The current Apple company is facing the embarrassment of development, as in history, from the moment Apple was established, Ling Shizhe's development route for Apple was completely in accordance with the development route of Apple in the previous life, but in this time and space, Apple's development has problems.

At that time, the global personal computer market has undergone earth-shaking changes, Apple computers have almost disappeared in the personal computer market, and the market is full of PC compatible machines, Apple computers are barely maintained by desktop publishing systems, and this only market is gradually being eaten away by PCs, and seeking innovation has become Apple's only way out.

After many market investigations, Uncle Qiao set his sights on high-end and fashionable young white-collar workers, and turned the computer, an ugly machine, into an artistic handicraft, which is the reason for Apple's second success.

At this time, the personal computer market has just formed, and the main consumer of computers is still the era of enterprises and institutions, so that the PC computers produced by Apple will take the high-end and fashionable young white-collar market as the main sales object, how is this possible? This market hasn't even appeared yet? It belongs to the market segment and will only appear if the PC market matures.

Secondly, the historical Apple computer belongs to the closed personal computer, and the open personal computer of the PC is two different concepts, Apple has never developed their computer standards externally, and it will never be open.

But in this life, Ling Shizhe has opened up the Apple personal computer standard, and many compatible machines have joined in. Jim felt a tremendous amount of pressure.

On the one hand. In the face of compatible machine manufacturers, they can't pull the bias, on the one hand, the high-end white-collar market has not been formed. Under the attack from both sides, Apple's position has become more and more embarrassing. Just like IBM in history, but IBM finally took a rough approach, and was finally abandoned by the market and compatible machine manufacturers.

IBM's lesson, Ling Shizhe will definitely not do it again, so he chose another way to march to the university campus.

But Allison directly rejected his opinion, and he told Ling Shizhe: "In the early days when personal computers were just put on the market. Apple's marketers have marketed PCs to campuses across the United States, not only to sell PCs, but also to provide them with LAN solutions, hoping to knock on the door of the American school education market in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, we failed in the end, and the school bought a PC computer, but it would not use it for teaching, but only set up a computer room and opened a computer study class for the children to learn computers, and that's it.

They don't use computers as an educational platform. Teach children about physics, mathematics, chemistry, natural history, and more. They are still teaching according to the traditional method, unfortunately boss, we have already used the method you said. No way. ”

Listening to Alison's words, Ling Shizhe knew that he had made the mistake of empiricism again, thinking that later generations of schools would adopt computer teaching, and it was natural to think that the schools of this era would also adopt this program, but he ignored the concept of people in this era, a new thing should be recognized and accepted by people, and in the end people are willing to change their original way of life for it, which requires a process, and this process is often very long.

In the seventies when the personal computer was just born. They hurriedly wanted the school to change their original teaching methods, but of course they didn't want to.

But it's okay. People didn't completely refuse Apple's salespeople to buy a certain number of computers. Establishing a computer teaching class and letting children learn computers is the biggest way for them to accept it.

"This method doesn't work, so what do you think we should do now?" Ling Shizhe gave up his idea and began to humbly ask Alison for advice.

At this time, Foster interjected and said to Ling Shizhe: "I don't think we need to have a headache for this, just follow the original development route, you must know that other computer companies are simply selling computers, and we are not just selling computers, but selling paperless office solutions, and using the Ethernet technology blue book as the standard to provide network office technology solutions to enterprises, we follow this idea, there will be no big problems."

When other competitors were still struggling to catch up with us in terms of computer performance, we began to build a series of product lines such as personal computer workstations, network servers, network cards, and routers to provide the best overall LAN solutions for enterprise users. to capture the hearts and minds of potential users! In this way, when competing for high-end enterprise users, Apple can take advantage of the perfect overall compatibility of the design solution and the convenience of maintenance. Avoid the disadvantages of the high price of a single product, so as to maintain your profit margin. Boss, I think this is the right path for Apple. ”

Ling Shizhe thought about it and found that Foster did make sense, instead of selling a single computer product, it is better to provide enterprise customers with an overall solution, as for personal computer users, let those compatible machine manufacturers fight for it, what does it matter if you give up temporarily, when the computer market matures, it is not too late to re-take the young white-collar and petty bourgeois route of the Qiao gang leader back then, they use Apple computers in the unit, so that we have laid the foundation of this market first, When the market conditions are formed, the launch of related computer products can make a decision in one fell swoop.

