California is most famous for Hollywood in Los Angeles, which everyone knows, but the state capital here is Sacramento. The logo that reminds people of this convoluted place name is the Sacramento Kings, a former strong team in the NBA.
Oracle is located in Redwood City, the only deep-water port south of San Francisco in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a small city with only 80,000 residents. There are two most impressive companies in this city, EA's headquarters and a studio of Blizzard, but the latter will be withdrawn at the end of the year.
It is close to the beach and has a pleasant climate, but the only thing Huang Xuan remembers is the description on the family stove: 1 Senate seat, 5 House of Representatives seats, 55 electoral votes, the latter two ranking first in the United States. This means that California is the most politically important state in the United States.
Huang Xuan sat in the Lincoln car, looking at the energy screen and recalling what his mother had taught him before, and listening to Oracle employees explaining the history of Redwood City and Oracle to him in halting Chinese. Software companies such as Oracle will have research groups such as Japan Project Department and China Project Department. The number of Asian employees is second only to Hispanics, but looking at the performance of this guy in front of me, it is really not flattering.
Yu Liye's English was not very good, but Gan Lizheng beside him was a turtle. He disdained to listen to this gum-chewing Chinese, tilted his head and asked Huang Xuandao: "Mr. Huang, what is your purpose this time?"
Huang Xuan smiled mysteriously and shook his head. Gan Lizheng curled his lips. He didn't quite believe that the two cryptographic algorithms Huang Xuan presented were made by him, but there was indeed no similar algorithm on the market. He was also quite curious when he came to Oracle this time.
The person who came to receive the meeting was Mark Jarvis, the marketing director of Oracle. He wore a gray suit with a thin black lapel sweater underneath. This nearly 60-year-old Californian has very high cheekbones and two deep eye sockets. If you see him at night, you will definitely be shocked. He is quite enthusiastic, but he just misidentified the person and mistakenly thought that Yu Liye was invited by Citigroup. Chairman of Hexin Industrial in the letter.
Of course, judging from his age, Yu Liye is in his prime and is indeed considered a rich man. But he just smiled and introduced Huang Xuandao: "This is the chairman of Hexin Industrial, Mr. Huang Xuan."
It was a short sentence, and the translation was very accurate. Mark immediately patted his forehead in embarrassment and apologized: "I didn't expect Mr. Huang to be so young. He is really young."
Huang Xuan shook hands with him indifferently and said in English: "Most people think so."
After a few casual greetings, Mark obviously thought that Huang Xuan wanted to buy their database system, so he focused on introducing the latest version of their database 10G, and said: "Oracle is the only one in the world that can manage customer relationship management - operational applications - platform A company that implements global e-commerce solutions with facilities, Mr. Huang’s business covers both Brazil and China. I believe that using Oracle’s solutions will definitely save you a lot of office costs.”
Huang Xuan raised his eyebrows and said: "Actually, I also have a database system on hand. If possible, I would like to compare the two systems."
"OK." Mark didn't expect it to be so easy to achieve his intention. He ordered his men to prepare and said: "The whole world believes that Oracle is the best database management company in the world."
"IBM and Microsoft also intend to enter this field?" Huang Xuan responded casually.
"They're not there yet." Mark paused and said, "Just this year, we have acquired PeopleSoft and Siebel Software, which has greatly enhanced Oracle's strength in enterprise software and customer relationship software. To put it bluntly, if IBM also uses our solution and the cost can be reduced by 10%.”
Reducing costs has always been a trick that Oracle has become famous for. Among Harvard's classic cases is Oracle's $1 billion reduction plan.
Huang Xuan had already done his homework on the plane. Seeing a dozen professionals busy preparing to start the computer, he secretly smiled in his heart. The software in his hand came from IBM DB 9 a few years later, codenamed Viper. This is IBM Sounding the clarion call to enter the database market, its characteristic lies in the information system platform that can be seamlessly compatible with hierarchical databases and relational databases. Although now, the application of hierarchical databases is far less widespread than relational data, but it represents The future development direction: pureXML (pure XML, extensible markup language) technology.
