……

Louis Pratt, the low-key CEO of Hewlett-Packard, saw that Tang Huan was quite concerned about the troubles caused by the deal between HP and Iran, so he replied in a down-to-earth manner: "The unit operating in Europe is a company in the Netherlands, and there are only three employees......

Speaking of this, Louis Pratt stopped talking, and Tang Huan also understood - HP's response was to use the loopholes in the rules to justify, and the backstabbers had already been prepared. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

To be honest, this method is not very clever, but it can be used by HP, which is not short of energy and has a lot of experience, and the effect naturally has its own unique mysteries.

The richest man bowed slightly, "If HP needs help with public relations, I'm happy to help." ”

"Of course it couldn't be better. Louis Pratt replied appreciatively.

In fact, don't look at HP's $120 million sale of computers, printers and other products to Iran this time, but its current company positioning is really not the computer company that the public is familiar with a few years later, only after entering the 1990s, through the acquisition of two microcomputer companies, it began to increase investment in personal computers.

This is also the reason why Tang Huan and IBM have been fighting in the dark for more than ten years, but they are basically at peace with HP, the "Silicon Valley witness" that is close at hand.

Hewlett-Packard, which almost never led any industrial revolution, started out as a measuring instrument such as an oscilloscope, followed by medical instruments such as nuclear magnetic resonance.

It is not difficult to imagine that the reason why HP has extended its business tentacles into the computer field is also to better serve its own business.

More than 20 years ago, Jobs bewitched Wads, who was still an engineer at HP, to start a company with his own Apple machine, and the honest and honest Wolds first showed the prototype to the owner in a proper manner, and HP was not interested, and then lost the opportunity to participate in the vigorous personal computer industrial revolution, which is not unrelated to this factor.

Now, the Internet wave can be described as turbulent, and no matter how old and serious HP is, it can no longer be unhurried with the operation of personal computers, which will inevitably change the relationship between HP and Fangyuan Company controlled by Tang Huan.

To put it bluntly, Tang Huan is not afraid of HP, although the other party is very large, but just like the Chu State in China's Warring States Period, it is big but not strong in the computer field.

However, the necessary layout still needs to be done - this time, the richest man who came to send "warmth" on the surface just wanted to quietly stumble.

Glancing at the opportunity, Tang Huan smoothly changed the topic and said: "DEC, which has a history of 40 years, is now no longer in the past, in order to save the emergency, the sale of non-core businesses in recent years has been dazzling, and now it is almost to the point where it will no longer exist if it is sold again." So, I'm going to make a move -- is HP interested?"

"Don really doesn't let go of anything valuable. Louis Pratt took advantage of the quip to figure out what's at stake.

The decline of DEC reflects the cruelty of competition in the computer industry.

At the beginning, DEC was the hegemon in the field of minicomputers, IBM and HP had to be in the back row, and even HP had the idea of controlling the minicomputer market by acquiring each other, but DEC was too bullish at the time, and finally had to give up stupidly.

The popularity of DEC's minicomputers can be seen from the fact that the programming language C and the operating system Unix were first developed on its PDP minicomputers.

But neither success nor failure – DEC's minicomputers were so successful that its founder and CEO, Ken Olson, stubbornly believed that the personal computer was just a worthless toy, and was eventually eliminated by the ruthless competition of the industry.

For a long time, Tang Huan has been difficult to understand Ken Olsen's thinking.

If in the early 1980s, the performance of the 8-bit personal computer was really not worth mentioning in front of the minicomputer, and the function was not much stronger than that of a toy, then the 16-bit personal computer was in the first place, and by the time the 32-bit personal computer appeared around 1985, there was already a trend of threatening the DEC minicomputer.

DEC's most successful model in the 1970s was the 16-bit PDP-11, and not counting the third-party imitations, DEC alone sold about 600,000 units, which was an early minicomputer, not a personal computer. The programming language C and operating system Unix of Bell Labs were first implemented in PDP-11, which in itself shows how rich and complete the ecological chain centered on PDP-11 is.

However, the premise of the country's permanence is that the environment remains unchanged.

The most obvious change is that even in the second half of the 1970s, semiconductor memory, which was still as precious as the Atari 2600, the home TV game console of Atari Atari, was designed to be only 128 bytes, and by the early 1980s, it no longer existed, especially under the impact of a semiconductor memory company, and even the personal computer that Ken Olson regarded as a toy was equipped with 64 kilobytes, and even unstoppably exceeded 1024 kilobytes, that is, 1 MB.

Among the various CPUs used in personal computers, Intel's 16-bit microprocessor Intel_8086 released in 1978 was equipped with a 20-bit address bus that could access 1 MB of memory space, while the new generation of 16-bit microprocessors released in 1982 Intel_80286 increased the address bus to 24 bits and could access 16 MB of memory space.

No matter how good DEC's PDP-11 is, it can't stand up to personal computers and other such "diligence can make up for it", and even the successor of PDP-11, the 32-bit minicomputer VAX, has also been significantly impacted by the wave of 32-bit personal computers set off by the 32-bit microprocessor Intel_80386 released by Intel in 1985.

In short, both IBM's mainframe and DEC's minicomputers are being forced to decline step by step by personal computers, as well as workstations and servers derived from the upwards.

IBM was fortunate to be involved in the personal computer industrial revolution, and as a party involved, it knew that it had to change, but DEC, led by Ken Olson, the stubborn founder, went black on the path of the minicomputer, and when it hit the south wall, it was too late to turn around - even if the 64-bit RISC microprocessor Alpha was finally introduced, the trend was gone, and it would not help.

In 1992, when the U.S. economy was at the bottom of the economic cycle in the early 1990s, DEC lost $2.8 billion for the year, and the DEC board could no longer stand it, and coaxed Ken Olson, the company's founder, to Robert Parma to turn the tide.

