Zhou Xin didn't want to sell Matrix to Microsoft, because the revenue was not as good as expected, which would disrupt his original plan.

Although it is also a road to sell Matrix to Microsoft, and then buy Apple, and build Apple into a trillion-dollar empire, it is not an easy road.

Matrix has completely established a brand image in the minds of consumers and created a high-end brand in the field of smartphones, which has been formed after the release of the second-generation Mphone, and the follow-up only needs to continue to deepen the impression in the minds of consumers through a series of technological innovations.

Borrowing the shell of an apple to start anew, if you have a future perspective, you will feel that this is a good choice, and the ecology of Apple has a lot of advantages, such an idea is completely a kind of carving a boat.

Apple's advantage is based on the fact that they have been leading the way since the beginning of the mobile Internet, and have continued to achieve commercial success and gain a large number of fans, resulting in a snowball effect.

Apple's ecological advantage is the result of Apple's success, not the reason for Apple's success.

After Microsoft obtains Matrix, it is too difficult for Apple to defeat Microsoft, even with the blessing of Zhou Xin's future vision.

In terms of developer ecology, Apple is far behind Microsoft, and the number of developers based on the Windows operating system is far greater than the number of developers based on MacOS, which is underestimated by ten times.

What's more important is that the agreement on paper can be overturned, and Microsoft is not needed to be the villain, and Ameriken will naturally play this role.

Even if it is said that the merged Matrix will still purchase mobile phone chips designed by Xinxin, this letter written in black and white into the contract can also be overturned by Ameriken on the usual grounds.

This is as if Microsoft occupies the position of the future Apple, or even more powerful than the later Apple, more than a quarter of the world's most advanced process production capacity depends on Matrix's most advanced smartphones, and the new chip is equivalent to the position of half of TSMC in the later generations.

Suddenly cutting all the orders is a devastating blow to the chip foundry.

What's different about Matrix's acquisition of Apple? The biggest difference is that the federal government does not attach much importance to Apple as much as Microsoft, and Zhou Xin's placement of some R&D departments and R&D functions in China will not attract much attention.

In the future, when decoupling occurs, Zhou Xin can learn from ByteDance and split Douyin and Tik Tok into two, using Apple for markets outside China and Matrix for markets outside China.

At least a small half of the results can be retained.

This would not be possible with the merger of Microsoft and Matrix.

After listening to Jobs, he subconsciously rejected Zhou Xin's proposal, and in his opinion, the apple was his apple.

And after Apple is acquired by Matrix, even if the name is still Apple, Apple will change from his apple to Zhou Xin's apple.

He now has far less influence over Apple than Bill Gates does over Microsoft.

Jobs asked, "Newman, if you buy Apple, I'd like to understand how we divide the responsibilities between us."

Between me and you, or between Apple's original management and Matrix's management. ”

If Jobs had made up his mind to promote the merger of Matrix and Apple, he would never have been able to stop it.

It is true that Apple is the company he founded, but in the ten years since he left Apple, he has sold almost all of Apple's shares, and his share of mobile phone stock is not even one percent.

As for winning over Apple's large and small shareholders to reject Zhou Xin's proposal, not to mention that Zhou Xin is Apple's largest individual shareholder, even if institutional shareholders are included, Zhou Xin's share is also in the first place.

These big and small shareholders who only have money in their heads can't say no to Newman.

Jobs can say no, shareholders big and small will only say yes, and even Zhou Xin doesn't need to say it himself, as long as he expresses this idea, Apple's shareholders and board of directors will come together to facilitate the deal.

The merger between Apple and Matrix is also big business, and it can also be regarded as the biggest business in Silicon Valley in the 21st century.

After listening to this, Zhou Xin said: "We want to do some integration in resources, and we first clarify a principle that Matrix, Mac, Apple, and ipods are all Apple's brands.

Then, after the merger, some resources can be shared, such as supply chain, sales channels, software ecology, etc., which can be merged.

For example, Apple's original product line is still the original person in charge, and the Matrix product line is still in charge of Matrix.

To put it simply, it is to concentrate all kinds of resources and fine-tune the management at most.

