“boss！ The people from Hills arrived, and they settled into this hotel too! As soon as Duke put down the phone in his hand, he saw Johnson holding a stack of materials and hurriedly ran in from outside.

He looked at Johnson, who was a little panicked, with some displeasure, turned his head to look at the two lawyers in the room, and Dong Minglun, the deputy this time, and smiled slightly self-deprecatingly.

"I didn't expect that one day, I would look at a Chinese company!" The reason why he said this was not because Chu Qing had found someone from Hills, but because of the phone call he answered just now.

The world's electronic cash registers are not only BBK. He was so arrogant at first, and it was precisely because of this.

Even if he can't buy it in backgammon, he can still buy it in other companies. So after the first contact, after the two sides did not make progress, Duke contacted other Walmart suppliers.

However, what he didn't expect was that the reply given by other manufacturers was either too high to accept, or the fastest shipment would take a year later.

The reason for this is because of the 32-bit processor used by BBK. As far as cash registers are concerned, the Z80 chip is still commonly used on the market, which is an 8-bit chip invented in the 70s.

The main reason why these cash register manufacturers have been using this single chip is because of its fast processing speed, strong practicality, and most importantly, its low price.

These manufacturers have not thought about changing to higher-made chips, but with the current price of 32-bit chips on the market, it is impossible to use the cash register with an average price of 300.

You know, there is only one 32-bit processor at the moment, and the cheapest price is about $150.

This is undoubtedly a sky-high price for the price of a cash register. This is also the reason why the Z80 chip more than ten years ago has not been replaced until now.

8 is the chip computing power is really low, but its price is cheap, and the all-in-one cash register does not need too many functions at all.

You must know that even in 2005, there are still many low-end products using the Z80. The cash register is really upgrading, and it is also based on the ARM7 series of architecture chips, which have been widely used, and low-cost chips focused on the industrial field have been developed, which has replaced the position of Z80 in the cash register.

And this is already after 2005. Now with Chu Qing's butterfly wings, it not only puts the cash register on the road of change in advance, but also makes the arm7 series chips begin to be revealed in front of the world.

Chu Qing, who has experienced the world after 30 years, knows that demand is the key to truly promoting the application and development of chips.

Compared with the large-scale application and development of chips in later generations, the reason why chips are not paid much attention today is because many people do not understand the importance of chips.

In their eyes, chips are only related to high-tech products such as computers and national defense. Low-end electronic products such as cash registers do not need too advanced chips at all, and even many chip companies will not focus on the research and development of these chips.

This is also the reason why an 8-bit chip can be used for decades. It is only with the passage of time that the use of chips has become more and more extensive, and some companies that cannot compete with high-end chips have begun to focus on these low-end products.

This is what makes the ARM7 series shine in the field of industrial equipment. So when they learned that BBK was using 32-bit chips to make cash registers, what those manufacturers thought of was that this company was absolutely crazy.

This is equivalent to asking a supermarket to use a computer to register the cashier, which is either the boss has a problem with his brain, or he has too much money to burn, and he does not talk about business logic at all.

After all, computers are not bought and can be used for a lifetime, not to mention issues such as maintenance and depreciation.

Just like the windows95 system, from time to time to give you a blue screen, all kinds of bugs are not too many, the cashier is halfway, the system is faulty, not to mention the delay, and it is very not cost-effective.

Besides, when it is a Windows system, a set will sell for $220. It's almost catching up with the price of an all-in-one cash register.

This expenditure alone can make supermarkets, which are already known for controlling costs, unbearable. And you have to recruit waiters who can use computers, you must know that 1995 is not 2015, and there are not many things like computers, even in the United States.

Therefore, the cash register still has to be simple to operate, stable and convenient. The cash register of BBK uses special operating software developed based on the Linux open source system.

After abandoning many PC functions, not only the interface is simple, but also more convenient to operate. Even if the waiter doesn't know how to use a computer, he can operate as long as he knows how to read.

As for the price, the biggest advantage of ARM industrial chips is that its cost is very cheap. Then there is the supporting manufacturing capacity of today's backgammon, and the blessing of low labor in China.

A set of cash registers can be built at a cost of only $200. This price is definitely unimaginable for other manufacturers now.

After all, they don't have their own chips.

"John, got the information?" Duke didn't bother with Hills' group, but looked at the information in Johnson's hand and asked.

