"Actually, I left a kind of trick in the layout of the browser, and I plan to use it depending on the situation, but it can have the effect of hiding people's eyes and confusing the public. Pen %Fun %Pavilion www.biquge.info" Tang Huan muttered thoughtfully.

Meng Jing asked curiously, "What kind of trick of the Heavenly Maiden scattering flowers is so well described?" ”

"You don't understand the technical tricks." Tang Huan shook his head, "In this way, Yahoo's side, you should introduce it to Masayoshi Son, he happens to be busy here with COMDEX - the effect of Softbank's intervention is the same, and at the same time, it can also keep us in a state of detachment." ”

"Sell Guanzi, sell Guanzi, and find an excuse that I'm technically blind." Meng Jing muttered dissatisfiedly and left to deal with the things her cousin had ordered.

Tang Huan turned his eyes back to the document listing .com domain names, and smiled slightly, he took great pains to think about Yahoo, which is currently too simple to mention, and there are certainly enough interests to drive - if Yahoo's path can be more "correct" under his own guidance, then perhaps the leading companies in the Internet 2.0 era such as Google in the original time and space will not be so glamorous.

According to Tang Huan's thinking, whether it is AOL, which is becoming popular, Yahoo, which has just emerged, or Amazon, which is only in the predecessor stage of "Cadabra", all belong to the category of technology application, and Zheru is the category of technology provision - it is one of his goals to let those technology application companies revolve around Zheru who provides technology.

With the explosive growth of the number of Internet websites, high-end products such as hardware servers, software operating systems, databases, World Wide Web website service systems, e-mail service systems, etc., will also be sold on sale, far more than .com companies that burn endless money.

Take AOL as an example, although its own profits are not worth mentioning, it has contributed considerable profits to Zheru Software - this is a trick for the richest man to make money.

Therefore, Tang Huan's real focus must return to Zheru.

In terms of internal situation: compared to the original Tang Huan who was able to single-handedly make spreadsheet software, word processing programs, and operating systems FreeDOS without sleep for a few days, the current software system is becoming more and more complex, and it is not surprising that the workload has reached tens of millions of lines of code - the priority of execution has long exceeded creativity, and project management is becoming more and more difficult.

In terms of external environment, Zheru Software Company is indeed the leader of the industry now, but when it looks around, it is almost all enemies -- Microsoft, Borland, and Sun Microsystems in terms of operating systems, office software, desktop databases, and programming tools, IBM, Oracle, Sybase, and Infomix in enterprise databases, and Lotus Software and Netscape in terms of World Wide Web website service systems and e-mail service systems, etc., to name a few, which is far more lonely than Fangyuan Company.

It can be said that if it weren't for Tang Huan, the leader of the company, as the central point of the entire network, it would not be an exaggeration to describe Zheru Software Company as a lonely person.

The more the world is the enemy, the more it must dominate in technology, so as to attract and control the technology application companies, and form an ecosystem that can kidnap the whole world.

This year's COMDEX Las Vegas Autumn Show has already shown this kind of industry confrontation situation very clearly - all the software products of competitors, whether they are official versions or demo versions, are fighting against the software products of Zheru Software Company in a targeted manner, and the difference is only how large the confrontation area between the two armies of the product line is. Among them, Microsoft and Zheru Software have the most friction.

On the map of the distribution of power drawn by Tang Huan's subordinates, he can clearly and vividly see this kind of murderous and dangerous situation everywhere - of course, in the eyes of the richest man, there is also a magnificent and heroic beauty.

Since the situation has developed to the point where there is such a sense of picture, Tang Huan naturally mobilized all the generals under his command to face the battle - in turn, they found the executives who were directly responsible for him, and talked and communicated alone.

The first person to report from the office of Mr. The richest man was EA CEO Tripp Hawkins.

That's right, EA is also the digester of Zheru technology, from the previous game console operating system, game engine, to the current battle network platform that adapts to the Internet wave, all of which are among them.

Tang Huan first asked, "Is the Playstation released by Sony this year easy to deal with?" ”

"Playstation's main focus is still in the home market; The U.S. market, on the other hand, is in a tentative phase. Tripp Hawkins replied: "In terms of technology, Playstation is a newcomer, and Sony can naturally draw from the experience of the industry, and the execution is good, and this home TV game console has done a remarkable job and has really attracted a group of game developers in one book." ”

At this point, Tripp Hawkins frowned slightly, "We're debating whether we should tighten the licensing system to discourage powerful third-party game developers from supporting Playstation." ”

"Although this trick can produce quick results in the short term, in the long run, it may be a quick and quick success, and it lacks technical content." Tang Huan directly showed his attitude.

Tripp Hawkins has followed Tang Huan for more than 10 years, so he can naturally understand the true meaning of the big boss's words.

He sighed, "The embrace of EA by third-party game developers is based on profit. If we take drastic measures to prevent them from getting one more console sales platform, it is likely to undermine the stable ecosystem that has been formed for a long time. ”

"But with the increase of capital's influence on the company, the attitude of the management team will inevitably change in the direction of pleasing Wall Street - the company has become an absolute money-making tool, and the company will come as soon as it is short, and gradually forget the ideal of building a century-old store."

"If you, the leader, can not forget the original intention and realize the problem, then EA will not be lost." Tang Huan nodded with satisfaction, "Don't forget, the foundation of EA's dominance in the video game industry is to have a sufficiently good and leading technology platform, which can not only support itself to be creative and produce pleasing video game works, but also open to third-party game developers, and the technical difficulty is acceptable, and finally achieve the benefit level." With such a foundation, those rules and regulations that play a binding role can be icing on the cake; If you play too much, you will soon lose the vitality of the company. ”

"Even if Playstation learns from others, it still belongs to a latecomer, even if it uses the market offensive trick of killing 1,000 enemies and self-inflicting 800, the distance between it and EA with complete channels and complete networks cannot disappear all at once."

