His qualifications in the military also gave Jack Trammell the opportunity to obtain a $25,000 guarantee through the GI Bill of Rights, and in 1953, he went from being a taxi driver to an office equipment repair business.

He named the small store in the Bronx, New York City, CommodorePortableTypewriter, the Commodore portable typewriter, and the Commodore brand was born.

Commodore means Commodore, and Guy Jack Trammell liked the name of this militarized style, but it was a pity that Admiral, General, and other titles were already in use, so he had to settle for the next best

In 1955, Jack Trammell signed an agreement with a Czechoslovak company to assemble and sell their typewriters in North America.

Since Czechoslovakia was a member of the Warsaw organization and could not import its products directly to the United States, Jack Trammell took the tortuous route of founding Commodore Business Machines in Toronto, Canada, to work around these restrictions and put them on the market in 1962.

However, Jack Trammell's business soon suffered a setback when the influx of Japanese typewriters into the American market made Czechoslovak typewriters unprofitable.

In order to solve the cash problem, Jack Trammell sold 17 percent of the company's shares to Canadian businessman Owen Gould, and used the $400,000 raised to convert the product from a typewriter to a mechanical calculator, the adder.

Outcome. It didn't take long. Jack Trammell is tragic again. This new business was also hit by similar products in Japan.

Seeing that both failures were caused by the same cause, Owen Gould simply suggested that Jack Trammell go to Japan to learn - to see why he was able to dominate the North American market.

It was this experience in Japan that made Jack Trammell realize that the machinist's calculator was about to go down in history and be replaced by an electronic calculator.

In this way, Commodore soon succeeded in entering this market with the release of electronic calculators, but unfortunately it was not long-lived. It was stabbed in the back.

Texas Instruments, which provides integrated circuits, found that there were unlimited business opportunities in the electronic calculator market, so it was unwilling to only play the role of a parts supplier, and decided to kick out the intermediate links of Commodore and others, and rolled up its sleeves to make money in person, and launched a competitive product with lower cost.

The blow was catastrophic, but Irving Gould struck again, spending $3 million to buy MOSTechnology, Inc., an IC design and semiconductor manufacturing company, from Commodore's suppliers. We have created a product manufacturing vertical system similar to Texas Instruments, and we no longer have to be controlled by others.

With crazy competition. The computer market was quickly ruined, and the situation could be described as full of sorrow.

Edward Roberts, the developer of the first commercially successful personal computer, the Altair8800, was one of the failures, and his company, MITS, fell into debt and launched the Altair8800 in December 1974 to save itself.

Commodore is also having a hard time, but its acquisition of MOSTechnology, Inc., and its development of an 8-bit microprocessor MOS6502 bring new opportunities.

Chuck Peddle, the chief designer of the CPU, told Jack Trammell that electronic calculators have reached a dead end and that personal computers are the future.

Jack Trammell's reply was very simple, give me a result first.

In September 1976, Chuck Peder visited Steve Jobs' garage to see the Apple II and quickly fell in love with the machine, arranging for a demonstration to Commodore.

As a result, Jobs said, "You may be interested in buying our company for hundreds of thousands", which made Kangmaoda retreat.

You know, at that time, Apple was just a simple partnership composed of Steve Jobs, Wads, and Ron Wayne, and Ron Wayne withdrew his shares for fear of dragging him into the abyss of bankruptcy due to the company's debts, and the commercial value of AppleII was not verified, and it was simply an empty shell.

In the end, Commodore replied that he would develop his own personal computer.

In this way, Apple and Commodore briefly crossed paths and parted ways. Apple was reinstated by Marcoura and became a joint-stock company, while Commodore launched its own personal computer, CommodorePET, in October 1977.

In 1977, two other important personal computers appeared—Apple's Apple II and Tangdy's TRS-80, which were launched in June and August, respectively.

The CPU of CommodorePET and Apple II is the MOS6502 of the Motorola MC6800 series, and the CPU of the TRS-80 is the ZilogZ80 of the Intel 8080 series.

The total sales of these three types of personal computers have reached the level of tens of thousands, bringing the development of personal computers into the second stage, and various manufacturers such as Atari have launched their own 8-bit personal computers, forming a lively situation of hundreds of schools of thought.

The generation of Fangyuan computer, which was successfully developed in the second half of 1979, is also one of them.

In the first phase, the most representative model, the Altair8800 developed by Edward Roberts, although with the help of Microsoft's BASIC, was more like a single-board computer in terms of hardware architecture, which assembled all parts of the computer on a printed circuit board, and the output devices were often just some signal lights.

The AppleII, CommodorePET, and TRS-80 encapsulate the circuit board in the main chassis, and have a more intuitive CRT display as the output equipment.

The CommodorePET is shaped like an all-in-one machine. Integrates keyboard, main chassis, and monitor. It looks very small. It was a huge hit and a success in the US and European markets.

But it is undeniable that CommodorePET is almost the weakest in its class.

In 1980 and 1982, Commodore launched the CommodoreVIC-20 and Commodore64, 8-bit PCs with new platforms.

These two types of products support the use of the TV as a display terminal. The offer prices are as low as $299.9 and $595.

Commodore64 in particular has a slogan - "Why would you think of buying a console that will make your children playful when you can buy a computer to prepare your children for college".

