When Camamax lowered the price of the C64 to $399, computer manufacturers in the computer market confirmed that they were in the midst of a bitter price war.

Computer manufacturers sadly predict that the era of computer profiteering is over!

This wave of computer product sales began in the mid-to-late 70s, the first round of price drops in five years since Apple led the PC market. Before many computer manufacturers had time to make full preparations, they were forced to drag themselves into the whirlpool of competition among several large computer manufacturers.

C64 was released in January or $595, and the price plummeted to $499 in February.

However, Cammodore's continuous price reduction behavior has had a very bad impact on the hearts of consumers, and has caused a very serious blow to the brand image. At first, they cut the price by nearly a fifth a month after the launch of the new product, and after that price adjustment, many buyers who had already paid for the C64 computer at the original price of $595 complained a lot.

What's more, consumers who buy low-end computers are basically students with little income, and these people will use the products for many years after they buy them, and they will easily not buy new products. After Commodore slammed the price cut, the buyers regretted losing their money in vain, not to mention that they were more concerned that Commodore did not say hello in advance, and the price reduction within a month seriously hurt the feelings of consumers.

Now the company has abruptly slashed the price of the C64 by $100 to $399, and while Cammoder still expects a miracle in the market, it has struggled to gain support for its successive consumer sentiment-damaging behaviors. Consumers don't trust this company anymore, they are afraid that after buying a C64 computer, the company will announce a price reduction, and it is not worth buying a C64 computer at all!

"The continuous price reduction is perhaps the biggest mistake Cammotec has made, they have fooled consumers and let them deceive them!"

The wall fell and everyone pushed it. The market is full of people who speak ill of Commodore. There is no need for Lin Johnson to deliberately smear it, many manufacturers hate the company and its owner Jack to death, and they don't mind kicking it off the cliff again when Camaode is in crisis.

"The sales are far better than expected!"

Lin Qiangsheng looked at the financial statements, Dell computers have just been launched for more than a month, and there have been more than 20,000 call orders!

This is just the beginning, consumers are still waiting and waiting for the direct sales method, and as the products continue to reach the hands of buyers. After Dell has established a good reputation, Lin Qiangsheng believes that orders will increase significantly!

"The C64 is already on sale for $399, which is cheaper than our Celeron computer! Will there be any repetition? Li Jing asked Lin Qiangsheng with some uncertainty.

Lin Qiangsheng shook his head with a smile and said, "No, Kangmaode's two price cuts have greatly damaged their company's image. Consumers don't trust this company anymore, and fools will buy their products! We have to sum up the experience, whether it is their own or the opponent's, whether it is successful or unsuccessful, the bad of Commodore is that it does not reduce the price to the bottom line all at once, and always hangs the appetite of consumers, and when there is no strong competitor, Commodore can do whatever he wants, but once there are strong opponents in the market, they will hesitate and procrastinate, and the outcome will be like Camaode! ”

"Huh" Li Jing smiled. This time, the opponent did make a lot of mistakes. She didn't expect Jack to make such a mistake and continue to reduce prices in a short period of time, as if he was fooling the market, and Camamoder's irresponsible behavior towards the market soon attracted backlash.

"Sister Jing, tell Lao Wang to put more effort over there, and take advantage of the current difficult period for Kangmaode Company to completely defeat it! The 6502 chip of MOS, a subsidiary of Commodore, is their biggest reliance, and with this low-cost chip, they have the basis to launch low-cost computers! Let our Celeron chips replace the market of 6502 and completely beat the opponent to death with a stick! Lin Qiangsheng said solemnly to Li Jing.

Li Jing nodded: "He has reached an agreement with the game manufacturer Atari Corporation, Atari has ordered 3,500 chips for their arcade products, and many computer manufacturers are also ordering chips from us." ”

"Arcade?" Lin Johnson was not very familiar with the arcade products of the eighties. All he knew was that the home game console industry in the United States was going to crash.

"Yes, Atari wants to test the market. I'm sure they'll recognize Celeron chips later, and our products are much better than the 6502 chips in terms of performance! It is said that the picture performance ability is good, I haven't seen the prototype yet, do you want Huichang to send one? Li Jing looked at Lin Qiangsheng and said.