As for whether the market share is too low, Ling Shizhe will not think about it at all, think about the future generation of Apple's Mac computers, its total sales are less than 5% of the entire personal computer industry, but Apple has reaped 50% of the profits of the entire industry, more than the total profits of the five companies in the top five in the world in terms of computer sales.

If you talk about the performance of the computer alone, Apple's Mac computer is about the same as the high-end PC with better configuration on the market, but its price is much higher than all the PC computers on the market, and the reason is that Steve Jobs successfully established Apple as a fashionable and high-end brand image after entering Apple for the second time.

Therefore, establish Apple's unique corporate image in the minds of consumers. is what we should do next, instead of blindly competing with compatible machine manufacturers.

Also, Ambrera has its own gaming company. Apple computers can also evolve in the direction of gaming PCs, introducing specialized gaming PCs to younger users. It's also a good way, those who love to play games are young people, and those who pursue fashion are also young people, and there is no contradiction between the two.

And game PCs can also be sold at a high price, think about the fierce competition of PC compatible machines in the future, a lot of computer manufacturers in order to keep profits, have launched various configurations of game computers, you can understand the game computer market. How profitable.

In the next generation, two or three thousand yuan, you can buy a computer with basically good performance, but if you use it to play advanced games, you have to match a graphics card with excellent performance, how expensive is a good graphics card, people who have played the computer understand that there are not only single graphics cards, but also dual graphics cards, and even multiple graphics card configuration schemes. It's time to catch up with the graphics server.

In addition, in order to get the best gaming experience, game enthusiasts are not stingy with their investment in motherboard CPU memory and sound cards. If the manufacturer makes the computer look a little more sci-fi and fashionable, those game lovers are willing to pay their real money for it without regrets.

The more Ling Shizhe thought about it, the more he felt that there was something to do in this market, so he told the two of them his thoughts.

As a result, they were criticized again, and their opinion was that instead of launching expensive gaming computers, it would be better to launch home gaming consoles! With the advent of the second generation of 16-bit PCs, it's time for 16-bit arcades to be on the agenda, and 8-bit home consoles should be ready to hit the market, unless high-quality 3D games are born. Gaming PCs can only be considered.

Ay! I've made the mistake of empiricism again, what level is the game at now? 8-bit gaming era. The game's poor graphics make it seem miserable to future generations. The price of personal computers is high enough, and then the introduction of more expensive gaming computers, unless you are crazy, everyone will pay for it, at this time, cheap home game consoles are the best choice for people.

"Well, you convinced me, let John. Jim is ready to hit the market. Ling Shizhe took a sip of coffee after speaking.

Alison asked, "Aren't you going to hand it over to the console company?" ”

"No, the computer learning machine was handed over to Apple, and now the home game machine is still handed over to them, and the game company will be responsible for the development of game software in the future." Ling Shizhe decided, "By the way, by the end of February next year at the latest, the 16-bit PC personal computer must be launched; In May, home consoles hit the market. In addition, consoles are open to third parties, and third-party manufacturers are welcome to develop games for our Xbox consoles, but we charge royalties. ”

"Royalty?" The two asked in unison.

Hearing the two of them ask in unison, Ling Shizhe remembered that there was no royalty system at this time, and although the Atari console allowed third parties to develop games on the Atari console, it did not charge them royalties.

"The royalty system is a system that I adopt from third-party manufacturers to ensure the quality of the game. This is a standard code of royalties that I have written, so you can all take a look at it. Ling Shizhe explained.

Speaking of royalties, the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is Nintendo, he is the founder of the royalty system, the original intention of the establishment of the royalty system is to ensure the quality of the game to the greatest extent, but Nintendo later found that relying on this system, it can squeeze the maximum profit from third-party game companies to the greatest extent, and it can also allow Nintendo to avoid almost all the risks.

This is a common problem of Europeans, Americans and Japanese, always want to squeeze everything, but do not know that everything must be left to leave leeway, when Nintendo is dominant, third-party game companies dare not speak out, when another powerful company appears, so they have defected.