Robert Parmer's routine is not unusual, and the most effective life-saving tactic is restructuring and layoffs - so he slashed his sword, and more than 60,000 people lost their jobs.

As the U.S. economic cycle enters an upward phase, DEC's life has improved slightly, but let's not forget that the market competition is becoming more fierce and cruel - DEC has no chance to be a prodigal son.

The trick of layoffs has already been used, and DEC has no choice but to sell non-core assets - in 1994 alone, it sold the relational database product RDB to Oracle, PDP-11 to Mentec, and sold the tape data storage development technology DLT to Quantum, a well-known company that manufactures hard disks at this stage.

After entering this year, DEC has intensified its efforts and targeted Intel - boy, your Pentium microprocessor is selling very well, but it infringes on at least 14 of our patents.

Now, DEC has fallen into such a field, and Tang IT feels that the time is almost over, and it is time to help the industry clean up this mess.

HP is big but not strong in the computer field at this time, and with the feelings of courtship from DEC, it should be interested in DEC's core assets.

If HP gets on the road, there will be a series of interesting ripple effects.

For example, HP had to decide how to deal with the overlap between the two businesses, in addition to digesting DEC, a 40-year-old "old bone" that has shaped its own corporate culture.

Let's take DEC's 64-bit RISC microprocessor Alpha as an example, HP has already engaged in an EPIC Alliance, how to place this really good thing?

Louis Pratt thought for a while, but finally couldn't hide his slander against DEC, and asked, "What is the current market for DEC?"

The richest man replied casually: "No more than $9 billion." ”

Louis Pratt turned to a tentative point: "Listen to Don, if HP doesn't mean anything to DEC, he also plans to make a move, and already has his own disposal plan." ”

"That's true. Tang Huan nodded frankly, "After all, DEC is a long-established computer company with a long history, and it used to be so powerful, with its first-mover advantage, it really has a lot of valuable things in its hands - if I take it alone, I will naturally focus on intellectual property rights and eliminate some patent conflicts." ”

Although Louis Pratt doesn't know how Google will deal with Motorola more than ten years later, he can also imagine how DEC will be sucked out of the marrow from the seemingly relaxed but cruel words of Mr. The richest man.

"Why did Don come to HP when he already had a plan?" asked Louis Pratt with a wry smile.

"Obviously, the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse - I'm definitely not the only one interested in DEC, and maybe HP will see the opportunity to join the race. Tang Huan leisurely explained: "If we join forces, there is no doubt that we will be more effortless and more certain, and in the process of dealing with DEC in the future, not only will we not have disagreements due to differences, but will take advantage of this cooperation opportunity to further enhance friendship." ”

Speaking of this, the richest man looked at Louis Pratt with great sincerity and said slowly: "You may not be so dazzling under the brilliance of the two founders of HP, but you are down-to-earth, and you are implementing and practicing the 'HP Way' in a down-to-earth manner, which has made HP's reputation in the industry highly respected - I look forward to and believe that the cooperation between the two sides can develop to a deeper level." ”

In fact, under the appearance of Tang Huan's pure goodness, he has decided on the "kindness" of HP under the management of Louis Pratt at this stage.

How trustworthy is HP to its collaborators at this time? An example illustrates the problem -- Zheru and Hewlett-Packard have 42 joint projects in the field of basic network research, and although they have not signed a contract that is very elaborate and strictly restrictive, the two sides have cooperated very happily.

This precious trait is believed to be quickly swallowed up in the utilitarian age - how can you not seize the time to make good memories now?

Otherwise Louis Pratt is an honest man, he immediately believed the words of the richest man, but there was some hesitation, "According to Don's disposal plan for DEC, he must have to come up with a lot of cash......

Tang Huan waved his hand and said with a smile: "You must not prevaricate me with the problem of funds - I have heard that HP plans to separate the measurement and medical business that is best at HP and form a company called Agilent to go public for financing." ”

Why is the richest man wary of Wall Street?

Under its influence, there was Zheru who first spun off its software business and became Zheru Software Company, which attracted countless amounts of money in the US stock market; then the American Telephone and Telegraph Company spun off its telecommunications equipment business and became Lucent Corporation, which in turn attracted countless amounts of money in the US stock market; and now it is Hewlett-Packard's turn to separate its measurement and medical business and become Agilent, and continue to create a gimmick of attracting money.

No one knows if Wall Street will swing the knife of cutting meat at Zheru again after a big circle-Tang Huan, who has his own plans in mind, naturally observes such movements attentively.

Seeing that the richest man said it so bluntly, Louis Pratt stopped talking about it, and immediately said: "Then let's start making a plan." ”

……

After completing the vertical and horizontal work within the scope of the responsibility of the top leader in Silicon Valley, Tang Huan continued to vigorously attend this year's Zheru Spring Developer Conference.

Although the "NOISE" alliance is a bit wilted, especially Netscape and Oracle are a bit busy, this year's Zheru Spring Developer Conference is still held in a grand and lively manner according to its own rhythm.

In the tide of the Internet, the theme of the conference naturally revolves more and more around the Internet

During this period, Fangyuan, Zheru Software, and EA, three leading companies in the industry, announced almost simultaneously that they had officially launched the Internet online sales system - users can learn about product introductions including text, static pictures, animations, and even streaming media commercials through the online mall, and place orders according to their own needs.

Streaming media can be said to be the most vivid illustration of how rapid the development of the Internet is - this year's Zheru Spring Developer Conference and Hollywood's Twentieth Century Fox cooperated to release the trailer of the epic masterpiece "Titanic" for the first time in the world, so that the participants, including major mainstream media, watched it over and over again, and enjoyed it over and over again!