As a result, the home video game console market and the low-end personal computer market. A fierce price war broke out.

Last year, in January 1983, Commodore launched a new round of price wars, taking the lead in lowering the price of the CommodoreVIC-20 to $139 and the Commodore64 to $400.

Texas Instruments fought back a week later by lowering the price of its own product, the TI99/4A, to $149.

Seeing this scenario, Commodore directly lowered the price of the CommodoreVIC-20 to $100, forcing Texas Instruments to follow suit and cut the price of the TI99/4A by $100.

Commodore is still reluctant to capture more market share. Go ahead and bring the price of Commodore64 down to $200.

And then...... And then, Texas Instruments announced the largest loss in history. Recognize the output office.

As for the competitors in the same price range in the field of home TV game consoles, it is because of the collapse of the entire market, and the tree is scattered.

In this shopping spree, Cammodore had the last laugh, with total sales of the CommodoreVIC-20 surpassing 1 million units and the Commodore64 also selling in the millions, and the company's sales exceeded $1 billion last year.

Behind these brilliant achievements, of course, is the result of Jack Trammell's command.

The cheapest 8-bit CPU was developed by MOSTechnology, which in turn belongs to Commodore.

In this way, Jack Trammell created a vertically unified management system for Commodore, which allowed for a series of predatory price competitions.

In addition, Commodore has a wide range of sales channels, with budget stores, department stores, and even toy stores all in its sphere of influence.

More importantly, Jack Trammell is very good at managing the company, like Japanese companies, controlling costs in all aspects to support him in the price war.

Of course, Jack Trammell has his own problems. For example, he runs the company almost to the point where he has to do everything himself, with a budget that requires his signature on any expenditure over $1,000.

But then again, without these extraordinary qualities, Jack Trammell would not have gone from being a concentration camp survivor to the owner of a large corporation with sales of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Tang Huan is interested in Jack Trammell's ability to turn personal computers, which are still highly technological, into more down-to-earth consumer electronics, and then push them to thousands of households.

The old-fashioned and spicy methods of controlling costs he showed in this process, Tang Huan was ashamed of himself.

As for the danger of the other side breaking the rules of the existing system, it is completely within the acceptable range compared to the "catfish effect" that it can bring.

"If President Reagan is the 'great communicator' in politics, then Don is the 'great communicator' in business. Although we haven't been together for long, you feel like an old friend to me for many years. At the dinner table, Jack Trammell said cheerfully.

"My principle has always been to be kind to others and to be kind to others. No matter what happens, as long as everyone is willing to be patient, there is no unclear communication. Tang Huan smiled slightly, "Of course, in the face of interests, my harmony sometimes fails, isn't Steve Ross fighting with me until now." ”

"You brokered an Atari deal between me and Steve Ross, and you helped Warner out of big trouble, so he has to talk about it, right?" asked Jack Trammell curiously.

"It's just an exchange of interests, and a shopping mall tycoon like Steve Ross can certainly bend and stretch. Tang Huan raised his wine glass and gestured, and then said seriously: "Actually, the reason why I did this is selfish, the purpose is to further expand the popularity of Fang Yuan's personal computer. ”

"Understandable. Jack Trammell nodded disapprovingly, "Just as I bought Atari to prove that since I can create Commodore, I can also replicate this brilliance for the next business." ”

"Courageous!" Tang Huan laughed loudly, "I appreciate what you said the most, 'The computers we make should be for the public, not the upper class.'" ”

was pointed out by Tang Huan like a few classic quotations, Jack Trammell couldn't help but feel happy, picked up a cigar, and lit it happily.

"Steve Jobs was also claiming to let everyone have a computer, and we've all seen the MAC launch. Tang Huan smiled playfully, "I think he actually makes elite computers, not mass computers." ”

Jack Trammell thought for a moment, then nodded approvingly.

"I hope to be able to bring the marketing system you have formed at Commodore, that is, to make professional computers become mass consumer electronics, and bring them to the standard platform of Fangyuan personal computers. Tang Huan expressed his plan.

"There is a big difference between the products of Fangyuan PCs and Commodore, and one of the key impressions I received was that the architecture was very flexible, but I didn't dare to pack a ticket if I could launch a product like Commodore64. ”

Jack Trammell was cautious, and asked rhetorically, "Don, do you have any advice for me?"

"It's a bit of an idea. Tang Huan said slowly, "What do you think about introducing the direct sales model into the personal computer industry? After removing the middleman, manufacturers can directly sell products to customers, which in turn enables the company to provide customers with a variety of products at lower prices, and even produce on demand, that is, there is an order first, and then the computer is assembled according to the customer's requirements, which is equivalent to the product has been sold before it is produced." ”

"Bold and brilliant idea. Jack Trammell's eyes sparkled with wisdom, "However, this model is a great test of the internal management level of the enterprise. ”

"Tapping the internal potential of the enterprise and striving for excellence in all aspects is not your specialty. Tang Huan smiled and complimented, "Recently, PeopleSoft has achieved product-level results in the computer information solutions of CustomerRelationManagement, which is CRM, and SupplyChainManagement, which may help the implementation of the direct sales model." ”

"Don really came prepared. Jack Trammell had a look on his face, "Then I'm going to have to ask for some advice on this......" (To be continued.) )