Chapter 34 Section 1 Double Heroes Meeting

In 1981, at the headquarters of Apple Corporation in Cupatiro, Silicon Valley, a century duo meeting in the field of microcomputers was held.Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, whose career was booming, invited Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who had just won the IBM PC operating system contract, to discuss cooperation matters.Jobs showed Gates a newly designed Macintosh personal computer and a beautiful GUI-based operating system.Gates, who was still obsessed with winning the big IBM contract, was stunned.This operating system based on a graphical interface plus a small mouse is many times stronger than their DOS. The former makes the operation of the computer much more convenient than before.Gates immediately realized that the imperfect operating system in front of him represented the future trend, and everything in Microsoft's product line at that time seemed shabby and backward.That year, Jobs and Gates were both twenty-six years old.Although both of them are rising stars in the technology industry, no one realizes that in the future, the personal computer industry with an annual output value of one trillion US dollars will be dominated by these two people.Jobs, who was proud of his spring breeze, didn't know Gates at the time. He just knew that Microsoft was doing things very quickly. The purpose of inviting Gates was to let Microsoft develop application software for Apple.If time could be turned back, Jobs would definitely not hold this duo meeting, because later everyone knew that Gates and Microsoft would not be willing to be inferior to others. Far.Jobs was arrogant in this meeting, because he had the treasure of Macintosh in his hands.In the negotiation of cooperation, Jobs, a well-known negotiator, was haggling.Both of these things made Gates dislike Jobs, but he brokered the deal anyway. He agreed to develop three applications for Apple because he was interested in the graphical operating system itself.

In the first battle between the two heroes in the computer field, Jobs got some small bargains in the contract, but Gates was the real winner.Although the twenty-six-year-old Jobs was a technological wizard, he lacked experience and experience at the time.He was too careless, he would never have thought that this casually dressed computer bug with thick glasses that would never be wiped clean in front of him would almost kill Apple in the future.At that time, in the eyes of Jobs, Microsoft was just a small software company that started by selling BASIC and got the IBM contract by accident (even its name was Microsoft). compared to apples.We don't have access to Microsoft's fiscal year 1981 revenue because it only reported financials from 1984 onwards when it went public in 1986.But it is certain that Microsoft's income at that time was very small, because even in 1984 after several years of rapid development, when Microsoft had provided operating systems for 80% of the world's microcomputers, its turnover was only 100 million US dollars.Until 1990, when Microsoft released Windows 3.0 and became known as the software overlord, its turnover reached one-fifth of Apple's in the same period.Jobs is not a god, and it is hard to expect that Microsoft, which is much smaller than him, will threaten him in the future.

There is no doubt that Jobs' inadvertent mistake is equivalent to telling Gates the direction of personal microcomputer operating system development in the future.I think if Jobs had been twenty years older, he wouldn't have made this simple mistake.Academician Jalinek, my boss at the school, used to hold an important position in IBM, so we often went to IBM to give reports. Before each visit, Jalinek had to confirm that every page of our report had been published.The reason is simple. IBM has the best scientists and engineers in the world. They can realize, patent and publish your unpublished ideas faster than you.At this meeting of the two heroes, Jobs made two mistakes. First, he himself did not realize the importance of the operating system in the entire microcomputer industry in the future, otherwise he would not prematurely show others that he has not yet launched Second, and more importantly, he can show it to anyone, but he should not show it to Gates.

Both Jobs and Gates realized that microcomputers and related industries would be a big industry, and it has been proved that this is indeed a trillion-dollar industry.As we have analyzed earlier, the computer industry is more prone to monopoly companies than any other industry.Both Jobs and Gates wanted to be a monopoly, but in different ways.The former wanted to be a monopoly like IBM, monopolizing everything from hardware to software, which later proved to be unfeasible.The genius of Gates is that when the microcomputer industry just started, he realized that as long as he monopolized the operating system, he would indirectly monopolize the entire industry, because the operating system is different from other software, it is pre-installed when buying a computer. Yes, general users do not have the right to choose.Other software users have the right to choose.All application software must be developed under the operating system.Therefore, the operating system will inevitably take the lead in a winner-takes-all monopoly after free competition.Twenty years ago, IBM, Microsoft, and Apple all had the possibility of monopolizing microcomputer operating systems.The other three companies Novell, Sun and Oracle are also likely to get a share of it.Twenty years later, the result is that Microsoft is the only one. Not only did the network operating system envisioned by the latter three companies fail, IBM and Apple, the two companies that once "hired" Microsoft, were also defeated by the shop assistants back then.Although it is said that all roads lead to Rome, there is only one road to becoming the Roman Empire, and it depends on who can find the right one.

It's a pity that Gates and Jobs were born in the same era, because both of them were destined to be a failure.In terms of technical sense, Jobs is better than Gates, but in terms of business vision and management, Gates is better than Jobs.