"The three generations of the Xiaobawang console have been working hard to introduce new models that are optimized for performance, and there are still 64-bit consoles waiting for us on our product development roadmap."

"In contrast, EA does not need to rush to play tricks, but should take advantage of this time gap to continue to work hard to run its own platform,"

"The Battle.net that is currently being tried is the best Internet extension of the traditional game console platform, and once it takes shape, those third-party game developers will spontaneously be more scruples when they are poached by Sony, rather than giving in superficially under the pressure we force."

EA has been officially providing Internet community services for players for almost 10 years; After entering the 1990s, on this basis, with the technical support provided by Zheru, a new structure of the Internet interactive platform - Battle.net was established, and the current active users have accumulated to hundreds of thousands, and there are three-digit new users joining every day, which is the only one in the industry.

At this stage, Battle.net's main function is to provide an online gaming environment, process user data, and assist in the digital distribution and digital rights management of the game, but the performance is average for the time being.

After all, due to the limitation of Internet bandwidth, it is not practical to download the full game on a large scale, and the distribution of virus database upgrade patches similar to computer security software, and the effect of downloading small game upgrade patches is not bad.

As for digital copyright protection, it is more reflected in conception and planning. Gain console games, even without Battle.net, have an inherent advantage in this regard; PC games, on the other hand, are only at the level of product series number registration.

The Battle.net project, which has been burning money, reflects the difference in competition strategy between EA and old rivals such as Nintendo and Sega, that is, in addition to the "hard" battle of game consoles in short-handed handover, it has begun to lay out the competition for players' Internet community resources.

Tripp Hawkins has tasted more and more of the benefits of this "soft" platform, and when Tang Huan suggested that EA should seize the opportunity to vigorously build a battle network, he immediately nodded and said: "Now EA is almost the same as Hollywood studios, and the mechanism of itself and the following studios in terms of game production has been very perfect; Battle.net is equivalent to a 'soft' new console platform, which is more sticky to players, as long as it comes out on top, those opponents who patronize and compete for the market share of game consoles will definitely panic at that time. ”

Tang Huan laughed, "I guess, in a few years, companies like Nintendo and Sega will have people who can't even bear the competitive pressure of game consoles and have to withdraw from the ranks of hardware platforms." ”

"The boss's vision has always been very forward-looking." Tripp Hawkins complimented convincingly.

In the early years, Tang Huan also frequently asked about specific games, but now he only focuses on strategic issues, but no matter which one, he has a very accurate grasp of it.

This makes the growing Tripp Hawkins have to keep up with the footsteps of the boss, and dare not have the slightest complacency and slack - even if EA has become the industry leader, there are still many goals ahead!

Tang Huan did not absolutely ignore specific matters, and after discussing the idea of the item system, scoring system, ranking system, etc. on Battle.net, he mentioned the real-time strategy game "Fengshen" produced by DreamWorks Game Studios.

At this stage, real-time strategy games with standard elements continue to appear, such as "Dune 2" launched by Westwood Studios in 1992, and "Warcraft: Humans and Orcs" launched by Blizzard Entertainment this year.

It can be said that real-time strategy games are beginning to enter a booming stage; The foreseeable golden age is not far off.

After launching several role-playing games such as "The White Lady" to lay the groundwork for the theme of oriental mythology, DreamWorks Game Studios has gone all out to develop the more complex real-time strategy game "Fengshen", which will be completed in the second half of this year.

Just like selling Hong Kong films, if "Fengshen" wants to make a lot of money, it has to keep an eye on RB and the US market, and the distribution outside of Greater China depends on EA, the boss.

Tripp Hawkins spoke highly of "Gods", and he said with great interest: "I played the game myself and was very impressed with some of the heroes and operating units in it. ”

Speaking of which, Tripp Hawkins also playfully listed terms such as Nezha and Fantianyin.

Tang Huan couldn't help but wonder when he heard this—in order to make Westerners understand the meaning of these terms, DreamWorks Game Studios has invested heavily in translation, and it seems that the effect is good.

"At the upcoming COMDEX Las Vegas Fall Show, Gods of Command will be one of EA's main games." Tripp Hawkins concluded.

"There's a lot of room for the video game industry to operate." Tang Huan said leisurely: "A real-time strategy game with a strong degree of confrontation like "Fengshen" should have the appreciation of the event, so you might as well try to organize it." ”

Tripp Hawkins' eyes lit up, "I'll go back and make a plan for holding events at various universities on the West Coast next year and see how the response goes." ”

……

The next day, John Chambers, CEO of Fangyuan, followed. He first chatted with Tang Huan about some of the company's adjustment work after Fang Yuan's decomputerization.

Then, John Chambers said, "The server product must be further refined. We've done market research, and the performance requirements of the servers running the web site alone can be divided into at least three levels. ”

Tang Huan nodded knowingly, "The operating system of Zheru Software will cooperate with the version refinement. ”

"And the offer." John Chambers emphasized, "Charging according to the number of processors or the number of connected users would be more flexible to help guide Fangyuan to promote some of its flagship product models." ”

Although this is also one of the many "collusions" between Fangyuan Company and Zheru Software, which cannot be seen by the outside world, Tang Huan did not express his position immediately.