Mr. Li set the retail price for the new hard drive at $199, the same price the 10MB drive had when it first hit the market a year ago.

When many computer users heard about Oranges' new hard drive with a capacity of 20MB, some bold people bought it back and tried it, and they were soon overwhelmed by the ease of use of the new hard drive.

It's so convenient, you don't have to endure frequent jumpers and flip switches, you can easily complete the resource allocation of the hard disk with just one click of the keyboard, and you can allocate it how you want.

Oranges' new hard drives ushered in the second wave of sales peaks, and the inventory quickly bottomed out, and Li Yixuan could only urge Cao Yajing to speed up the production of the new hard drives.

There was still the last bit of old hard drives left in the warehouse, and there were more than 1,000 hard drives in total. The United States can't sell it, Li Yixuan asked Cao Yajing to postpone the listing of new hard drives in Hong Kong and Europe, first reduce the price of the old hard disks in stock, and after the old hard disks are disposed of, the new hard disks will be listed.

The success of Oranges' new hard drive is not only due to the quality of its own products, but also to the advertising planning of Regis McKenna Marketing Consultants.

Regis McKenna is a famous Silicon Valley marketing guru who came from a working-class family in Pittsburgh, went through college, and worked for Fairchild and National Semiconductor.

In 1970, he founded his own PR and advertising agency in Silicon Valley, Regis McKenna Marketing Consulting.

This man has two specialties, one is to leave the opportunity to conduct exclusive interviews with his clients to journalists he knows, and the other is to plan memorable advertising programs. For example, a series of colorful magazine advertisements created for Intel, with galloping racing cars and poker chips as the main elements, replaced the boring performance charts in the past, and enhanced the brand awareness of microchips, an abstract high-tech product, and achieved good advertising results.

Historically, McKenna's marketing strategy has been instrumental in some of the most important technological innovations, such as Intel Corporation, the world's first personal computer, Apple Computer, and the first computer retail store, Byte Store. He was involved in the technical marketing planning of the first computer LAN, the first miniature supercomputer and the first desktop publishing system, among other things.

McKenna's network of contacts is also remarkable, and many of the companies that eventually became famous in the industry have been helped by him in the early days, such as AOL, Apple, Microsoft, 3M, etc.

After making a name for himself in business, Regis McKenna became involved in politics in the mid-to-late '90s, being elected to the state Senate in 2005 and the U.S. Congress in 2012.

Based on McKenna's ability at this time and future energy, Li Yixuan must have invested early, he personally contacted the other party's marketing company, and negotiated the cooperation, of course, the corresponding expenses are expensive, but in the face of Oranges' strong ability to attract money, it is nothing at all. What's more, this expenditure is nothing compared to the later returns.

It is not easy to cooperate with McKenna, which has its own set of rules of conduct, that is, the user products that come to cooperate must have sufficient market potential in order to cooperate.

For this article, I think many people can't figure it out, and even think that what else do you need to do for products with sufficient market potential, and that person won't do it?

In fact, this is not the case, you must let potential customers understand the advantages of your product, let customers know what problems your new technology can help them solve, only let users know the advantages of your company's products, they will be willing to pay for it, rather than waiting for users to discover the advantages of your product.

At the same time, McKenna never forgets to improve the image of the product company when planning the advertising plan. Because technology is boring and jerky for the average person, it must be easy to understand in marketing, so that potential customers have a sense of uncertainty.

After such a request, you will find that the advertising and marketing of new products, especially high-tech products, is really not something that ordinary people can do.

Li Yixuan's easy-to-use design of the new hard drive is completely based on the hard disk of later generations, and this highly easy-to-use hard drive allows people to quickly and easily access data and obtain a large amount of information in an unprecedented way. Overnight, the outlook for the entire computer market changed dramatically.

Technological advancements in hard drives have led to computer sales, and the Oranges I has once again seen a surge in sales. Mr. Gou's Foxconn factory in Taiwan had all of its computer production lines at full capacity, and in order to continue to ramp up production, he had to ask Mr. Li to build more steel factories. This makes Terry Gou love and hate.

No way, who calls Oranges the only company in the world that has mastered the technology of steel structure plant construction? This is the advantage brought by the technology monopoly.

"I'm totally working for you. Looking at the fax sent to him by Guo Taiming, Li Yixuan smiled, this is the other party reminding him, don't slaughter me too hard.

Li Yixuan will definitely not slaughter him, and he will not get any benefits from slaughtering him, his factory will not be built for a long time, and in the end it is himself who is unlucky, and finally gave the other party a relatively fair price, 120 million Hong Kong dollars for five extra-large factories.

Such a price is in the normal range even in the future, of course, it is certain that it is too high, who called Li Yixuan to monopolize the technology.

