On August 12, 1981, an ordinary Wednesday turned out to be unusual because of an IBM action, and at 10 a.m. that day, IBM held a press conference in the conference hall on the ground floor of the Wolf Hotel in downtown Manhattan.

Seeing that the demonstrator had been installed, Estellici hurried up to the stage to begin the presentation of the company's new products. The hall was empty, and Estlic estimated that there were less than a hundred people coming today, but he was still nervous, the results of his more than 400 days of struggle were about to be tested, and he was very worried that the PC on stage would fail unexpectedly and mess up his debut.

Estlic adjusted his breathing to try to calm himself down, then picked up the microphone and began to introduce the main functions of the IBM-PC.

"This machine on the stage is our first IBM product to enter the microcomputer market - IBM-PC......"

"The PC uses a 16-bit processor 8088 with a frequency of up to 4.77MHz, which is several times faster than the Apple II......"

"It does all the functions of the old microcomputers......"

Estlic was actually not very satisfied with the demo machine, according to his idea, it should be a machine with a pre-installed Kylin system, but who made the president Ober so concerned about this matter, and even gave instructions on what operating system the demo machine at the press conference should use. Although Estlic is unwilling, but the boss is not him, there is no way, he can only use DOS aggrievedly, fortunately, his team is still working hard, of course, he thinks that he is lucky today, this demonstration machine running DOS has been stable for more than 20 minutes and has not been in trouble.

However, Estlic did not dare to continue to challenge the limits of the DOS system, lest a serious press conference turn into a farce, and not only would he be ridiculed by Apple's Jobs, but he would also become a scapegoat to pack up and leave. After a hasty introduction of the main functions of the PC, and a quick demonstration, the press conference soon entered the question time, and Estlic's hanging heart was finally able to relax a little.

Tomorrow is the day when the PC officially starts to go on sale, Estlic is a little ambitious in his heart, the first batch of machines on the market is only 2,500 units, the number is not much, but after all, it is the crystallization of his and his partners' joint efforts, especially the 500 units that Estlic has specially handled to place greater expectations on him, and there is a voice in his heart shouting: "IBM's spring is coming, and Estlic's spring is not far away." ”

……

In Bellevue, Washington, in a simple office, a bearded man with glasses is pouring a bottle of champagne into three glasses, and a young man with glasses on his face is happily talking to a young man with a head on his head.

"Now is the time for IBM to officially release the PC, and our company will follow in the fast lane in the future. "Freckles young is very excited.

"I think I'm here at the right time, and I believe that the future of our company is limitless!" Xie Dingnan was also excited.

The bearded man in glasses handed over two glasses of wine, then took another one of his own, and said with a smile: "For our future, a toast"

……

An hour later, in San Jose, about 800 miles south of Bellevue, Zhang Lexing, Yang Xinxin and others were also celebrating with champagne in their offices, but the theme of the celebration was not for IBM's newly released machine, but for the company's good sales in the past two months, earning $1.6 million just from two games, which is a good start. Everyone was very happy and excited, and they had a good time in the office, as if it was a holiday.

Zhang Lexing came to the window with a glass of champagne and looked out through the glass, but he couldn't help but start thinking about the first release of the PC.

"Are you worried about IBM?" Dr. Yu also walked over with a glass of champagne.

"It's a lie to say no. The pre-installed ratio is 1:4, which is too much for us compared to Microsoft. Zhang Lexing said worriedly, perhaps the shadow of Microsoft's empire has always made him lack enough self-confidence.

"It's okay, Estlic thinks that we are making a better operating system and are fully capable of capturing a part of the market. We're actually pretty good, except for Microsoft, the rest don't even have pre-installed copies. Dr. Yu explained.

Zhang Lexing took a sip of champagne and didn't speak again, just set his eyes on the far east, and there was only endless expectation left in his heart......

After the IBM-PC was launched, it aroused the interest of many media, and they have invested in manpower to follow up and report, of course, IBM gunmen are also indispensable. From a technical point of view, some authoritative engineers were found to make a detailed analysis of the composition, functions and performance indicators of the PC, and even deliberately compared the Apple II to show how fast the PC with a 16-bit processor is and how high the performance is. Some media found another way to interview Honey Weier, president of Tangdi Company, one of the pioneers in the microcomputer market, and wanted to dig up the news from the perspective of competitors, but unfortunately the gain was not big, Honey Weir just said calmly: "I don't think this is a big deal." ”

Obviously, at this time, IBM-PC did not arouse anyone's vigilance, and even Apple also saw a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "OvationIBM (Warm Welcome to IBM)", ostensibly to welcome IBM into the microcomputer market, but in fact, Apple did not take IBM as a big stupid elephant in its eyes.

