"Hey, you know what? No need to say more, I'm joining."
Dell completely disregarded how outrageous Lin Lixin's remarks were.
Or perhaps he's planning something big this time.
But he was very clear about one thing: following Lin was definitely the right thing to do.
"Huh? But why don't we just use Micron's Athena processor? Didn't you say it's the most powerful 32-bit chip right now?"
While ARM processors are inexpensive now, they're not something you can just pick up and use right away.
If we want to use their technology to develop a processor that can be implemented on a PC, the subsequent research and development investment will probably start at tens of millions of dollars.
Tens of millions of dollars!
If you gave him that money, he could open Dell branches all over the world.
"It's her, Athena is my own daughter."
"Okay, okay, she's not it."
Dell, exasperated, quickly changed his tune, "Then why not use your daughter?"
"She is indeed the strongest, but only in the realm of video games."
Lin Lixin shook his head. This was the price he had to pay to become the strongest.
How formidable is the technological foundation of Intel's x86 architecture?
Although he has a wealth of knowledge and can design many advanced things based on architecture, it can only be considered icing on the cake.
If Athena hadn't decisively abandoned the PC market and focused on game consoles, the result would have been expensive and difficult to use, following the old path of Sony's Cell processor.
The core concept of Athena is this "h," which stands for heterogeneous, distributed multi-core computing.
However, this concept does not refer to the past practice of relying on a large number of coprocessors to achieve stronger performance.
The core concept of this heterogeneity is actually high-performance parallel computing.
The processing of large amounts of parallel data is handled by graphics cards, which excel at parallel computing, while massive multiplication and addition operations are handled by DSP signal processors with Harvard architecture...
With the high-speed clock synchronization of SDRAM, Athena can break down a complex set of tasks into appropriate parts, assign them to different parts, and finally bring them together with the help of a synchronized clock.
Meanwhile, while waiting, Athena can continue to handle other tasks. This is a key factor that allowed him to overtake others by leveraging his architectural advantages.
The limited instruction set and overly stringent environmental constraints restrict the chip's applications.
But as long as she's in her own field, she's invincible.
" Intel excels at backward compatibility and insane performance; this perpetually compatible design is the most terrifying thing."
Lin Lixin was fully aware of how terrifying this model was.
Intel's newly released 32-bit processor, the 80486, is fully compatible with all software from the previous 80386 and 80286 processors.
The instruction set will only increase, not decrease.
This kind of courage is extremely rare in this era.
This is because it means that it will be difficult for them to make significant breakthroughs in architecture with each generation of processors, and they must improve the manufacturing process as much as possible to avoid incremental upgrades.
With Microsoft's formidable software support, the software ecosystem under the Wintel lineup will only become more and more exaggerated.
Users' and businesses' software investments are protected, and hardware upgrades can be made without any obstacles...
"We can't afford to engage in a war of attrition with Intel head-on; it would be an unacceptable drain on both of us," Lin Lixin said, rubbing his chin.
His goal wasn't to completely destroy Wintel; doing so would only plunge the hard-won stabilization of the PC market back into chaos.
The consequence is that if they want to make PC games, they will have to develop and port them separately for each platform.
All we need to do is secure our own territory before Wintel achieves a monopoly.
"So you're saying we shouldn't compete with them on specifications and metrics? What else can we do? Users only care about performance."
Dell probably understood what Lin Lixin meant.
It's nothing more than using some ingenious tricks to bypass direct confrontation, just like in the past when small investments could yield big returns.
But in the realm of processors, what metric is more important than performance?
"Power consumption is ARM and Athena's biggest advantage."
Dell blinked, and after a long pause, he confirmed it again with a slight hesitation.
"Power consumption?" That's the most meaningless thing in this era.
Nobody cares about the power consumption; users are after ultimate performance.
If we could achieve even better performance, even if it consumed a few more watts, or even tens of watts more, what difference would it make?
"Making PCs isn't like making handheld consoles, Lin. Nobody's going to pay for saving power."
This wasn't just his imagination.
As a multi-purpose computer company that started with direct sales, Dell has a thorough understanding of its customer resources.
People spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy such a treasure, all with the intention of using it as a productivity tool.
Lin Lixin nodded noncommittally.
"That's how it is now, but what about next year? Five years from now? Twenty years from now?"
He turned his gaze to a closed cabinet beside him.
" Dell, are you familiar with the Asia market?"
" Asia? I've done the research. The Japan market is growing rapidly, but the overall internet penetration rate is insufficient, and the household penetration rate is almost zero. The market is closed and exclusive, and it's incompatible with European and American standards, so there's basically no value in expanding into it." Dell nodded; he was naturally familiar with this.
Just like with video games, in the PC field, Europe and America and Japan have completely different systems.
The entire Japan region widely adopts the PC-98 standard dominated by NEC, and possesses a huge local software library, making it virtually impossible for them to interfere.
Not to mention that current IBM computer standards are completely incompatible with Japanese characters.
As for the Four Asian Tigers, the situation is similar, with contract manufacturing and exports being the main sources of revenue.
However, when it comes to internal consumption, it is far from ideal.
"Yeah, that's about right, but there are actually quite a few interesting things in Japan."
Lin Lixin stood up, went to the cabinet, and opened it.
Then, he brought out a thick and heavy "box".
"This is a Toshiba T1100 computer, a souvenir from a local friend when I was on a business trip."
The 1980s and 90s were the golden age of consumer electronics.
So many wonderful things have emerged these days. This is one of the great products of the golden age.
" Intel processor, up to 512kb of memory, standard 3.5-inch 720kb floppy disk drive, 640x200 CGA resolution, and..."
Lin Lixin placed his hand on one end of the machine body, and with a gentle push, lifted the entire panel.
"A rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery with a maximum battery life of 8 hours."
Dell's eyes narrowed slightly as he stared intently at the marvel of industrial design before him.
This is... the world's first laptop computer, which is what we now call a notebook computer.