American History 1988
Chapter 402 - 391: Who is strangling whose neck?

Chapter 402: Chapter 391: Who is strangling whose neck?

"Steven, you know where Microsoft’s strengths lie. From personal PCs to server workstations, we have a uniform platform system.

It’s only a matter of time before the Windows NT workstation leads the market, developers willing to design applications for us could line up all the way to Hawaii."

Responsible for Microsoft’s server business, Glass was in Intel’s office, excitedly waving his hands.

The Windows system had already captured over 90% of the global market, no one could threaten them, no one!

"So Steven..." Glass’s gaze was meaningful, "Microsoft is Intel’s most important partner.

Those destined to be weeded out of the market as failures, they aren’t worth Intel’s effort."

Steven McGeady’s brow furrowed slightly, "Glass, we respect each partner.

Providing them with excellent server chips is Intel’s mission, and that includes Microsoft."

As Intel’s vice president, McGeady was very put off by Glass’s arrogant tone.

Microsoft’s operating system indeed had a unique position in the market, but those actually working closely with Intel were the major computer manufacturers.

They were Intel’s major clients, and although Microsoft was starting to enter the server and workstation market, its scale was clearly insufficient to change anything.

"Steven, just like I said earlier." Glass decided to be more straightforward, "It is precisely because of Microsoft’s pivotal force in the computer market that Intel can be the dominator of the semiconductor market."

There is not no relationship between operating systems and chips, CPU architecture is often discussed, such as Intel’s prevailing X86 architecture now.

It is the core of executing various instructions, and the operating system is the side issuing those instructions.

Thus, the two complement and cooperate with each other, inseparable from one another.

In the 80s, to contend with IBM’s dominance in chips and systems, Microsoft and Intel formed the Wintel alliance.

The current Windows system is based on the X86 architecture, so when Microsoft’s system sells well, it reflects back in the supply chain, and Intel’s business also does better.

And since Microsoft is the one facing the consumer end, it significantly influences the entire supply chain more than Intel.

Additionally, with the Windows95 system having already sold forty to fifty million units by now, it was why Glass appeared somewhat dominant in front of McGeady.

"So..." Intel’s McGeady shrugged, "what does Microsoft demand?"

"Simple," Glass leaned in a bit closer, "Microsoft must enjoy superior treatment here at Intel, and when necessary our competitors need to take a back seat.

For instance, the instruction set services provided to Sun Microsystems and the Source Code company shouldn’t be better than our Windows NT."

McGeady’s expression changed, "Sorry, Glass, we can’t do that. It goes against Intel’s original intention and would bring unnecessary trouble."

Glass’s foolishness astonished McGeady, such overtly unconventional competitive tactics would only anger the Federal Trade Commission.

Had they forgotten that the Silicon Valley giants were initiating antitrust suits against them?

Regardless of the purpose, McGeady wouldn’t agree to such actions.

Intel had only started entering the server chip field last year, unlike the personal computer market, here it was definitely a newcomer.

In the server chip market before 1995, RISC architecture processors ruled supreme.

Representative products included IBM’s Power, DEC’s Alpha, MIPS Technologies’ MIPS, and HP’s PA-RISC processors, among others.

Though these processors were high-performance and stable, they were too expensive.

Thus, early servers were high-end, their prices ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of US Dollars, making it difficult to become widespread on the market.

However, RISC architecture processors remained the mainstream choice for major server companies, even today they still held about 78% of the server market share.

But as the internet wave arrived, the demand for servers started to surge, and the market urgently needed low-cost budget servers.

That was when Intel seized the opportunity and launched their own Pentium Pro Server Chip.

It still adopted the X86 architecture, and though it might not have the maturity of performance as the RISC architecture, it excelled in being cost-effective.

Having the product, they naturally needed to promote it to the market. Traditional server manufacturers found it difficult to alter their series of products designed based on RISC architecture.

That was when web servers came into Intel’s sight, this kind of server specifically designed for web service.

Not only did it have broad market prospects, but it had also just emerged a couple of years ago.

This server, designed based on new demand, usually didn’t have a fixed structure on either the architecture or the configuration.

Therefore, changing the design was no difficult task, such as switching the previous architecture system to X86.

Intel believed this was the direction for their server chip breakthrough, and looking over the entire web server market, who were the top players?

The answer was the Source Code and Sun Microsystems, who controlled about 80% of the web server order share on the market.

Alright, the target was clear, they were Intel’s prospects.

However, after careful consideration, McGeady and his team decided to focus on the Source Code company first.

The reason was simple, because during their background investigations, they found that this company seemed to be Dean’s business.

Upon learning this, Andy Grove excitedly called Dean.

Five minutes later, Intel had aspired the order from the Source Code company.

