The Goddess Shines on America

"Zoe? Zoe? Come here!"

Just before getting off work, the editor-in-chief Howard's loud voice rang out at the headquarters of Popular Electronics in Seattle.

"Come on, Mr. Howard!"

The brown-haired reporter Zoe quickly passed through the office seats of her colleagues, and rushed into the editor's room at a trot: "Are you looking for me?"

Howard reclined on the computer chair, put his glasses back in place, and held Zoe's just-released manuscript in his hand: "Your article is very well written. Adobe announced that its new product , Illustrator 1.0 will be installed on Microsoft's Windows system. From the perspective of news timeliness, you are already ahead of many of your peers."

Zoe said modestly: "It should be. After all, this press conference is held by Microsoft, and our office is so close to Redmond. If the speed is not fast, wouldn't I tarnish the reputation of "Popular Electronics"? "

It’s a speech of loyalty. For a newcomer who has just joined the company for about a year and is facing whether to sign a three-year contract, this statement is really comforting.

But Howard said: "Yes, you are very fast, because the press conference was released by Microsoft in Redmond."

He stared at Zoe, who was a little puzzled, and said word by word: "Microsoft announced that Adobe's products will be installed on its platform."

The editor-in-chief's speech clearly made Zoe, who was stupefied, quickly reflect.

"Ah, ah, ah... yes, yes, the angle should be changed, the angle should be changed!"

"Just realized? Adobe, your article is based on its perspective, but who of our audience knows what Adobe is? If you simply say that its products are installed on the Microsoft platform, which company would care?"

There was cold sweat on Zooey's forehead. She immediately took the manuscript thrown over by Howard, nodded quickly and said, "I'll rewrite this article right away, please wait a moment!"

As she spoke, she immediately turned around and was about to rush out of the editor's room. Today's incident is really a big joke. Fortunately, she was rushing to write a manuscript on the long-distance bus this afternoon, and she actually made such a big loophole!

"etc."

But Howard stopped her, and Zooey's left foot that had just stretched out of the office froze immediately, and she turned back with a distressed expression: "Mr. Howard, I promise I won't..."

"That's not it." Howard waved his hand and said, "Zoe, I'm also really surprised that although you have been working in "Popular Electronics" for almost a year, it seems that you haven't recovered from your internship experience at "New York Herald". "

"Listen, let me stress this one last time. Popular Electronics is a weekly journal. Our articles focus more on technical analysis than news. Understand? I just praised you for writing your article quickly. But what we really need is not speed, haven't you figured it out yet?"

Big drops of cold sweat were flowing, and Zooey almost lost the strength to moan|moan. The one-year contract is about to expire in one month. Whether he can win the next three-year contract depends on his performance at the end. The editor-in-chief is dissatisfied with himself, God, come and save poor little Zoe...

Fortunately, God answered her prayers, and editor-in-chief Howard shifted the subject.

"So, let me tell you how to write it." He said: "You know, this operating system that Microsoft launched this spring is absolutely different from the previous two versions. See for yourself, just these two In the past few months, its sales have reached millions, how long did it take for Windows 1.0 and 2.0 to achieve this result?"

Zoe calmed down, and it's better not to continue to embarrass her. She said seriously: "So, the market share of this 3.0 system is unprecedentedly large, and more software suppliers will choose it as a platform. I remember Amy According to the survey that Li just submitted half a month ago, the number of companies providing application software for the Windows platform has reached..."

"Yes, there are too many." Howard said: "But among so many companies, Microsoft suddenly held a press conference for Adobe alone! This press conference, do you know what this Adobe is?"

Zoe has also thought about the taste. Of course, she is not stupid, but the draft is too hasty and ignores more details.

"So, we should focus on investigating the background of this Adobe company?"

Hearing this answer, Howard nodded in satisfaction: "That's right, there are too many companies in Silicon Valley, and the cycle of their establishment and closure is surprisingly short. If no one investigates specifically, no one will care about it." The history of the development of ordinary small companies. Since this company can be named by Microsoft, there must be some reason behind it. If you can dig it out, the circulation of our next issue of the magazine will increase dramatically."

