John Cuch has been paying attention to the expressions of Tang Huan and others. He found that Tang Huan was silent, but Charles Simeone and others showed disdain and even discussed without any scruples, "The operation efficiency of the programs that come with Lisa computers is so unsatisfactory. Isn't it even more pessimistic to develop programs on its platform?"

Of course, John Cuch felt uncomfortable when he heard these harsh words, but the other party was targeted and he had to endure it.

However, John Kuch also realized that these subordinates brought by Tang Huan must be engaged in the development of graphical user interface systems.

Although Lisa computers have obvious shortcomings, most people are amazed when they first saw the graphical user interface function of Lisa computers, unlike Charles Simeone and others who are pointing their fingers.

"This system is not cheap, the memory capacity alone reaches 1mb." Tang Huan asked casually.

"The price has been set, $9,995." John Cuch replied slightly bitterly, and he himself felt that the price of the Lisa computer was not very friendly.

Charles Simeone said bluntly: "The graphical user interface of Lisa computers is not indispensable to the corporate market. They care more about the solution of the entire software and hardware system and how much help it will help the business. Lisa computers are almost as white as this aspect. However, individual users may have greater interest in the graphical user interface of Lisa computers, but its price of nearly $10,000 is enough to discourage many people. With this money, users are better than buying Fangyuan laptops, which are really lightweight and practical."

Tang Huan waved his hand and stopped Charles Simeone and others from talking loudly. He said to John Cuche, who was embarrassed, "To be fair, Lisa Computer has done a very good job as a pioneer in the field of graphical user interfaces, but some places are indeed not considered thoroughly, such as flexibility."

Pointing to the display screen, Tang Huan continued: "You should expect the operational efficiency of the graphical user interface operating system, so a solution with a back-up should be to provide a coexisting Dos environment as a buffer for contradictions."

"Is this how Zheru did?" John Kuch, who was humbly listening, couldn't help asking curiously.

Tang Huan smiled unanimously, "Also, the hardware architecture of Lisa computers is not modular enough, and it is not easy to reduce costs."

The two 5.25-inch floppy drives of Lisa computer are combined with a 12-inch monitor, spliced ​​on the right and placed on the top. They look compact. However, the structure is indeed not as flexible as those of the Fangyuan computer. The ibm-pc monitor and the host are completely separated.

Tang Huan pointed to the two 5.25-inch floppy drives of Lisa computers and shook his head disapprovingly. "Apple is still grasping this product and producing it by itself. It's not that there are no excellent external suppliers to choose from. I've heard that your floppy drives are now having many problems."

Apple's floppy drive series, called applefileware, once played an important role in Apple computers breaking through the market.

It must be admitted that appleii is indeed excellent, but not the only one. It has a large number of competitors of similar products in the market, and the initial situation is quite difficult.

Under the supervision of Markura, Woz designed an exclusive floppy disk drive for Appleii, diski. With its excellent characteristics, it was a great success and greatly boosted the sales of Appleii.

In this way, I designed and manufactured floppy drives myself, and as a tradition, it was continued by Apple.

The floppy drive designed by the appleiii project team is called diskiii; the floppy drive designed by the Lisa project team is called twiggy - Cui Ji, and the same name is Twiggy, a supermodel who is thin in the 1960s. As the name suggests, the characteristics of this floppy drive can be imagined.

The problem with Apple's floppy drive is stability. Even if you support larger capacity, once the file data is lost, it will make no sense.

Everything has to be done by yourself. Apple does not have to hold the current floppy drive in its own hands, find a mature and reliable supplier, or further introduces technical production, which is better than its own research and development. Apple is not short of this amount of money, and one-time investment is much more cost-effective than this piece of cake.

John Kuch, who was dizzy and calmed down, asked Tang Huan with hope, "Will Zheru still use commercial software for Lisa computers?"

"Of course there is no problem." Tang Huan nodded affirmatively, "But you need to understand that the difficulty of software development of graphical user interfaces has increased a lot, especially the interface information of Lisa computers. We need to master it from scratch, and the development time will take at least half a year."

"We are mentally prepared, as long as Tang agrees to cooperate." John Kuch, who is almost superstitious about Zheru's software research and development strength, has been regarded as a hug.

Since Tang Huan made the decision to determine the cooperative relationship, Charles Simeone and others naturally need to further understand the internal architecture of Lisa computers.

Lisa computers have two main user interface modes - lisaofficesystem and workshop. The former provides users with a completed graphical user interface environment, while the latter is a text box-based program development environment, similar to the command line windows in the windows system in the original time and space.

Lisaofficesystem also has a name called "7/7", which originates from the seven applications it contains: lisaw, lisacalc, lisadraw, lisagraph, lisaproject, lisalist and lisater fansnal.

It is not difficult to see from the software functions of these word processing, calculator, drawing, etc. that the Lisa project team had ambitiously planned to capture all the applications in one place, but now they have come to realize that the market demand is not as simple as they thought.

After leaving Apple, Charles Simeone frowned and said, "I've seen it. The application programming interface of Lisa computers is not as systematic as our operating system and is not friendly at all. I'm afraid the development time is not easy to control."

"It doesn't matter, just treat it as a study colleague and learning experiences and lessons. My real purpose is to take a fancy to the people in the Lisa project team."

Tang Huan smiled faintly, "It is said that Jobs's mac will be launched in another half a year, and even if it is delayed, it will not last more than a year. Therefore, John Couch is anxious to add weight to Lisa, and he cannot resist the power of Jobs' tripping. At that time, the Lisa project team will inevitably fall and scatter."

