May 2nd, a very ordinary day, this day is still twenty days before the KylinWindows3.0 operating system is listed, and Zhang Lexing also stayed in his office as usual, while dealing with daily affairs, while planning the development plan after returning to China.

Suddenly, there was some noise outside the door, and soon the indicator light of the intercom phone on the desktop lit up, Zhang Lexing picked up the phone casually and put it to his ear, and the aggrieved voice of the secretary came from the receiver: "Mr. Zhang, Mr. Ballmer said that there is something important to come in, but you just said that there is something to deal with, and you will not be ...... for the time being."

Zhang Lexing secretly pondered in his heart: "Ballmer is in such a hurry. Could it be that something is happening? Is the Kylin Windows operating system going to market to be delayed? Or is there a hurdle in the sales of office software?"

Zhang Lexing was a little strange, so he said into the microphone: "Since there is something important, let him in." ”

Putting down the microphone, before anyone came in, Zhang Lexing hurriedly cleaned up the papers scattered on the table, after all, some things are not suitable for people to see. As he was cleaning up, the door was slammed open, and Ballmer walked in with an anxious face.

Zhang Lexing hurriedly put the important pages into the drawer, and then got up and beckoned: "Ha, dear Mr. Ballmer, what wind blew you here?"

"Zhang, we're in big trouble!" Ballmer said excitedly with his hands propped up on his desk.

"What's the trouble? The operating system is going to be delayed?"

"Not at all. It's the Federal Trade Commission, they don't know it's wrong, and they suddenly remember to investigate us!" Ballmer looked angry.

"What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with our company?" Zhang Lexing was a little puzzled.

"The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the federal agency that enforces a variety of antitrust and consumer protection laws, and to put it simply, the FTC's job is to stop behavior that could be harmful to consumers. Ballmer explained.

"Antitrust? I remember that our company has been paying more attention to it over the years, and there should be no monopoly violations. Zhang Lexing was even more puzzled.

Ballmer dragged a chair and sat down, adding, "This time the FTC is investigating whether our company is selling the Kylin operating system bundled with applications. ”

"I don't think that's the case in our company. Zhang Lexing thought for a moment and said.

"Not at all, I suspect there's another company behind it. Ballmer was indignant.

"Have you investigated, are there any suspects?"

"An investigation has begun, but no clues have been found yet. When it comes to suspicions, we think IBM is suspicious. ”

"What's the solution now?"

"We can only actively cooperate with the investigation, and then do some public relations and publicity actions as appropriate, and strive to end the investigation as soon as possible. ”

"Well, let's deal with it first, and let me know if there's anything new. Don't worry too much, have we done it, after the investigation, it will be clear. ”

……

The ensuing events were uneventful, and although the FTC began interviewing employees in key positions within the company, it had little impact on the company's day-to-day work. Except for the 10% drop in Microsoft's stock price when the news first broke, Microsoft's stock price slowly began to recover after it had no impact on the company's other operations.

On May 7th, fifteen days before the launch of the Kylin Windows 3.0 operating system, everything seemed to have returned to normal. Zhang Lexing can rest assured for the time being, he is not nervous about the Federal Trade Commission's investigation, because Microsoft has encountered similar things in its history, and Zhang Lexing believes that Ballmer and these people can handle it well.

Just when Zhang Lexing thought that things would slowly subside like this, an unfavorable news came, IBM suddenly announced that it would launch version 2.0 of the OS/2 operating system on May 8, which will be the first true 32-bit operating system with an object-oriented graphical user interface. At the same time, the propaganda about IBM's new operating system, such as "an epoch-making operating system" and "an interface that is truly oriented to users' habits", began to spread all over the world, and for a while, IBM seemed to have the glory of the past.

This time the matter was serious, after all, IBM was not like the Federal Trade Commission, and the management of VisualSystem immediately entered a state of emergency. Under the convening of Yang Xinxin, an emergency countermeasure meeting was held in the conference room, and the company's management participated in it.

Outside the conference room, Zhang Lexing ran into Yang Xinxin, but she didn't expect a smile to appear on her face, and she joked with great interest: "Brother, you can't run away now, at least you have to help the company get through this pass." ”

Zhang Lexing also understands in his heart that this time the situation is not trivial. The operating system, which was supposed to appear in '92, was actually launched almost two years ahead of schedule, perhaps because VisualSystem had put too much pressure on IBM over the years. Originally, according to Zhang Lexing's plan, by the time of 92, he would definitely come up with an operating system that far exceeded the OS/2 version, and there would be no need to worry about it at that time. But now IBM is doing this, which makes VisualSystem very embarrassed. In fact, the upcoming KylinWindows3.0 system is not worse than IBM's, but after all, the two have their own strengths, and now the sales time must be lagging behind, if you can't deal with it well, it is easy to lose points in the market.

