Gates' frustration was largely due to the intense pressure from Lotus 1-2-3, which has grown so rapidly that it can only be described as sweeping the entire IBM-PC platform, which has now become the standard spreadsheet software bundled between IBM-PC and Compaq portable PCs.

As for similar products such as VisiCalc and MultiPlan, they have become a bygone thing yesterday, and if it weren't for the multi-platform version that supports CP/M and other platforms to survive, it would have been closed directly.

Lotus1-2-3 has a very obvious stimulating effect on IBM-PC sales, because at this stage, personal computers and spreadsheet software are the best combination of functions, customers can directly take it and use it by themselves without special training, so as to solve real business needs.

At this time, IBM-PC has obviously found its true destiny in killer application software, coupled with the brand effect that the blue giant has created for a long time, and finally began to exert its power in the market.

Tang Huan quickly realized that in this spreadsheet software war, Lotus Company had basically completed the unification of the IBM-PC platform with a speed beyond his expectations.

This jaw-dropping achievement in the industry can only be explained by the current situation to create heroes.

At present, the profit margin of software products is generally between 60 and 70 percent, and if all links are properly matched, it may also reach a higher level.

It can be seen how strong the ability of this intellectual product to attract gold is.

In other words, if Lotus Software is allowed to develop without obstacles, it will definitely become a big problem. Because Lotus 1-2-3 has put the front lines of this spreadsheet software war. It was pushed between the two camps of IBM-PC and Fangyuan PC.

As the first pot of gold in Tang Huan's career. CGrid has always held a special position in the software product department, where the programmers engaged in coding, the features it provides, and the sales and profits it contributes are all top-notch.

In addition to built-in electronic trials, financial functions, chart display, data analysis, etc., CGrid also provides powerful software suite functions for interacting data with word processing software WordEasy, database product EBase, and supports multiple Chinese languages including Far Eastern languages.

these characteristics. It's hard to beat other similar products, and the Lotus1-2-3 is no exception.

But in response to that sentence, the world's martial arts, only fast and unbroken, almost no BUGS Lotus1-2-3, with only the operation efficiency, swept all competitors.

CGrid can't be like Lotus1-2-3, which completely abandons C and uses assembly language for encoding in order to pursue execution speed.

First of all. CGrid is far more powerful than Lotus 1-2-3 in terms of encoding complexity. That's not allowed.

In addition, according to the information received, Don Estlic has agreed with Mitchell Kapole that Lotus 1-2-3 will only support the IBM-PC platform.

That is, with Lotus 1-2-3 using assembly language, its programmer only needs to face one CPU from Intel8088.

However, CGrid supports a variety of hardware platforms such as the first generation of Fangyuan computer, the second generation of Fangyuan computer, AppleII, etc., and needs to face a variety of CPUs such as MOS6502, Intel8086, and MC68000. Only a high-level programming language like C can help with effective project management.

As a result, according to the user's way of thinking, ignoring the professional differences in personal computer architecture, the Lotus1-2-3 does give people a better feeling in terms of execution efficiency in a machine environment with a low operating frequency CPU and small memory capacity.

"The honor of the world's first spreadsheet software belongs to us, but now someone is using similar products to steal the limelight with the specious publicity gimmick of running speed, are you willing to accept this situation?" Tang Huan, who was sitting in the first place, looked around at his subordinates and asked slowly.

Although some of them went to Hawaii for vacation, the rest of them just got the opportunity to show their abilities in front of the big bosses, so they all cheered up and offered suggestions.

……

"On a low-spec PC, it makes no sense to compare the efficiency of CGrid and Lotus 1-2-3. ”

"It's true that the main users of spreadsheet software are businesses, not individuals. One of the characteristics of the practical application of spreadsheet software today is that the amount of data is getting bigger and bigger. This fundamentally requires PCs with faster CPUs and larger memory, and businesses have a lot of price tolerance as long as they can really help solve business problems. ”

"Although CGrid also has an IBM-PC version, it is mainly to provide functions such as viewing and printing data files, and it is not possible to greatly enhance this version in order to compete with the running speed. ”

Therefore, the competition environment between CGrid and Lotus 1-2-3 should be set to a hardware configuration with a memory capacity of 256KB or more, which is almost the mainstream configuration of commercial computers. ”

"CGrid is designed to be modular, and we can launch a targeted version that will take the combination of Lotus1-2-3 and IBM-PC. ”

……

In the midst of heated discussions, the response was quickly formed.

In order to let users who do not know about computer science understand that since they want to compete in operational efficiency, they should have a fair environment, so in the second generation of Fangyuan computers, the Intel8086 model with 256KB memory and the MC68000 model with 512KB memory were selected as the platform compared with IBM-PC.

At the same time, the plan also clearly highlights three elements:

Meaningful fast is called fast - that is, it makes sense to compare speed on such a commercial platform.

It's as powerful as it is on the outside – that is, CGrid has more useful features and can help customers solve business problems.

True versatility – FreeDOS on MC68000 models offers multitasking support and can run spreadsheet CGrid and word processing WordEasy at the same time.

At the same time, corresponding to the price advantage of Lotus1-2-3, CGrid also uses a similar set of functions to fight back on the cost of enterprise procurement.

……

After reading the plan, Tang Huan felt that this energetic action should be of great benefit to Fangyuan Computer's goal of shipping more than 1.6 million units in 1983.

Tang Huan, who nodded secretly, waved his golden pen and approved the cost of $800,000 for the first phase.

As a result, people soon perceived the beginning of a new spreadsheet software war in various advertisements - the recently embraced IBM lap, the glamorous and somewhat arrogant Lotus 1-2-3, which provoked the wrath of Zheru, an industry pioneer and the world's largest independent software vendor. (To be continued......)