In addition, the production of PCB boards is also enough, and new equipment needs to be purchased, originally Guo Taiming took a fancy to RB Toshiba's PCB processing line, but after the inspection, he was completely uninterested, not to mention the high price, and the quality of the PCB board was not good, it was okay to make TV and tape recorder boards, and it was okay to make computer boards, even if it was an arcade board.

It seems that they have to go to another time and space, and by the way, solve the problem of alcohol, and let them dry for so long, the two of them should also calm down, right?

After dealing with the things in hand and saying hello to his mother, Li Yixuan went home and opened the door of time and space to the 23rd century.

At a time when Oranges was making a big splash in the hard drive and PC market, Seagate's founder, Alan Shugart, was frowning.

As the founder of Seagate, Alain Shugart is a legend in Silicon Valley. Born in Los Angeles, he received his bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Redlands University. He joined IBM in 1951 as part of a three-person team for the development of the world's first computer hard drive, where he spent 18 years as vice president of Memorex International, and in 1973 founded the Shugart Society, which was acquired by Erox. He founded Seagate Inc. in 1979 and served as CEO until 1998.

Today, Alain Shugart held a meeting within the company, and the meeting lasted for more than two hours and did not end, and Alain Shugart has been frowning from the beginning of the meeting until now.

At the heart of the conference was Oranges' 20MB hard drive.

Since the launch of Oranges' 20MB hard drives, Seagate's hard drive sales have plummeted. The news from the distributor today is that not a single piece of Seagate's hard drive has been sold.

If you don't think about it, Seagate, which has only been established for a year, will have to go out of business, so Alain Shugart held this meeting.

To his right is Seagate's chief engineer, James Wang, a Chinese-American born in Xi'an, China, who came to the United States with his parents and became an American citizen. After graduating from the Arkansas Institute of Electrical Engineering, Wang joined IBM and met Alain Shugart, who also worked at IBM.

Alain Shugart was Wang Shoucheng's boss at the time, and the two were both superiors and subordinates, as well as their closest friends.

Later, when Alan Shugart founded Seagate, he pulled Wang Shoucheng from IBM.

Wang Shoucheng is also one of the founders of Seagate, when Wang Shoucheng joined IBM, he signed a no-go contract, which means that once he leaves the company, he will not be able to work in the previous company for three years, unless he is a businessman. So when Alan Shugart pulled him over, in order to avoid the shackles of legal treaties, Wang Shoucheng also invested a sum of money, and founded Seagate with Alan Shugart.

"Wang, Oranges hard drives, can we make them?"

Wang Shoucheng flipped through the patent books about Oranges' hard drives retrieved from the patent office, and replied: "If you want to make a hard disk that is as convenient and easy to use as Oranges, you must have a master control chip that is as good as theirs." ”

"Where did their chips come from?" asked Alain Shugart.

"They produce it themselves, and Oranges has also set up a company called DMG to produce chips. Wang Shoucheng replied: "However, this chip is very interesting. ”

Wang Shoucheng looked at everyone and continued: "This chip is actually a RISC processor in the sense of the word. ”

Coax, the audience was shocked, of course they know what the RISC processor is about, but that has always been a legendary thing, since the idea of RISC was put forward in the seventies, no company in the world has produced RISC processors, even if IBM launched the POWER processor in 1975, although it is claimed to be RISC, but it is only a piece of RISC-like. Now Wang Shoucheng said that the total control chip used on the Oranges hard disk is actually a RISC processor, and it is no wonder that everyone is not shocked.

"How's the performance?" asked one engineer.

Wang Shoucheng picked up a motherboard that was removed from the Oranges hard drive, pointed to a square chip on it and said: "Everyone, please see, this is the RISC processor, which is a 16-bit CPU, using a 1.5-micron process, integrating more than 7,800 transistors on it, and its computing power is more than three times stronger than Intel's 8086." What's more, it has a very low energy consumption, with a power consumption of only 2W, which is very reliable. ”

The people in the conference room are sensational again, stronger than Intel's 8086, which is easy to understand, after all, it's a RISC processor, but the key is that the power consumption is only 2W, which is amazing. Difficulty: RISC in addition to powerful. If this is the case, RISC will replace CISC in the future.

Wang Shoucheng continued: "But there is one thing that puzzles me, since Oranges has produced RISC, why not use it as the CPU of the computer, you must know that the Oranges I computer is very popular in the market, but they designed it as the master control chip of the hard disk, which makes me very incomprehensible." ”

"There's nothing incomprehensible about Oranges, which makes not only personal computers, but also hard drives," says Alain Shugart. It is important to know that the 65C02 processor has its own inherent shortcomings, and it is based on this that Oranges designs and produces its own control CPU. What really puzzles me is, how can Chinese companies have chip factories, and where do their production lines come from?"