Because the merger between Apple and Matrix involves too many integration of interests, Apple is a company with a very long history, so I should have been the CEO myself in the early stages.

You and the original CEO of Matrix will then be the VPs in charge of their respective business lines.

My initial idea is roughly this: Apple needs Matrix's technology, capital, and ecology, and Matrix also needs Apple's technology and ecology, and the two sides will have a relationship that is greater than two. ”

After Zhou Xin and Jobs finished chatting, he didn't make a big deal about it, but just talked to Paulson, an executive at Goldman Sachs, about his thoughts.

Then let Paulson help run the thing, on the condition that Paulson do it in the utmost secrecy.

After listening to Zhou Xin's thoughts, Paulson almost immediately thought of a trick in the Chinese Art of War, which was to repair the plank road in the dark and Chen Cang.

Now the media hyping the merger of Microsoft and Matrix are acting like clowns, in fact, Zhou Xin's idea is not to be acquired by Microsoft at all, but to completely dominate the acquisition of Apple by himself.

"Paulson, I'm fully willing to hand over this business to Goldman Sachs, but I have a few demands, one is that the merger between Microsoft and Matrix, whether overtly or covertly, can only say that the regulators can't accept Microsoft's acquisition of Matrix.

The second is that Newman bought Apple in second place. ”

Zhou Xin's request is not to affect his relationship with Bill Gates, and there are still many opportunities for cooperation with Microsoft in the future, especially if Microsoft plans to make mobile phones in person in the future.

The more customer resources for Xinxin, the better, and Microsoft's Windowsphone sales have exceeded 100 million.

As a result, before Goldman Sachs could convince Americaken's Ministry of Commerce, the EU business-related department stood up and said that it could not accept the merger of Microsoft and Matrix.

Just as Microsoft's acquisition of Blizzard requires the consent of many countries in later generations, the markets of Microsoft and Matrix involve most of the major countries in the world.

At the same time, because it involves issues of antitrust law and competition policy. Different countries have set up their own antitrust agencies and laws to protect market competition and consumer rights.

If the acquisition is opposed by the antitrust authorities, the acquisition will be prohibited.

For the European Union, which has the two giants of the communications industry, Nokia and Ericsson, it is obviously unacceptable to accept the emergence of the behemoth after the merger of Microsoft and Matrix, which will deal a fatal blow to the EU's mobile phone industry chain.

With clear opposition from the European Union, the merger ended before the Ameritcan Department of Commerce could speak.

Microsoft has also taken a back seat to acquire Palm, intending to go all out into the smartphone space.

"You're right, I have a good relationship with Newman, I met him when he first came to Microsoft as an intern, and he was a great representative of that group of interns.

I could feel that Newman was different from other young people, he had his own ideas, and Riot Games was the highest return investment my foundation had ever made. ”

"Yes, I would naturally like to work with Newman, I would like to see Microsoft merge with Matrix, and I also told Newman that if the merger between Microsoft and Matrix is successful, the position of CEO of Microsoft will be left to him.

Becoming the CEO of Microsoft in just five years from an intern is also an achievement. Of course, if he wanted to, he would have had the opportunity to become the CEO of Microsoft in '99. ”

"Yes, smartphones are very important, and the mobile Internet has fully shown the early booming trend of the personal PC market in the past, and Microsoft attaches great importance to this emerging market, which is also one of the most important development directions for Microsoft in the future.

Microsoft is now lagging behind in this space, and we originally wanted to catch up by acquiring Matrix, but now it seems that this path is not going to work.

That can only be achieved by Microsoft's own ability to catch up in this area. ”

"I still have a lot of confidence in Ballmer, and with Microsoft's strengths, he can surpass Matrix in the near future."

Bill Gates, in an interview with a TV show in Seattle, answered some recent rumors head-on.

His answer also lends credibility to Microsoft's attempt to buy Matrix.

Of course, the most indignant are the NASDAQ investors, who are clearly sure why the EU should come out and intervene.

Originally, I saw that the stock price that was about to take off crashed in a straight line, and this falling arc was much steeper than that of Big A.

Before the market fevered down on Microsoft's acquisition of Matrix, Microsoft's rising market value retracement was not yet in place, and Zhou Xin posted a Weibo:

"Matrix plans to merge with Apple."