"Lisa is a product developed by Apple that has invested huge resources. Will Jobs take revenge on his own without a sense of overall situation?" Charles Simeone was a little suspicious.

"Of course not on the surface, but if you kick it secretly, it's enough for Lisa computers to be able to take it. Like John Cuch, I also felt Jobs' hostility towards Lisa computers. Just wait and see." Tang Huan smiled sarcastically.

...

Shortly after Tang Huan arranged the matter of Lisa's computer, Tripp Hawkins invited Ea to the meeting.

The financial reports from 1981 to 1982 have basically come out. The situation is so complicated that we must carefully discuss how to deal with it.

Of course, the company will vigorously apply Zheru's ERP system. EA's business is spread all over the world. It can be summarized step by step to the US headquarters through floppy disks, modems, telephone networks, communication satellites, etc., not only annual reports, but also respond quickly than its peers.

EA's annual operating income was close to US$4.1 billion, an increase of more than 40% over the previous year, achieving the predetermined target.

Arranged according to the contribution size, the businesses are home electronic game consoles, arcade machines, personal computer games, and others.

The ranking is the same as last year, but I know that the growth rate of the home electronic game console business, which has been in a hot market in North America, has slowed down significantly. This is the result stimulated by the positive effects of game console early education functions and global promotions in the second half of this year.

"In addition to feedback from the grassroots level, there are also news in the industry that the home electronic game console market seems to be unable to sell." Tripp Hawkins said with a complicated expression. "Some people analyzed that it was caused by the impact of Kangmaoda, the cheap personal computers of Texas Instruments, and some people think that the market may be saturated."

Although EA is ready to face the Great Depression in the industry, Tang Huan had predicted early that the North American home electronic game console market would inevitably collapse after a brutal expansion. Tripp Hawkins was not willing to show up. He really couldn't bear such a good market.

Tang Huan carefully looked at each data on the report and decided that only the home electronic game console business in North America had a downturn, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"No matter how big the cake is, there will be a day after you finish it. Just want to open it." Tang Huan put down the report and rubbed his eyebrows.

"Last year, we rushed to release financial reports in front of other colleagues. Are we doing the same this year?" Tripp Hawkins asked after a wry smile.

"Try to drag it back, it's best to wait for Warner, Mattel and others to debut before we make a debut." Tang Huan pondered for a moment, "I believe that life for other companies in the industry will definitely be even harder. Since the market is not good, then let's pick up the big one from the short and compare who has the least fall."

"That must be interesting." Tripp Hawkins laughed knowingly. "Investors will see Atari, who is ranked second and Mattel, who is ranked third, will naturally be more relaxed. Maybe they will have unexpected surprises because they are not as pessimistic as they imagine."

"Hope is an unexpected surprise." Tang Huan nodded, and asked: "What is the situation now when Atari develops the electronic game "e.t. Alien"?"

"I don't know, Atari is guarding hard, and no relevant news has come out." Tripp Hawkins was a little uneasy when asked, "Is this a variable?"

"Then we have to look at Atari's current technical strength." Tang Huan spread his hands, and no matter how good the trick is to cheat people, it depends on God's cooperation.

...

Publishing financial reports is a must-do assignment for listed companies, and no one can rely on them.

Tang Huanzheng thought that the global game center would inevitably move to Japan, so Mattel took the lead in releasing its financial report, and the growth rate of the home electronic game console business was very unsatisfactory.

Mattel, which ranks third in the industry, has a big gap with Atari, which ranks second, not to mention comparing it with EA, which ranks first.

Therefore, although Mattel's performance disappointed investors, its impact was very limited.

When Warner released its financial report, the situation was different. Atari's annual operating income just exceeded US$1.3 billion, an increase of more than 40% compared with the previous year.

This result suddenly hit the hornet's nest. You know, Atari predicted 60% or even higher last year.

The words were still in my ears. Atari had not completed the task, so the stock price of Warner fell immediately.

Seeing that someone had already passed by, ea calmly took out the financial report, which was also a growth rate of more than 40%, which disappointed investors, but at least it was consistent with the predictions he made and did not speak loudly like Atari.

Just as Wall Street was discussing the top three in the home electronic game console industry, why was it a little sluggish, Atari suddenly had an earthquake. CEO Ray Casa was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission because on the eve of Warner's financial report, Ray Casa sold 5,000 shares of Warner's shares, suspected of internal transactions.

Since he was targeted by the SEC, the Supreme Emperor, Ray Cassa had to resign and lost his position as CEO of Atari.

After hearing this news, Tang Huan was a big difference. Lei Kasana is a senior manager with decades of work experience. How could he make such a low-level mistake? Could it be that Atari is too unbearable to make him lose confidence?

The biggest failure of Atari this year is the Atari 5200 it launched. In case of incompatible with Atari 2600, the platform's game development progress was extremely backward. It did not have ace games that matched the new hardware platform at all. It was suddenly compared by another game console released at the same time, colecovi privately.

But this is not enough to make a veteran in the workplace so obsessed. Tang Huan, who was puzzled, couldn't be too confused.

Ray Cassa's unexpected fall caused chaos in Warner headquarters in New York, and he quickly looked for a new CEO of Atari, but for a moment, it was not so easy to find a suitable candidate.

As a result, Atari, who had no leader, once again dragged down Warner's stock price. I don't know how Steve Ross was furious.
Chapter completed!