VisualSystem in-room ......

After more than an hour of deliberation, everyone still failed to come up with a final resolution. It seems that the news of IBM's move has put a lot of pressure on everyone, after all, IBM is such a huge existence. During this period, some people even proposed to let KylinWindows 3.0 end the test early and go to market early to cope with the pressure from IBM. This idea is too stinky, and it was rejected by most people as soon as it was exported, after all, if you really want to do this, it will ruin the company's credibility if you don't do it well.

"I think the biggest feature of our operating system compared with IBM should be good compatibility, can run the previous software well, although now can not immediately launch products, but can be our operating system good aspects of the first through the pre-publicity to promote out, through a large amount of publicity can also make users indecisive, restrain the speed of IBM's sales. Yang Xinxin thought for a long time and came up with a solution proposal: "Of course, our own operating system is still launched as scheduled, and at the same time, we should do a good job of testing to minimize product bugs (errors), and the department responsible for product marketing should make a sales plan in advance, and do a good job in the early communication of sales channels." ”

……

Following Yang Xinxin's proposal, VisualSystem quickly took action, and a lot of publicity followed IBM. Under the storm of publicity, the rapid growth of sales of the OS/2 operating system in the early stage soon showed an inflection point, and a large number of users began to wait and see. On May 22, the KylinWindows 3.0 operating system was released as scheduled, and at the same time, many KylinWindows-based platform software funded by VisualSystem began to be gradually launched, and the balance began to slowly tilt towards VisualSystem. Soon after, Kylin's Windows 3.0 operating system surpassed IBM's OS/2 in sales, and its market share continued to grow rapidly, and VisualSystem once again managed to maintain its dominant position in the operating system market. However, in the process of this short-handed encounter, IBM has also succeeded in gaining a certain market share by virtue of its initial efforts, and still maintains a potential threat, and the struggle between the two powers will continue.

However, there are other benefits to this market share war, the antitrust investigation initiated by the Federal Trade Commission has not been able to obtain strong evidence, and this battle for the operating system market has also provided good proof for VisualSystem, but according to the lengthy investigation process, there will certainly be no results in the near future.

The competition for the operating system market is still the same, and both sides are unwilling to give up easily, and while doing a good job in the current product marketing work, they are both accumulating strength, looking forward to winning each other in the next version.

When the operating system was in a fierce battle, Zhang Lexing received a report from Christopher, the new director of the VisualSystem Research Institute, in which he said that the current research direction of the Institute is not very reasonable and needs to be revised, and put forward his ideas:

“…… Add a fixed goal of 'supporting long-term computer science research regardless of product cycles'.

Ten re-divided research directions:

1. Algorithms and theories

2. Hardware development

3. Human-computer interaction

4. Mechanical learning, adaptation and wisdom

5. Multimedia and imaging technology

6. Data search, capture and knowledge management

7. Data security and encryption technology

8. Social computing

9. Software development

10. System, computer system structure, portable system and network

……”

Zhang Lexing carefully studied the plan, and talked with the dean Christopher for an afternoon, feeling that the plan is very forward-looking, can bring long-term sustainable development momentum to VisualSystem, and added some of the future research directions that Zhang Lexing understands (such as: programming and network technology, data-centric computing, etc.), and happily approved the plan.

In the following days, VisualSystem further strengthened Joey's operating system business and accelerated the development of the next version of KylinWindows 3.1 operating system while maintaining the support strength of the office software project. Zhang Lexing also often stays in the company to understand the progress of the project, and occasionally puts forward his own suggestions on the functions of the operating system and the user interface.

In early July, Zhang Lexing received a transatlantic phone call from Duan Yongping from Shenzhen. On the phone, Zhang Lexing learned that the second-generation learning machine had begun mass production, and someone also named it the pyramid learning machine. After several years of efforts, in Shenzhen Industrial Park has formed a learning machine production upstream and downstream supporting industrial chain, in the low patent fees and high profits of finished products stimulated, a learning machine production alliance is gradually formed, many of which are the original game machine factory, in fact, it is also very related to the domestic public opinion environment. The first batch of learning machines has begun to be sent to the whole country, and product supporting advertisements have also begun to be broadcast on the central station. In order to start the first shot, Duan Yongping, the director of the factory, came up with a good idea - a new product launch conference was held in the Great Hall of the People, and the time of the conference was set for August 8. Duan Yongping called this time to ask Zhang Lexing if he had time to go back, but unfortunately under the current urgent development situation, Zhang Lexing was really inconvenient to leave, so he had to send his blessings by phone, hoping that the press conference would be successfully held and the first shot of sales would be launched.

On August 8, the new product launch conference of the learning machine was held in the Great Hall of the People as scheduled. With the holding of this press conference and the subsequent promotion of various media, a learning machine craze quickly swept the entire country.

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