Chapter 383: Boss Qiao
"Mr. Shirakawa, nice to meet you."
"Sorry, who are you...?" Baichuan Feng looked at the handsome black-haired young man with thick eyebrows and big eyes in front of him with a puzzled look.
He always felt that the person in front of him looked familiar. Where had he seen him before?
"Steven Jobs" The black-haired young man showed a charming smile and took the initiative to extend his right hand.
Wow, it’s Boss Qiao.
Baichuan Feng almost didn't recognize him because of the thick black hair.
"It's Mr. Steve. I really like your Apple computers."
Bai Chuanfeng stretched out his hand and gave Boss Qiao a friendly and cordial handshake.
"Shirakawa Electric's portable CD player is also great. It is now the best partner for people to hold parties. Of course, I have one at home too."
"Oh~, it's my pleasure ."
Shirakawa Electric's CD player has been sold in North America since the beginning of the year. Just as Jobs said, it is now the star of various parties.
A compact CD player and two active speakers can liven up the audience with dynamic music anytime and anywhere.
Westerners, especially Americans, are all party animals. They will receive party invitations four out of seven days a week.
What’s a party without music? So Shirakawa Electric’s portable CD player burst into life beyond expectations.
It is far more popular than desktop computers from Sony and Philips because it is easy to carry and the audio system is simple to assemble.
Now that he heard that Boss Qiao was also one of his users, Baichuan Feng couldn't help but feel a little proud.
Of course, it is impolite not to reciprocate, so Baichuan Feng also praised the excellence of Apple computers.
As expected, flattery is common among all human beings, and the smile on Jobs's mouth became more and more obvious.
Baichuan Feng knew very well that given Jobs' conceited personality, he could only go along with it.
Otherwise, he will definitely make a note of you in the little notebook in his heart.
"Shirakawa Electric developed CD-ROM technology, which is a blessing for users.
Maybe they didn't know what they needed before, but when 700MB of CD storage appeared.
They’re like, oh yeah, that’s what I want.”
After Jobs and Shirakawa sat down in the coffee area, they discussed the main topics of today's meeting while habitually making various gestures.
As a new player in the personal computer market, Apple was naturally also invited to the conference.
He was curious about how Shirakawa Kaede was able to found Shirakawa Electric at such a young age, and at the same time he felt a little bit of recognition.
In the eyes of Steve Jobs, who founded Apple at the age of 20, Shirakawa Kaede, who founded Shirakawa Electric at the age of 19, is the same type of person as Steve Jobs.
What kind of person? A genius!
Jobs would respect people who were as smart as himself and communicate with them seriously.
Otherwise, why would he take the initiative to come forward and greet Baichuan Feng?
“I am glad to hear your approval, although CD storage has not yet grown up.
But we firmly believe that in the future it will replace floppy disks and become the most commonly used storage method."
Baichuan Feng is extremely confident on this point. Today's optical drives are greatly underestimated.
Jobs admired Shirakawa's confidence, just as he admired his own Apple computers.
"I heard that Mr. Shirakawa not only owns Shirakawa Electric, but also a company that designs chips?"
Bai Chuanfeng turned his head and glanced at Boss Qiao in surprise, "You are right, there is indeed such a company.
However, SIC has not yet started business in North America. How did Mr. Steve know this news? "
Jobs smiled maliciously, "The Los Angeles Times has already reported that Japan has such an overconfident chip design company."
"Huh?" Baichuan Feng was a little confused.
Seeing his confused expression, Jobs' smile grew even brighter.
So he explained the details of the incident in detail. At the briefing of Shirakawa Electric last year, Shirakawa Kaede's response to Western reporters was published in the newspaper verbatim.
It was at that time that the name SIC appeared on the North American continent for the first time.
But obviously this is not a good reputation. "Overestimating one's capabilities" and "a crudely made knockoff of Japan" are the initial impressions of the people of North America on SIC.
After listening to his explanation, Bai Chuanfeng smiled bitterly and said, "Well, SIC is the chip design company that 'overestimates its capabilities'."
"Haha" Jobs laughed heartily. That hearty laughter relieved a lot of his recent depressed mood.
"But if you, Steve, had used SIC's chips, you would never have such thoughts again."
Baichuan Feng shrugged his shoulders and helplessly spoke up for his own chip.
“I have used it”
"Okay, so... huh? Wait!" Baichuan Feng suddenly turned his head and looked at Jobs, who had put away his smile.
"So, Steve, do you think that SIC's chips are shoddy knockoffs?" Baichuan Feng looked at the figure opposite him seriously.
"Of course not. It's even a little unexpected." Jobs gave him an affirmative answer.
Baichuan Feng now seemed to understand why Jobs took the initiative to greet him.
"So Steve, are you willing to give it a try?" Breaking away from his usual reserved style in Neon, Shirakawa Feng asked directly.
As for his question, Jobs did not answer it directly, but discussed another issue with him.
"I wonder if Mr. Shirakawa has heard of Apple's LISA computer?"