Although the HTML currently used on the Internet is good at layout and appearance, it lacks the ability to express content, which makes it difficult for Internet users to find information that is useful to them. Specifically, HTML is good at human-computer interaction, but cannot well support interaction between machines. We know that search engines collect website information through web spiders, that is, machines, and the design structure of each website's HTML is different, and includes many tags that look very similar. The biggest difference between XML and HTML is that you can customize tags and define tags in a form that fully expresses your meaning, so that web spiders can easily find the corresponding content and classify it. At the same time, because it is based on Unicode, it can define multiple languages including Chinese.
According to professionals, XML has extremely excellent genes, but because it is not compatible with relational databases (XML is hierarchical), using XML in existing database software is like an application simulator. Performance is greatly affected.
Now, Oracle has realized the problems of XML and is committed to developing an information platform that is compatible with hierarchical and relational databases. However, it was already years later when they made the finished product, and they were almost beaten by IBM first.
Even Microsoft was ready to make a move in the era when Oracle's famous relational database was in decline.
Of course, Oracle may not need to come up with such an advanced database this year. After all, XML has not yet become popular, and few companies have similar needs. But what Huang Xuan has in his hands represents something else: patents.
The U.S. Patent Office is affiliated with the Department of Commerce, and the administrative officer of the Department of Commerce usually belongs to the ruling party. Now it is owned by the Republican Party (for example, the director of the Patent Office is the administrative officer, who is played by a professional politician, and the deputy director is the affairs officer). Officials are not affected by party changes and cannot be dismissed without reason). Therefore, when Huang Xuan expressed his Republican leanings, he applied for some temporary patents and immediately received special treatment.
Senator Melvin even called the Ministry of Commerce through her assistant, because Huang Xuan assured her on the phone that there would be a large amount of donations in the end-of-year elections—in the United States, politicians who can donate and raise donations are all politicians The first priority of work.
Holding these patents in hand, Huang Xuan couldn't imagine the expressions of the gentlemen from Oracle. The reason why DB9 is codenamed Viper just shows IBM's expectations for it. After a year in advance, facing Oracle, which did not even have a stick ready, Viper can swallow them in one gulp.
A guy who was said to be a senior engineer debugged the test machine, wiped his hands and walked over, nodded to Mark, and then said to Huang Xuan: "Mr. Huang, you can give it a try. This is a special modification we made based on the conditions in Brazil and China." of."
This is good for large companies. They have already designed the models for the assumed business objects and can apply them when needed. Huang Xuan remained silent while Gan Li was standing at the front, listening to the engineer's speech.
Huang Xuan took out a CD from the inner pocket of his upper suit, handed it to Mark and said, "Mr. Jarvis, can you try to install this database?"
"OK." Although this kind of thing doesn't happen often, Mark handed the disc to the staff beside him and asked casually: "Which company's product is this?"
"Xinye Company." Huang Xuan's answer made Yu Liye a little overwhelmed, but when he looked at Huang Xuan's eyes, he immediately lowered his head.
Mark was a little skeptical. Just like what Yu Liye said, the cost of developing a database software would definitely make a small company impoverished. On the other hand, the mainstream on the market is still relational database, and IBM and Microsoft The main reason for not being able to create a database with similar functionality and cost is that Oracle owns most of the patents.
It is absolutely ridiculous to spend a lot of money to make database software using someone else's patent. Mark didn't believe that a billionaire could be so stupid.
The two engineers started debugging again, but they could not enter the background management of the software no matter what. Huang Xuan walked over calmly, typed in a string of passwords, and then drank coffee again. All the contents of this disk are encrypted using a future algorithm, which Huang Xuan calls No. 3. As long as it is not sold on the market, the energy consumption caused by this algorithm will be very small.
The new interface gave Mark a sense of familiarity. In fact, by the time the software started running, Mark was already very familiar with this interface.
It's completely Oracle style, but Oracle doesn't have the same interface yet.
This made the Oracle employees present a little angry. One engineer said dissatisfiedly: "This is plagiarism."
"The patent law allows me to do this." Huang Xuan looked back at him and said to Mark: "Seamlessly compatible with hierarchical databases and relational databases. If necessary, the two parts can be sold separately."
A familiar interface will make it easier to sell. For example, if people are familiar with ORD, if Kingsoft wants to sell PS easily, they must learn more and learn from it. In this regard, the definition of patent law is very weak.
"Huh?" Mark was actually not very familiar with these technical problems, but the technician next to him had heard it clearly. The highest-ranking engineer present, Jia Li, widened his eyes and said, "This is impossible, you are... This is blatant plagiarism.”