The performance of IBM-PC in the first two months seemed to confirm Apple's idea, and IBM, which was full of expectations, only sold 3,000 PCs, and the vigorous checkers plan became thunderous and rainy, and IBM's senior management could not sit still and urgently convened an internal meeting.

...... IBM Headquarters, Armonk, NY

The high-level people who originally supported the PC were scolded as worthless one by one, but everyone was quiet, and they all bowed their heads in silence, and only the roar of President Ober remained in the conference room, "What is the problem, I don't want to listen to any justification, I just need an answer." ”

One technician stammered, "Ken... It's definitely not ours, Intel's engineers have checked their processors and chips many times and found no problems, we estimate that it should be software, to be precise, the operating system. ”

"And that bullshit OS was the bastard that agreed to buy it?" said Ober angrily, and began to try to find the bastard in the papers in his hand, but he soon fell silent because he realized that the bastard was actually himself. Ober felt that he was actually quite helpless, who let Bill's mother and himself be members of the National Council of the Datong Dao Friends Association, the human network killed people, Ober lamented, and now there is no other way, but to think of a way to solve this trouble quickly, otherwise he will not be able to get rid of it.

"Isn't there a way to solve this problem now?" Ober glanced at the crowd to see if any heroes could show up.

Fortunately, a technical director raised his hand, which made Ober feel much better, and hurriedly nodded his head to speak.

The director cleared his throat and said: "At present, the crux of the problem is that we do not have a good operating system, and now there are some bugs that we have not had time to deal with in DOS, and more importantly, the functions are too simple, and many users who have bought our machines have great opinions." Therefore, our top priority is to replace the main operating system, and change to an operating system that can better play the performance of our PC. ”

Ober asked, "So do we have a goal now?"

The director said unhurriedly: "We are going to use the second supplier of the operating system, and they have designed an operating system that is much better than that DOS. But ......"

"But what!" yelled Ober, anxious.

The director said helplessly: "We have an agreement, the share of other suppliers cannot exceed half of the first supplier, now the 3,000 computers on the market, 2,000 are DOS, the remaining 1,000 are mostly Kylin system, if we launch another machine with Kylin system, it will violate the agreement." ”

"And who made this damn deal?" Ober roared.

The director looked at Ober with an innocent face, and Ober realized that this was probably a good thing he did sometimes, so he could only say helplessly: "Forget it, this kind of agreement doesn't care about it, even if we lose some money, we will change to a system that can sell our PCs." You are responsible for this matter, and you must settle it. ”

Receiving a new request from the headquarters, Estlic was very proud, he didn't expect the arrangements he made before the release of the new product to have results so quickly, of course, there is also the competitive performance of the Kylin operating system, and now the shackles on his head have been opened, and the next time is the time for him to perform well.

With the support of the Kylin operating system, Estellich decided to open up new markets from business users, and the advertising budget was greatly increased to twice as much as the previous PC launch day.

All of a sudden, newspapers and magazines on the streets and alleys, almost everywhere people's eyes can reach, there are eye-catching advertisements for PCs: a must-have for business people! New PCs! Produced by IBM! With the help of IBM's past reputation, PCs have become famous, and the eyes of many business users have been attracted.

After a short period of brewing, in the last two months of the year, PC sales began to grow rapidly, and after Christmas in 1981, PC sales reached 15,000 units, and sales exceeded 50 million US dollars. $50 million is a lot for a small company, but for IBM, a behemoth, it's just a bit of soup and water, and what makes President Ober more comfortable is the change in the direction of the media, and the once laughing stock PC has become a new upstart in the IT world.

VisualSystem, which overwhelmed Microsoft to become IBM's preferred operating system provider, has also begun to emerge by taking advantage of this shareholder wind, of course, some people are happy and some are worried, and Microsoft, which has been robbed of its first-mover position, has naturally become that worry.

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