The LISA series of computers is a milestone in the history of Apple.
It was the world's first graphical computer, with overlapping windows, small icons, pop-up menus, and a mouse.
The graphical operating system that we are familiar with in later generations already had its prototype on the LISA computer.
It greatly facilitates users to use various functions of the system. Different from the character-based interface of the DOS era, this is a qualitative change.
The concept of graphical user interface (GUI) also appeared for the first time on commercial computers.
However, although it was a huge improvement over previous personal computers, its sales were very poor due to its high price.
The LISA computer was launched last year at a price of $9,998, and has sold less than 10,000 units so far.
Compared with the 2 million units sold of the popular Apple II in North America, LISA can be said to be Apple's Waterloo product.
Even the Apple III, which had a terrible reputation, sold 120,000 units, but the more advanced LISA sold less than one-twelfth of that.
The most important thing is that Apple invested $150 million in research and development costs on the LISA computer.
There is no doubt that the disastrous failure of LISA brought huge losses to Apple.
As one of its original leaders, Jobs has been in a gloomy mood recently because of the failure of LISA.
Although in the middle of the development, the team members kicked him out because they couldn't stand Jobs's obsessive perfectionism.
But LISA was named after Jobs' daughter, which shows how much he values this series of computers.
When he heard him asking him what he thought about the LISA computer, Baichuan Feng felt a little surprised.
But after thinking for a few seconds, Baichuan Feng decided to tell the truth.
“It is undoubtedly a groundbreaking product that brings people a brand new system experience, which will definitely be a milestone in the history of computer development.
But it is too expensive, and this price is destined to prevent it from becoming the first choice for ordinary users. In addition, LISA's ecosystem is also a problem. "
"Ecosystem?" Jobs interrupted Shirakawa's comment and raised his own question.
"Yes," Baichuan Feng nodded, "A computer is a product, but it cannot exist independently."
Shirakawa Kaede sat up straight and began to talk about the necessary conditions for the development and growth of computers.
"The quantity and quality of application software, compatibility with surrounding devices, the types of hardware in the system, and the connection between new and existing devices.
The operating system is just a blank world. It needs the sky, the earth, the sun, the water, the soil, and the air. Only with these can the world become vibrant.
But it was clear that the LISA computer did not have these characteristics, and there was too little software to support it. Without nutrients, it could not survive.”
Jobs fell into deep thought. This was the first time someone used such a metaphor to describe the development law of operating systems, and it was also the first time someone proposed the concept of "computer ecosystem".
Vivid and easy to understand.
Jobs came back to his senses, and there was a gleam in his eyes as he looked at Baichuan Feng.
"The chip used by LISA is Motorola's MC68000, with a 32-bit internal bus, a 16-bit address bus, and a main frequency of 7.8MHz.
It has nearly 70,000 transistors inside and supports up to 16MB of memory. Can SIC do this?"
Without further ado, Jobs directly stated the parameters he wanted.
"Yes!" Bai Chuanfeng nodded without hesitation and responded, "SIC80281, the internal bus and address bus are consistent with MC68000.
But its main frequency can be increased to 8MHz or even 12MHz, with as many as 120,000 internal transistors and a maximum support of 24MB of memory. "
This is SIC's latest generation of 16-bit chip, which was just taped out by Masayoshi Shima last month.
Although it has not yet been officially used for commercial purposes, Baichuan Feng took it out and used it as a card without thinking twice.
At this time, you must say yes, and you have to go ahead even if it doesn't work.
When Jobs heard the series of parameters revealed by Shirakawa Kaede, he was also surprised. He didn't expect that it was more optimistic than he thought.
"The price quoted by Motorola is $125. What discount can SIC offer?"
Jobs didn't give Baichuan Feng any chance to breathe, and asked him one fatal question after another.
$125?! Shirakawa Kaede almost broke his back teeth.
This price is really fierce. Now the price of 16-bit chips is generally around US$200.
If it comes from a big company like Intel, the price will be close to $300.
Boss Qiao came up and chopped off most of them, leaving them no chance of survival.
However, Baichuan Feng did not hesitate. He directly offered a price that Jobs could not refuse.
“100 USD! If Apple purchases more than 100,000 units, the price can be reduced by another 10 USD.”
The opportunity was rare, so even if the profit was lower, or even a loss, Shirakawa Feng accepted it. But after all, it was North America, and this market was much bigger than Japan.
"But since SIC is offering such a favorable offer, please agree to one condition, Steve."
Jobs glanced at Shirakawa Kaede and gave him a warning before he continued speaking.
"Other things are easy to say, but Apple is not considering equipping its computers with optical drive systems for the time being."
Baichuan Feng was stunned, then gave a bitter smile. Are optical drives so disliked?
"Apple computers do not need to be equipped with an optical drive system, but they must be equipped with a SCSI interface."
This is the optical drive interface specification that has just been determined at this conference. With it, the computer can connect to the optical drive and recognize the optical disc.
Jobs obviously understood Baichuan Feng's plan. He touched his chin and began to think about it.
