for a moment, and when he heard again, his already high-pitched voice calmed down a lot: "Oh, sorry, I didn't finish my sentence." Yes, Alice, you should know that IBM's main business area is commercial mainframe computers. So they wanted us to develop an operating system specifically for workstations, web servers, and mainframe computers!"

This time, Alice's mouth grew silently.

She immediately understood what was going on.

This is no small matter.

"Is the network operating system? No problem, what did the other party say?"

After putting down other ideas, Alice asked, "Will we develop it alone or in cooperation?" What about the mission cycle? and of course, what about the remuneration that is most important to me?"

"IBM wants to develop jointly with us, so the task cycle naturally depends on the cooperation, of course, the remuneration is not a problem, a whole IBM business computer system, you can fully imagine, how many copies we can sell!"

What followed was a brief business meeting, but it was breakfast time after all, and Gates didn't have much to say to Alice, and after agreeing to meet in Seattle in a few days, he hung up early.

At this time, there were already people gathered at the table, and Sophie smiled: "Business again?"

Alice took a deep breath and sat down at the dining table, with a smile on her face when she picked up the knife and fork: "IBM asked Microsoft to jointly develop an Internet operating system, what did you think of?"

Almost without hesitation, Oscar shouted, "Cisco!"

Alice nodded her head vigorously, Sophie and James were happy, and Caesar was just eating her cookies, but Hannah said inexplicably: "Doesn't Cisco already have an iOS?

As soon as these words came out, even Oscar laughed, not to mention the others at the table. Realizing that she had said the wrong thing, Hannah frowned in confusion and asked what was wrong.

"Stupid Hannah, iOS is for Internet hardware products, and IBM wants this to be a computer operating system. ”

Alice happily waved her fingers: "Do you understand? iOS is specially used to set the parameters of the router, and it is a simple program for the computer. And IBM wants this, which is specifically designed to operate large commercial computers, workstations and servers, a whole computer operating system, understand?

Hannah frowned vigorously: "Probably...... Should...... Maybe...... Pretty much understood. Well, it's going to be profitable again anyway?"

"Yes, yes~ It's going to make money again~"

Alice summed up the whole thing in one sentence, and she knew that she was going to be busy again this summer.

There is no need to doubt that the so-called IBM wants to jointly develop with Microsoft and what operating system is.

In a short period of time, Alice has not been able to analyze why this cooperation has been brought forward. It stands to reason that it would take a few more years for this operating system to start development, but since I built Cisco ahead of schedule......

"Maybe that's why?"

After breakfast, she went to the bedroom, but not to get back to sleep, and as she flipped through the many complicated documents in the books, Alice quickly figured out a little bit of her idea.

In fact, the whole situation will have to be set back for months.

In general, after Cisco expanded some time ago, it has more than 40 employees and millions of yuan in liquidity. With this human resources, cash resources, and its own fully mature design and absolutely excellent efficiency of routers as products, the company's market scale is of course expanding more and more. No, not long ago, there was a small Yangmou of Lucent Technology.

As a well-deserved leader in the industry, it is undoubtedly true that Big Blue would realize the potential of this field, and it makes sense that it would want to get involved. After all, the IT industry is all about those things, which are nothing more than hardware, software, mainframes, personal computers, communications, infrastructure, and so on.

In this part of Silicon Valley, there has always been a mixture of competition and cooperation, and a hundred flowers are flourishing in one or more fields. Imagine how many IT industry leaders want to intervene in the field of unmanned vehicles, although they each have their own main business.

And, if it really is, it's definitely a key to Microsoft's take-off. ”

Flipping through the materials in her hand and recalling the information from her previous life, Alice immediately came to such a conclusion.

In fact, according to normal history, this cooperation ended up unhappy.

At the time of the initial joint development, the system was called OS/2 and was divided into Microsoft-OS/2.nt from Microsoft and IBM-OS/2 from IBM. After the agreement collapsed, IBM continued to offer the previous version of OS/2 to the market, and Microsoft changed the name of its OS/2NT to Windows NT, which is the first generation.

And when they studied separately, Microsoft's specific approach at that time was to recruit a group of people from a company called Digital Devices and set up a department to develop it.

And it's really been developed for a long time.

Alice remembers the fact that the project started around 1987, but by the time it was launched, it was already 1993......

In addition, there is a person who has to be said in this development activity, and that person played a crucial role.

It was a guy named David Cutler, an absolute old guy who graduated in '65 and worked for DuPont, and then programmed at DEC in the IT industry. He formed a new computer family at DEC called PRISM, but the project was eventually canceled by the company and Cutler left DEC. And this system is the prototype of the later NT system.

Cutler came to work at Microsoft through a friend's introduction, and even Gates was in awe of the old-timer. Stern and ruthless, he sees laziness, confusion, and lack of competitiveness as enemies, and is not only a legendary programmer, but also a great project manager.

Because Windows-NT development takes a long time, costs a lot of money, and has a lot of personnel, it can be said to be an unprecedented interpretation of software engineering.

Five years of painstaking development, costing $150 million and a team of more than 200 members, the cost was not for nothing.

You must know that throughout the various terminals of the information age in later generations, and even any kind of network equipment, the software part is nothing more than composed of two aspects. One is the Internet hardware operating system, Cisco's ISO that sets the parameters of routers and switches, and the other is the operating system used for the server computer itself, Microsoft's series.

Not only the king of the personal computer operating system, but also the king of the network machine operating system, Microsoft's Windows layout is wide, and it naturally brings well-deserved power. Thinking about the future generations of the Forbes power list, the tenth person on the list below the positions of presidents, presidents, and Fed chiefs of various countries, isn't it Bill Gates's kid?

Therefore, after learning that Microsoft was going to develop this system with IBM, if it wasn't for the timely control, Alice would have been unable to help dancing Yangge on the spot.

After all, she's still working on Cisco, isn't she? )