Although he didn't get what he wanted, Chen Zhiwen's attitude towards computer hardware still made Jobs let down his guard, and after some greetings, the two left the plane, went to downtown Los Angeles together, and then separated.

After returning to Apple, Jobs informed Watts and the current CEO of Apple, Mike Jobs, about the conversation with Chen Zhiwen. Makula.

"Eric has a very good vision, the current personal computer market, there are too many players, he joined, even if he has the ability, it is difficult to grab a certain market, and I have also understood this company of the United States, the technical aspect is still not very good, specializing in the software market, it is indeed very smart." Mike nodded.

"That way, we don't need to worry, he sells his software, we sell our computers, but unfortunately he won't use his software as our exclusive software, otherwise, it would be better." Jobs said.

"Since relying on a software, Midea can be a little bit of a threat to us, which shows that software is also very important, and it seems that we also need to invest in this aspect." Mike thought for a while and said that he was poached by a high salary after the establishment of Apple, and before that, he had worked at IBM for more than ten years, and he was still relatively sensitive to the market.

"The idea is good, but what software do we do?" Jobs said: "In terms of games, Midea is basically a unique monopoly, before it was arcade, now it is red and white and handheld, we have all played it, it is much better than other games on the market, and now he has launched computer games that are also very successful and very playable, in this field, it is estimated that no one is their opponent."

Now Eric is ready to launch a large number of floppy disks for word and Excel, and this road will not work, so there can only be other very practical software innovations, but, what direction, do we know? ”

"There's no direction in this ,.,." Mike said with some frowns, when the very practical functions in word and Excel appeared, anyone who saw it would say: it is such a simple function.

But when it was his turn to innovate and create a useful function, he was blind, and he couldn't even think of a function, let alone another type of software that was very practical, with the practicality of word and Excel, it seems that most of the company's daily office can be satisfied.

"This kind of innovation is not technology, but inspiration, and I've always admired Eric," Wolds said. ”

"So, instead of thinking about going the way that others are good at, it is better to go our own way, hardware is what we are best at Apple, and even people like Eric know not to start in the field that others are good at." Jobs said: "A piece of software, generally only a few dozen dollars, a little more than one or two hundred, but our computer, a few thousand dollars, net profit is also hundreds or even thousands, if our computer can control half of the market, then in the future, we can also win the software profits." ”

"That's right, but only if we get half of the market, IBM's new computer has a big impact on us." Mike said.

Jobs nodded and said, "So, we have to redouble our efforts to develop the next generation of computers." ”

Mike didn't answer again, he had nothing to refute, when someone else launched a successful new product, it was basically unrealistic to catch up, and what Steve Jobs said, if they control the hardware market, then the software will be theirs sooner or later, after all, software also needs to rely on hardware computers.

"However, Eric's decision to divest from Apple always felt bad for me." Wolds said again.

"I feel the same way, but since he wants to quit, he can't help it." Jobs said with a frown.

"Leave this matter to me, I will contact some investment funds that are willing to take over in difficulty, if they can trade directly, the impact on Apple's stock will be reduced a lot." Mike thought for a moment and said.

Major shareholders in the stock market cash, is required to be disclosed in advance, will definitely cause the stock price to fall, especially this is the company's veteran plus global celebrities, once this is the case, he, the CEO, will definitely be questioned by many shareholders of the board of directors, it is better to find a buyer for him, such a transaction, you and I are willing, there is no limit, the impact on the stock market is much smaller.

What happened to Apple, Chen Zhiwen didn't know, now he is just ready to cash out Apple's shares, and basically has nothing to do with this company, but Apple belongs to Apple, and Jobs, who was kicked out by Apple, may have some cooperation.

A 26-story building in the suburbs of Los Angeles, at the top of the building, is written in five scribbled English letters: Midea, and two Chinese: Midea.

In recent years, Midea Group has also earned a huge amount of wealth from the United States, and some of these funds have been left in the United States, in addition to being used for research and development of various technologies, it has also bought several small office buildings in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago for operation and R&D headquarters, so as to avoid taxes.

Because it's not a house flip, it's just about enough.

On the 26th floor of the top floor, there is a separate one-room office, which was specially prepared for Chen Zhiwen by Midea's American branch, not only in Los Angeles, but also in other cities.

"Chen Sheng, this is the data of all Midea's businesses in the United States in the last quarter, please take a look." Lin Dexiang, the person in charge of the United States, has already prepared relevant materials.

"The sales volume of red and white machines was 2.1 million units, the game cartridge was 5.6 million, and the handheld game boy sales were 7.2 million, with a total turnover of 930 million US dollars and a net profit of 330 million US dollars." Chen Zhiwen didn't read too much content in the middle, and turned directly to the last page, after seeing this number, although he already knew the approximate number in advance, he was still a little shocked.

This is only a quarter of profits, a year down, more than 1 billion, I'm afraid it's easy, but it's normal to think about it, in the original history, Atari only relied on an altari2600 home game console plus some of its own cards, and the net profit in 1981 reached $1 billion.

And today's Midea not only has a better red and white machine, but also a more exciting number of games, plus a handheld machine, it is normal to surpass Atari in profit.

The game industry itself is a profiteering industry, even in the future, even if it is a world-class super technology giant, everyone wants to enter the market and get a piece of the pie, such as Weisoft, Teng Xun, Ali (unsuccessful), Apple (unsuccessful), now they are in a semi-monopoly position, and the handheld is even more monopolistic, at the same time, because of the current technology, the game console hardware is also controlled by themselves, so many factors add up, and it is normal for high profits to be high.

"Yes, and this is just the beginning, the card of "Tank Wars" has just been released, and its price itself is much more expensive than other cards, and because it is too playable, it will also drive the sales of a red and white machine." Lin Dexiang said happily.