After the news broke, it quickly detonated online public opinion, Apple is an Internet company with a large number of fans, although throughout the nineties, they did a terrible job.

Giving away the entire personal PC market to others, but that doesn't mean that their former fans are gone.

It's like the declaration of some singer fans: We are old, not dead.

The same is true for Apple's supporters, not to mention Apple's return to the public eye with the iPod Zero.

Unlike Microsoft's merger with Matrix, which was scolded on Weibo, after the news of Matrix's merger with Apple came out, Weibo could be described as Xida Puben.

If there are user profiles now, you can see that there is a huge overlap between the user profiles of iPod users and Mphone users.

“WOW！ That's the best news I've heard this year, and I don't have to think about other companies' electronics anymore if Matrix merges with Apple. ”

"The merger of Matrix and Apple will be a win-win, as the design benefits of MOS can be synchronized to Apple's operating system."

"Does it mean that Apple will launch a music player that supports touch screen functionality?"

"It's great to see the collaboration between Steve Jobs and Newman, two of the top minds in tech who will bring us more and better products."

Zhou Xin didn't think there would be any sparks between him and Jobs, he was curious about what sparks could be created between Lei Jun and Jobs.

After all, Lei Jun wants to take over the mantle after Jobs' death, and he has always had Rebus's nickname in the outside world.

There is no wrong name and no wrong nickname, Lei Jun can use Rebus as his name, which obviously shows that he has similarities with Jobs.

Zhou Xin thought that when the deal was completed, Lei Jun would be in charge of supply chain management and would have a lot of time to deal with Jobs.

When the time comes, you can ask Lei Jun and Jobs what they think of each other.

Matrix's acquisition of Apple is also a long-distance race, and it will not be done in a short time, it will take at least a year.

Because it is equivalent to Matrix going public through Apple's shell, it must first be approved by Apple's internal shareholders' meeting, and then approved by Nasdaq, and then approved by Ameriken's regulatory authorities.

In the end, the regulators of the world's major countries agreed, and the deal was finally concluded after agreeing.

Zhou's new announcement is equivalent to just that he and the shareholders behind Apple have reached an intention, and everyone will take this matter to the shareholders' meeting for decision-making.

Matrix's acquisition of Apple was handed over to Goldman Sachs, which once again proved that Goldman Sachs' powerful energy was coveted by its peers on Wall Street.

Why are all the good things you?

"Didn't you tell me that as long as Microsoft had enough leverage, you would consider selling Matrix to Microsoft.

Now it seems that Microsoft's chips are not as good as Apple's? Li Jingyi asked.

When Li Jingyi and Zhou Xin were on vacation together in Bill Gates' villa before, they talked about this issue.

At that time, Zhou Xin said that the price was right, and there was nothing that could not be sold.

Li Jingyi thought that Matrix was really going to be sold to Microsoft, and she had some expectations in private.

Because according to her understanding of Zhou Xin, after selling Matrix, she was obviously going to start a new business, and she was very curious about what Zhou Xinxin's entrepreneurial direction would be.

As a result, Zhou Xin bought Apple backhandedly.

"Pure money doesn't make sense to me anymore if Microsoft can operate in the middle and sell Applied Materials to me," Zhou said.

I wouldn't hesitate to sell Matrix to him. ”

After Matrix is sold to Microsoft, it can be rebuilt with Zhou Xin's capabilities, even if it can't achieve the same scale, at least there is no problem in achieving the scale of Xiaomi and OV in the future.

Applied Materials, a giant in the upstream of semiconductors, is different.

Applied Materials is a giant in semiconductors, with approximately 17,300 patents worldwide.

The most well-known semiconductor equipment in China is the lithography machine, but the equipment used to produce chips is far more than the lithography machine.

It also includes atomic layer deposition, chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, rapid heat treatment, chemical mechanical polishing, etching, ion implantation, wafer inspection, and more.

Semiconductor equipment is used in these steps, and Applied Materials has a market share of at least 70% in these devices, making it an out-and-out giant in the semiconductor equipment industry.

(End of chapter)