After all, it is the editor-in-chief, experience is seasoned, digging deep into the news behind the news, and then creating amazing sales, this is not what Zoe can think of. With all kinds of thoughts, this newcomer returned to the office seat with the manuscript she had hurriedly rushed out. Although it was almost time to get off work, she was even more immersed.

In fact, for "Popular Electronics", which has been published for many years, the past few months have really been "eventful" in the press circle. The paper media related to the IT industry are frantically recruiting people. It's no wonder that Hu Zuoyi cares so much about his new contract, it's because there are really too many competitors.

News, news, where is the news?

After returning to the office seat, Zoe was not in a hurry to revise the manuscript, because today is already Friday, and the new manuscript will not be handed in until next Monday at the earliest. So in the next time, she put all her energy on searching for more important news.

As for the method, of course, it is to sort out the timeline of new things in the industry, and then make predictions about what may happen.

As a media person, Zoe can analyze a lot of interesting "inside stories" as long as she looks through the past materials. Before getting off work today, inspired by Howard, she started to find the news behind the news, such an extremely lofty approach.

"Let me see, let me see, what's going on with Microsoft...Medisa? Can you pass me that document?"

Taking a piece of material from a colleague, and integrating the documents on her desk, Zoe began to read them carefully.

If you want to say what new news Microsoft has recently, it is nothing more than focusing on two aspects.

One is the long-term research and development of the NT project. Even for a team of 100 people, it is not easy to develop an "Internet operating system" that must have outstanding security performance and stability is everything. "Popular Electronics" has long published an article, saying that this project will not be announced for listing without repeated sharpening for three or two years.

The second is the related events caused by the listing of Windows3.0. Including gradually increasing sales, including rising stocks, and including the industry's evaluation of this new system. Including hardware requirements, including the experience report of the new generation of Microsoft-Office1988, and a new thing that is loved by users-the web browser Internet-Explorer.

Alice-Wong is a genius!

——This is the general evaluation of her in the industry. The achievements are constantly refreshing, but this sentence remains unchanged.

By sorting out the development history of the Windows series and user experience reports on Windows 2.0, it is not difficult for Zoe to draw a series of interesting conclusions.

The 1.0 system is undoubtedly developed by Alice alone. This fresh "graphical user interface" system has been well received by users. At that time, Apple, a strong competitor in the industry, also launched their products, but the problem of incompatibility became the biggest problem for it to expand the market, so Alice and Microsoft made a lot of money.

But the 2.0 system is different. It cannot be said that the "intelligence crystallization of collective employees" of Microsoft has no progress, but it is far from satisfying users. The lack of supporting software is the biggest problem, that is, the compatibility is not good enough. Of course, it also suffered from Apple's accusation of "copying their ideas", which will naturally affect sales even more.

In fact, at this point, many people who are interested in paying attention are enough to cheer up.

Apple, which was completely dumb when 1.0 was launched, made a sound when 2.0 was launched, and really filed a lawsuit for it. Microsoft's "intelligence crystallization of all employees" seems to be a joke.

Of course, Zoe didn't know what Alice Wang was thinking, but based on her personal guess, it seemed that the girl should also be sitting and watching Microsoft's jokes.

Because throughout this entire big cycle, she is living a normal life as a technical consultant, while relying on emails to remotely guide the long-term development of the NT project-the interview with Fortune is a very useful reference. The research and development of the 2.0 system and all the miscellaneous things after that don't seem to have anything to do with this little busy man with a lot of work.

Then all of a sudden, it was another independent development of 3.0.

It's like in the movie industry, where the sequel of a hit movie is turned into rubbish by a replaced director, so the producer has to bring the master back to sit in charge. Windows 3.0 has sold hundreds of thousands of sales in the first month since its launch. It is estimated that more than half of the factors are because Alice Wang's name was printed on the list of developers with only one name.

This is the clue, a piece of information Zoe dug out from behind the massive news.

Alice Wang, who is compatible with the two major fields of hardware and software in the technical field, is also an excellent investor and stock speculator. If it is said that the second largest shareholder of Microsoft has invested in, or even completely acquired the unknown Adobe, it is understandable that the big guy came forward to announce the news.

Therefore, Zoe immediately realized from what angle she could write new articles.

Adobe's new product Illustrator 1.0... What the hell is this?