Joking aside, Dean owned 4.8% of Intel, do they not understand the concept of keeping the benefits within their own field?

Since then, the cooperation between Source Code and Intel had been seamless.

Even under Dean’s introduction, Sun Microsystems also placed some orders with Intel.

But what was happening now? Microsoft’s man was standing in front of Intel’s vice president, demanding the latter deliberately set obstacles for these two major customers.

McGeady was both shocked and angry, the shameless demeanor of the Seattle man disgusted him.

They didn’t take Netscape’s antitrust application seriously at all, as if it were just a joke.

"Listen, Steven," Glass said impatiently to McGeady, "Microsoft’s competitors never end well.

Does Netscape know? We’re cutting off their air supply until they suffocate!"

Glass raised his palm and slashed down fiercely, the threat on his face obvious.

McGeady put down his pen, "I need to report this to Andy, I can’t decide anything."

"I hope you can provide a satisfactory response," Glass said as he left with his people.

Strangling Netscape’s throat? McGeady’s eyes twinkled, Microsoft’s actions were becoming increasingly dangerous.

...

"Mike, all data exchange centers in North America need updates and maintenance tonight, got the notice?"

"Yeah~, a total of 12 exchange centers, I’ve already emailed them in advance."

Mike was a technical maintenance worker for the CIX Alliance, and his workplace was the central server center in California within the alliance.

After several years of development, the CIX Alliance now had over a hundred ISP operators.

The data centers originally planned for handling each other’s information exchanges had also been established in 12 locations.

These data centers were spread across various regions of the United States, ensuring that over thirty million internet users could freely surf the web.

But like most companies’ machine rooms, data centers also needed regular upgrades and maintenance.

Mike was responsible for such work. The upgrade programs from the technical team would first come to him.

He would then package these programs in order and send them to the 12 data centers below.

With each upgrade, the data centers would shut down for updates. But to avoid affecting internet users, the updates were done one by one.

For example, when the Virginia data center shut down for updates, the local network service was temporarily managed by the neighboring New York data center.

When New York updated, they would switch back. According to this pattern, they could achieve updates without shutting down the data centers.

After confirming the last received program package was okay, Mike started sending the data packages to the administrators of various data centers.

He could see the update progress of each center on his terminal at the central server, and soon the indicator light for Virginia turned green.

After confirming an OK reply, Mike sent the command to New York’s data center, where the corresponding indicator light immediately turned yellow.

This indicated that the local data center was executing the command, while on Mike’s computer screen, a progress bar was synchronizing the update.

This kind of server maintenance was generally scheduled in the dead of night when most people were asleep and the server’s occupancy was at its lowest point of the day.

Even if there were any problems during the update and maintenance, like server crashes or excessive data delays, this could minimize the damage.

Thus, while North America was enshrouded in the quiet of nightfall, Mike was upgrading and maintaining each data center one by one.

His central server also needed updating, but that had to wait until the other 12 data centers were completed.

By normal estimates, that time would be around midnight when everyone was resting.

Alas, another sleepless night, Mike stretched.

Perhaps he was the only one not asleep, he thought aimlessly as he looked at the twinkling lights outside the window.

Actually, he was far from the only one awake; Tony in Texas was also awake.

Although it was past one o’clock in the morning, Tony was still intently staring at his computer screen.

He was a comic book fan, previously enjoying reading his favorite comics in bookstores or libraries.

He also had a collection of many famous comic journals in his bedroom.

But since the internet explosion, many comic creators began updating their works on websites.

Thus, to enjoy his favorite comics at the first opportunity, Tony had recently acquired a new computer.

Initially, he wasn’t accustomed to browsing web pages, but soon the comment section below the comics drew him in.

Previously with print books, he could only read them alone, and even at exciting plot points, he could only mutter to himself, "Holy Shit!"

But now it was different, Tony discovered many fellow comic fans here.

They could discuss the plot together in the comment section, argue, and urge updates together.

Tony loved this feeling; he was hopelessly addicted to the internet.

However, to not disturb the home phone usage, he usually began dialing in only after nightfall, then roamed the internet world.

Additionally, browsing comics online at night had another benefit: the loading speed was much faster.

Tony savored the page he had just finished, and habitually clicked on the next page.

Based on past experience, the page would typically load in about two or three seconds.

However, this time, the small hourglass beside the cursor kept spinning round and round for a long time without any activity.

Huh, what’s happening? Tony was a bit puzzled.

Just as he was about to click the "Next Page" button again, pop, the webpage background turned completely white.

"Sorry, the current webpage has crashed, please check your network connection."

Tony instinctively shifted his gaze to the bottom-right corner of the screen, the Toktok squirrel icon was clearly lit.

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