At this time, the director of the human resources department, who was sitting on the left hand side of Alain Shugart, said: "I know that Oranges is a company from Hong Kong, but Hong Kong is ruled by the British, and it is not strange to be able to get a chip production line." You must know that Oranges is not the only chip company in Hong Kong, there is another company in Hong Kong, and three years ago, the Hong Kong company also purchased a full set of production technology for the 6502 processor from MOS, including a complete production line. ”

"Can we buy this company?" asked Alain Shugart.

"It's impossible, do you know how expensive Oranges is?" said the company's chief financial officer, "and this company has a multi-billion dollar annual turnover, and we only have a lot of annual turnover? ”

Alan Shugart gave up completely, he turned his head to look at Wang Shoucheng, "Wang, you have nearly half of the company's shares, do you have any good suggestions?"

Wang Shoucheng thought for a while and said: "I have a question for you, what level of market is Oranges' hard disk aimed at?"

"Wang, is this still useful, of course it is a computer. Said an engineer next to him.

"I'm asking, what kind of computer? is it a personal computer, a midsize computer, a minicomputer, or a mainframe like IBM?"

Alain Shugart finally understood, "Go on, Wang, I am very interested in what you have to say. ”

"Ladies and gentlemen, you all know why our company made 3.5-inch hard drives in the first place. You know, we originally planned to produce 5.2-inch hard drives, and the reason why we changed to 3.5-inch hard drives was because we saw that Oranges' 3.5-inch hard drives were selling well in the market. Wang Shoucheng looked at everyone and continued: "But have you ever thought about it, Oranges' 3.5-inch hard disk is mainly aimed at personal computer users, and there are mainly two kinds of people who buy personal computer users, one is computer enthusiasts, and the other is those small and medium-sized enterprises, or just started a business, just like our kind of business."

One thing these businesses have in common is that they can't afford small and midsize computers from DEC and HP. There are far more midsize and small computers on the market than there are PCs, and that's the only way out for Seagate. ”

Alain Shugart was stunned, "You're saying we target small and medium customers?"

Wang Shoucheng nodded and said, "That's right." ”

"But that's IBM's territory, and it's hard for us to go in and grab food. An engineer said.

Alain Shugart also said: "Yes, Wang, do you know how big IBM's hard disk capacity is?"

"Of course I do!" Wang Shoucheng said proudly, "Just last year, IBM invented thin-film head technology, which can significantly reduce the distance between the head and the magnetic sheet and increase data density. The size of the hard disk can be further reduced, the read and write speed can be faster, and the capacity can be larger. In the same year, IBM launched the IBM 3370, the first hard drive with thin-film head technology. The IBM 3370 can store up to 571MB of data, expands up to 4 units and can be paired with IBM System/30 midsize computers.

And this year, IBM launched the GB capacity of the hard disk IBM 3380, with a capacity of 2.5GB. But do you know how big IBM's hard drives are? The 3370 drives are 24 inches in size and weigh more than 160 pounds, while the 3380 is even more exaggerated, weighing more than 500 pounds. What's more, their price is even more terrifying, the 3370 is as high as $50,000, and the 3380 is $3 million. Let me ask all of you, how many companies can afford such an expensive hard drive?"

That's right, why didn't I expect this, IBM's hard disk capacity is indeed very large, but the high price is not affordable for all enterprises. If you launch a hard drive for midsize and small form factor, as long as the price is cheap enough, even if the storage capacity is smaller, those companies will be willing to accept it.

In fact, Seagate's original history in 1980 launched the hard disk is for small computer enterprise users, compared with mainframe and medium-sized computers, the small computer market in Europe and the United States is the largest, Seagate is relying on this market, by 1988 sold a total of 50 million hard disks. It was because of Li Yixuan's arrival that he disrupted Seagate's original footsteps, and he also followed the 3.5-inch hard disk, but he was led by Li Yixuan.

Wang Shoucheng is to move Seagate back to its original track. Hmph, I can't win against you Oranges in the PC hard drive market, I can't win against IBM in mainframes and medium-sized computers, and I can't win against you in the field of minicomputers.

For Oranges, even if your hard disk is good, it is extremely difficult for a company from Hong Kong to hit this level of market, and they want high reliability, high stability and high security, just the number of revolutions of the hard disk is as high as 3500 revolutions, and your 800 revolutions of the hard disk has a hairy use.

He is not afraid of IBM, their hard disks are too expensive, mainframe and medium-sized users are fine, and most of the small-scale users are still using floppy disks.

The minicomputer market is still a blank virgin land, as long as Seagate stands on this position, it can covet the mid-size computer market upwards and the personal computer market downwards, which can be described as an offensive and a retreat. If any one company makes a mistake, Seagate can attack any of them.

"Okay, let's develop a 5.25-inch hard drive for users in the minicomputer market! The project is in charge of James Wang, and all the company's resources are tilted towards you. We must win this market this year!" said Alain Shugart.