It's been three days, and it wasn't until the people from Hills arrived that the product quotation was given by backgammon. Regarding Chu Qing's words of not selling, none of them believed it from beginning to end.

After all, if you really believe what you say at the negotiating table, you will be a real fool. For a qualified negotiator, all the words that don't fall on paper don't count.

Even if the two sides are not happy at first, as long as there is room for communication. That means it's not over yet.

Besides, backgammon called Hills, which means that there was no negotiation last time, and the root cause is that the appeal was not met.

"Yes, boss! Their prices, you can never imagine. With that, Johnson put a list of information in front of Duke.

Looking at the price of the $680 machine above, Duke frowned slightly. It's not that it's expensive, it's that it's unexpectedly cheap.

"How did they do it?" After circulating it in the hands of several people, Dong Minglun said with some surprise.

Thinking of the quotations of the same configuration sent by other manufacturers a few days ago, everyone present was happy.

This price is absolutely acceptable to Walmart.

"Do they have any other requirements?" Duke wasn't very happy with the price. Instead, he looked at Johnson and asked again.

"Yes." Listening to Johnson's answer, Duke smiled slightly. He knew it wouldn't be that simple.

From the young chairman, who put on that tough posture at the beginning, he knew that the needs of backgammon were definitely more than that simple.

Look at what they're doing now, it's getting Hills again, and it's quoting a price that everyone expected.

It seems that their plan is not small. As he spoke, Johnson took out a document again and put it in front of Duke.

"What an appetite they have! It's an attempt to rob Oracle's business. After reading this supporting information, Duke said to everyone with some sarcasm.

Because in terms of information, in addition to the charging upgrade of the operating software, it also contains a business, that is, the database!

Since Oracle launched a commercial database in 1978, many large enterprises around the world have basically used their products.

Today, Oracle is the second largest global software company after Microsoft. Their database operations are spread all over the world.

One of the points that BBK put forward in the requirements is to sell the cash register software with a small database.

This is also the reason why Duke will say that backgammon has a big appetite. Wal-Mart, as the world's No. 1 supermarket chain, does have this demand.

But this business currently belongs to Oracle. In Duke's opinion, it is basically impossible for backgammon to take it from them.

The reason why BBK quoted the cash register so low was that Chu Qingda didn't think about how much money he could make from the cash register at the beginning.

After all, the market for cash registers is very limited. Take Walmart as an example, even if all their stores around the world are equipped with backgammon cash registers, the total demand is only 100,000 units.

Counting other companies, the entire market for cash registers is only a few million units. That's why other companies are reluctant to invest too much money in developing more advanced products.

However, Chu Qing knew that only selling cash registers alone did not have a large market. But today's cash registers can be sold separately from the equipment and software, just like the computer.

And in addition to software, there are also supporting value-added services such as databases. Compared with selling equipment alone, follow-up supporting services are the real point of his money.

"Boss, maybe we can go check it out first." Dong Minglun, who also read the information, is not as absolute as Duke.

The reason is that he noticed that the backgammon information mentioned a single-store database. As a direct son of Wal-Mart, he grew up at Wal-Mart since he was a child, and he came up step by step from a summer clerk.

As for the actual management of supermarkets, he knows better than Duke, who parachuted in. At present, Walmart does use Oracle's database, but it is a total database, and the data of a single store needs to be summarized manually.

The first is that the front-end cash register does not have such data processing capabilities, and the second is that Oracle does not have a small database that can be used by a single store.

They offer enterprise-grade databases. Walmart just wants to do it, but it can't do it with a single store branch.

This is actually a very troublesome problem for a chain supermarket all over the world. Everyone knows that as long as it is operated manually, there will be loopholes, and the problem of corruption will exist everywhere.

"Do you really think it's necessary?" Duke looked at Dong Minglun in some surprise and asked very seriously.

"I just think it's coming, let's see if there will be a surprise." In the face of Duke's inquiry, Dong Minglun replied noncommittally.

Everyone present knew that Duke's wrong strategy at the beginning made them lose the opportunity. But he is still the well-deserved boss here, even if the procurement fails, it will not have much impact on him.

"Okay, I'll leave it to you, let's go check it out and talk to the people in Hills by the way." Duke looked at Dong Minglun directly for a while before turning his head to Johnson and saying a word.