With the new processor, the original program must be ported before it can be used, and there are several prototypes in the headquarters in Silicon Valley.

"3,500 pieces? It's not a lot of progress, let him take it again. There is also the field of microcontrollers. Industrial control can't be spared! ”

Li Jing nodded and wrote it down, and Lin Qiangsheng continued: "Celeron Computer's Pentium Computer is not bad in terms of software compatibility with IBMPC, but the hardware aspect should also be strengthened!" Lin Qiangsheng said.

"Will this lead to a lawsuit from IBM? They have already called us and warned us that they were going to check if our products did not touch IBM's intellectual property! Li Jing said a little unnaturally. After all, no one wants to provoke the wrath of the blue giant, and it is very troublesome to start a lawsuit with this company!

Lin Qiangsheng snapped his fingers and said: "Whoever is compatible with IBMPC will win the market." Whoever is not compatible well will be eliminated from the market! Since its launch, IBMPC has almost swept the market in the business field, and their standard is computer standards! Forget it, let Rhodes from Compaq do it, I'm sure they'll handle the relationship with IBM. ”

Li Jing frowned, Lin Qiangsheng said this, which made her very puzzled, why Compaq could do a good job.

She and Wang Huichang naturally knew that Lin Johnson also owned a Compaq company, and this company was another electronic technology center in the United States, Texas. They knew that the establishment time of this company was similar to that of Pentium Computer Company, but judging from various performances, Lin Qiangsheng's control of this company was not as tight as that of Pentium Computer, and he gave Rhodes a lot of freedom, completely let them run the company independently, and rarely made suggestions.

Lin Qiangsheng behaved more like an investor in Compaq, which also puzzled Li Jing and Wang Huichang, which was very different from the style of a traditional Chinese businessman. Why was Compaq able to let Lin Johnson do this, could it be that Rhodes and others were better than their couple, maybe the three of them were real Americans, and the relationship between the two of them was Chinese?!

Just as Li Jing knows, Lin Qiangsheng rarely asks Compaq, but only puts forward some suggestions and requirements in the early days of its establishment. The Rhodes were originally engineers at Texas Instruments, and a series of decisions made by them after they paid $1,000 each to start Compaq in history showed that they were right. Therefore, Lin Qiangsheng decided from the beginning that he would interfere less in the decision-making of Compaq and try to only play the role of an investor.

Because Compaq is the most correct on the road of imitating IBM, and the blue is better than the blue, Lin Qiangsheng is worried that his intervention has changed the path of the company's development, which will be too much to lose!

As for Compaq's failure in the late 90s, it had little to do with the three founders. He gave each of the three Rhodes a 6% stake and told them to run Compaq as their own company. In the previous life, Compaq did not have so many shares of several founders after its success, and they also knew that they should not ask for more after Lin Johnson invested heavily in building his own laboratory factory, not to mention that the original founders of many companies were able to keep the company in the end, and many founders usually ended up being swept away by investors.

Lin Johnson rarely intervened in Compaq's decision-making, which gave the three of them a lot of room to play, and Ruder Finn adopted the spirit of cooperation with IBM in their operations, because IBM's PCs used a large number of ready-made components on the market for the first time, which made many companies see opportunities.

Ruder Finn reached an OEM agreement with IBM, and Compaq designed a miniature portable computer and handed it over to IBM OEM. As a result, the laptop became the first personal computer to be recognized by IBM as compatible with it. Through this means, IBM's friendship was obtained, so Compaq was not just a copycat IBM, they played a lot of tricks before and after. At the same time, Compaq produced its own portable computer and sold it to the market.

Ruder Finn cleverly made people recognize the Compaq brand, because their products were advertised as IBM's most successful compatible machines, and they cleverly used the blue giant to advertise themselves.

Even when low-cost computers hit the market, consumers are very recognizable to Compaq's portable products. Their computer is designed to be smarter and more graphically capable, much smaller than IBMPC and many IBM-compatible computers, and it is indeed a rare and good product!

Compaq priced the first product at $3,590, and the computer sold well in the gap between IBM's monopoly on the high-end model market after the introduction of IBMPC. From the end of last year to March, sales exceeded 15,000 units! (To be continued......)