"The royalty system is neither complicated nor complicated, and it is not simple to say, but it can be generally seen as a two-part distribution clause for third-party game makers who distribute games on Xbox consoles." Ling Shizhe explained: "First of all, you must know that our game console is different from Atari, Xbox is a closed gaming platform, and only game development companies that have been authorized by us can publish games that run on XOBX.

So how do you get our authorization? Quite simply, the third-party game company first makes the game and sends it to us for review. Only games that have been vetted by us will be allowed to burn Xbox cartridges in this way. We have the greatest possible guarantee of the quality of the games released on Xbox.

"So all the risk is transferred to the game development company, which is making a game at the beginning. I don't even know if this game can be released? Will the game development company agree to such harsh conditions? Alison asked.

"I won't agree," Ling replied.

"I won't agree, you're still doing this? It is important to know that Atari has never collected royalties from third-party game companies. Foster wondered.

"Gentlemen, you have to understand that Atari does not collect any royalties from third-party companies, but it does not impose any restrictions on them, which is not good for the development of consoles. You must know that video games are for children to play, those game manufacturers for the sake of profit, will not care whether the games they make are suitable for children to play, in order to make money they even add a variety of restricted content to it, not to mention the quality of the game, if we do not restrict, in the long run, the game market will collapse sooner or later. No parent would let their kids play this kind of game! Ling Shizhe complained loudly.

The two of them understood, but no, Atari did not impose any restrictions on third-party game companies. It's really possible that those game production companies will do this in order to make money, and at that time. Video games are a negative word in people's minds, everyone shouts and fights, and there is no reason for it not to collapse.

As for the game makers who want to do that? Cal. Marx made this clear as early as in his Capital.

It's important to keep them in check, but with an Atari out there, how do we collect royalties from them?

Ling Shizhe explained: "As long as our game console sales are good enough and the market is large enough, those game makers will definitely accept our conditions in order to make money." As for the issue of sales risk, wouldn't there be a risk in making games on the Atari console? A game before it hits the market. The devil knows if this game is popular! ”

At this time, the two suddenly realized. As long as there are enough Xbox consoles on the market, there is no fear that they will not come. As long as they come, the conditions are not set by me.

Seeing the wicked smile on the faces of the two of them, Ling Shizhe immediately understood what their idea was, so he warned: "Hey! Two, I warn you, don't have a bad idea, you guys are playing with fire, you know, we can't charge too much in terms of premiums, we have to set a reasonable price, I have decided, for every game sold, we will only charge $10; Each game production company can only produce a maximum of 5 games per year, and they cannot be sold on other game platforms except PC, and if they release games on other game platforms, they cannot sell games on our consoles, and if they want to sell them, then the price of the royalty will have to be calculated separately.

Also, the cassette must be handed over to us to print, as for the printing fee, the general market price is on the line. We don't participate in their profit sharing, understand? ”

"What if the game cassette from the game production company doesn't hand it over to us?" Foster asked.

"What's so hard about this, you just don't let them release it on Xbox and it's over!" Ling Shizhe pouted.

"Also, the sales of game software must be handed over to us, and they just need to make games with peace of mind." Alison added.

Ling Shizhe snapped his fingers, "That's right, it must be handed over to us for sale, what else do you want to add?" ”

"Do I need to pay a premium to us for a game released on PC?"

Ling Shizhe thought for a while and said: "You don't need to pay, in fact, PC software can't sell much, the people who use computers are adults, they are not very interested in video games, but there is a prerequisite, the games transplanted on the PC must be handed over to us for sale." There are also peripheral product profits of game software, and we don't mix them up. ”

The two understood that as soon as they loosened the royalties and grasped the three links of reviewing the production and distribution of the card box, the third-party game manufacturer was firmly grasped in their hands. It's even harder for them to rebel.

This is the same reason as Hollywood film distribution, after the separation of theaters and production, those powerful film producers will hold the film distribution rights tightly in their hands, including the printing of the film, they must also be handed over to them to produce, so that no matter how small and medium-sized independent film production companies jump, they can't escape the palm of the film predators, and they only pay some box office revenue shares.

And the box office revenue, through investment in the production of films, is back into their own pockets in disguise, and independent film companies can only get a small part.

As for peripheral income, it can be completely abandoned, so that those independent directors and independent film production companies will be more active in making good films. (To be continued)