"If you read the content, you won't say that." Huang Xuan said with confidence that this database system comes from IBM, and the reason why IBM took so long to enter the database market is to avoid Oracle Of course, there may be one or two patents that have not yet expired, but that is not the point. After the market determines the ownership, there are lawyers who can carry out such a protracted lawsuit until the patent expires.
Apart from consuming resources, the new database software has no other shortcomings. Mark asked the technician next to him in a low voice, and his face soon turned pale.
Larry Ellison, the founder and CEO of Oracle, is leaning over the desk writing tomorrow's speech. He likes to chew on the pen holder, not the end of the pen, but the middle of the pen holder like a dog chewing a bone. This seemed to allow him to find balance.
Just as he was writing, "I would feel weird if we didn't do this project." Ellison bit the pen again and said to himself: "The word project may be too small..."
His secretary knocked on the door a little hard, and Ellison impatiently held his pen in his mouth and said, "I'm very busy."
"I'm sorry, sir." The secretary did not leave and continued: "Mr. Mark is in trouble. He said it is a big trouble."
"He always exaggerates." Ellison crossed out "project" without looking up.
"Nussbaum also thinks this is a big problem." Nussbaum, a vice president, is familiar with the technology issues within the group.
Ellison finally put down his pen, straightened his clothes, stood up and opened the door and said: "If this is not a problem that requires me to go, I will twist their heads off."
"As long as it's not mine." The secretary didn't know what happened, so he still joked.
…
Huang Xuan sat on the sofa with his legs crossed, feeling like he was playing in a gym. The people in the room were clearly divided. The technicians gathered together and glared at Huang Xuan, while Mark and others greeted Huang Xuan with unchanged expressions. Oracle's top officials are all professional managers. They fight for the interests of Oracle, but they will not fight for Oracle. Who knows whether the young people in front of you will become your boss in an hour? They just need to be themselves. Just do it.
Ellison hurriedly walked out of the special elevator, turning around with his shirt tied on the way and his leather shoes shiny.
It was already 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Many employees who had left early could see Ellison walking quickly on the road. Most people did not avoid it, but casually guessed at the company's largest shareholder. whereabouts.
Nussbaum was waiting at the door. When he saw Ellison, he immediately opened the door, put his head in his ear and whispered what happened just now, and said: "I'm sure the patent has been applied for."
Ellison nodded slightly, without walking into the inner room, but first asked: "What do you think?"
"It's much more advanced than 10G." Nussbaum also shook his head with some regret: "It would be possible if it was a new product from Microsoft."
"So it's his?"
"The patent applied for the day before yesterday." Nussbaum said softly: "It does belong to him."
"I understand." Ellison said, walked into the inner room with a smile, looked around, found Huang Xuan easily, and said with a smile: "Hello, Mr. Huang, I am not neglecting you."
"The coffee is delicious." Huang Xuan raised the cup.
"That's good." Ellison said and went around in circles, trying to talk about database software in a subtle way.
Huang Xuan followed him around, and when he couldn't explain clearly, he pretended that his pronunciation was unclear or that he didn't understand. This made it impossible for Eric to discuss professional issues. He originally thought he was just a kid who was easy to deal with, but he didn't. Thinking that the other party was also familiar with the negotiation table, he wasted more than ten minutes and finally mentioned the software in Huang Xuan's hands and said: "The database software developed by Mr. Huang himself?"
"It makes sense." Huang Xuan smiled. It is easy to understand whether the database software is good or not. As for whether it is useful or not, that is another matter.
Ellison pursed his lips and smiled at the people around him: "Compared to the Japanese stuff, it's indeed much better."
Several people laughed. Huang Xuan just smiled faintly and said: "It's a few years ahead of Oracle's technology. I really can't comment. However, if Oracle is not interested, I will cooperate with IBM."
Ellison is actually more afraid of IBM than Microsoft. Big Blue has always been a giant, an unrivaled behemoth. Whenever its response is a little bit more agile, its market share will shrink by 5%.
Ellison didn't know that Huang Xuan had already seen through his trump card, and still wanted to steal the chicken: "OK, 0 million US dollars, cash payment."
"If you include patents, it would cost 0 billion US dollars, or cash plus equity."
"Are you crazy?" Ellison could hardly believe that Huang Xuan would put forward such excessive conditions. (To be continued)