"Okay, then continue to promote the expansion of this market, our goal is to let every American family have our red and white phones and handhelds, and after success, the European market." Chen Zhiwen said confidently.

The original historical Atari did that one of the three families had an altari 2600, which made Atari a staggering $2 billion in profits, but the life was shorter, because there were no wonderful game cards, coupled with arrogance, thinking that it would be okay to perfunctory consumers, so it finally caused the most famous Atari crash in 1983.

Now, in addition to the games provided by Chen Zhiwen, several teams are also constantly selling their own games to the market to avoid the emergence of absolute dependence.

Subsequently, as long as the market is controlled in the past few years, the profits will be far higher than Atari, but the only factor to consider is the ZZ factor, but considering that this is just a new game market, there will be no national security issues, plus President Reagan's strategy for the economy is relatively relaxed, and at the same time, many of Midea's chips are also purchased from the United States, giving up some cheaper Japanese chips, in fact, there are also considerations in this regard.

"Another thing is that our arcade market is sluggish." Lin Dexiang said again.

"Normal, expected, should be eliminated and eliminated, the market for arcade machines is far inferior to red and white machines." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Nowadays, because of the emergence of red and white machines and various wonderful game cards, it will inevitably lead to a faster shrinkage of arcade machines than the original history, and the profits and turnover of arcades are far less than those of red and white machines, and even cheaper handhelds are not comparable, an arcade machine, in the United States, can buy 50,000 units is considered very successful, and only one percent of the price of the arcade handheld, it is not a problem to sell tens of millions of units in its life, as long as the game is fun enough.

The goods that can be sold to all ordinary people are always the most profitable and the largest market, such as the most eye-catching arms sales market, and its output value is far less than that of civilian cars, mobile phones, computers, and so on.

And arcade machines will not be completely eliminated, and when semiconductors continue to develop in the future and the cost is further reduced, the price of arcade machines will become suitable for game halls, so that the potential of the Asian market will explode again.

"The personal computer, because it was released in March, has been two months now, with the help of Costco and Best Buy platforms, a total of 15,000 units have been sold, from the feedback of users, the high allocation is very good, most people are also very satisfied, and now, according to our survey, there are 20% of new customers, introduced by old customers, this proportion is also increasing." Lin Dexiang continued.

"This is very good, continue to work hard, it is not important to lose money now, take the money from the game to subsidize first, continue to advertise, personal computers, will be a blue ocean market bigger than the game console market." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

"Understood." Lin Dexiang said.

"But I want to tell you something." Chen Zhiwen said: "Word and Excel will be launched in line with other computers floppy disks, sold separately, so that our computers will have a big advantage, you have to prepare early." ”

"Is this to monopolize the software market?" Lin Dexiang asked.

"Yes, in the long run, this is the most cost-effective, and it breaks the determination of other companies to develop this kind of software." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

The real blockade is actually to put this kind of product on a large scale, use the first-mover advantage to gain the market, so that even if the latecomer has the ability to develop research and development, it is useless, because the market is gone, in this case, unless there is a revolutionary breakthrough with abnormal advantages, otherwise there will be no chance.

Later generations of Weisoft, is to use this model to occupy the domestic market, even if you give free piracy, it's okay, because once you don't give, then the country will definitely develop its own system, in the long run, maybe one day it will go abroad, threatening the monopoly of Weisoft.

"What about the game, can it be given to us separately?" Lin Dexiang asked.

"I can give you a certain amount of time, but we can't just keep it on our own computers all the time, and the computers around the world will be the customers of all my software." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said.

The game does have exclusive patents, and it is difficult for others to copy it, but in terms of profits, it is definitely more cost-effective to sell in large quantities, especially if it can be sold with the future window, then it will be firmly on the Diaoyutai.

"Okay, I see." Lin Dexiang suddenly felt a little pressured again, the previous computer best-selling, to a certain extent, relied on his own wonderful games and two high-quality office software.

"In fact, if you want to really sit firmly in the personal computer market, it will not work by relying on these software, at most you can only sell better in the short term, and if you want to do it for a long time, you still have to rely on technology." Chen Zhiwen said: "Although we have used a lot of methods to make profits in the game market, there will still be a lot of funds left in the United States, and this money will be prioritized in our laboratories in the United States to concentrate on research and development, and the higher the better." ”

Although like the arcade, Midea adopts the model of using tax havens between Hong Kong and the United States to trade, so that a lot of profits stay in the accounts of tax havens, but no matter what, make money from the United States, this is the final market, and the U.S. government is not stupid, and many restrictions will inevitably lead to a lot of funds staying in the United States.

If these funds want to slip out legally, they have to pay an additional tax, so it is better to put them in the United States, engaged in research and development, in the current world, the United States is still the holy land of the birth of global science and technology, and Chen Zhiwen also needs a large number of talents here to achieve his goals.

"Okay, but Mr. Chen, if we develop any new software ourselves, if it is easier to use, can we have the right to use it independently, and only put it on our computer." Lin Dexiang said suddenly.

"Yes, I'll give you that right, but you'll still find it hard to do it later, unless you're also in the game genre. However, although others can't copy this kind of thing, it can also be developed into another one. Chen Zhiwen smiled and said.

This right, in fact, is not important, before Windows dominated the world, some computer companies were also like this, making their own software packages, which led to a headache for many consumers.

After Windows dominates the world, it begins to make the software develop benignly, and what I need to wait for is Windows to dominate the world, and even push forward a little bit, so that this day will come as soon as possible, so that the global market is unified, which is more in line with his launch of countless software or games in the future.

"Thank you, Mr. Chen, we have to try it anyway." Lin Dexiang said with a smile.

(End of chapter)