Chapter 550 Sun Micro
In fact, Xu Liang did not know that George W. Bush would meet with him.
So the original plan was to, after locking in Powell’s favor, take advantage of the upcoming fundraising opportunity of the Pacific No. 1 Fund to cash out the previous favor and seek benefits for himself.
Now a George W. Bush suddenly pops up, and Xu Liang doesn’t want to wait any longer.
"Lu Hui, please print out a copy of Hynix's information and send it to the White House later."
"Yes."
Back at the hotel, Xu Liang took out his mobile phone and called Lu Xiaobo, president of Hongmeng North America.
“Mr. US dollars, of which 1.87 billion US dollars of debt will be paid in cash. As long as some details are completed, we can sign a formal contract if you agree.”
"It's done well." Xu Liang changed the subject, "I heard that Oracle is currently in contact with Sun Microsystems?"
As the main enemy, Hongmeng's North American subsidiary has always been paying close attention to Oracle.
"We are in contact. However, Sun Microsystems is not firm on whether to sell itself to Oracle. It is estimated that this acquisition will not come to fruition in a while."
Xu Liang nodded, He was slightly uninterested in the sun.
This company, which mainly focuses on workstations and small and medium-sized databases, will have a smaller and smaller market in the face of increasingly powerful personal computers and the era of cloud computing and big data that will soon be brought about.
The only valuable thing of Sun Micro is the Java programming language, StarOffice office software, and ‘Solaris’ developed based on the Unix operating system.
The software developed by Sun Micro is not inferior to Microsoft in terms of technology.
Even the 'Solaris' operating system can make better use of computer resources than Windows NT in terms of compatibility, especially when the computer system is huge and the number of users increases hugely.
After Microsoft bought Hotmail in 1997, it spent a lot of effort to transplant the latter's email service system from its two original Unix operating systems to Microsoft's own Windows NT, but it didn't work. success?
Because it is not convenient for WindowsNT to manage so many servers and users.
However, Microsoft must do this, otherwise it will not be able to convince enterprise customers to buy its own operating system.
As a result, Microsoft spent more effort and finally ported Hotmail to Windows 2000, a later version of NT. But it is said that some of these functions are still performed by Unix.
Sun Microsystems' version of Unix, Solaris, is the most reliable and complete of all commercial versions.
The battle between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft is actually a battle over enterprise-level operating systems.
Unfortunately, Sun Microsystems did not even see the importance of a decisive operating system battle for a long time, so the competition between Sun and Microsoft lost the first round before it even started.
It wasn't that Sun Microsystems' leadership was incompetent, but that its hardware business was too profitable.
Sun Micro's workstations cost tens of thousands of dollars each and servers cost one hundred thousand dollars, but they are much cheaper than DEC's minicomputers and IBM's mainframes.
Due to the rise of the Internet in the late 1990s, although Sun's small and medium-sized enterprise market share was continuously eroded by the Microsoft/Intel alliance, it also continued to occupy the original DEC and HP minicomputer markets and had sufficient Virgin land can be developed.
As a result, its overall business is still expanding.
This is very much like the Kingdom of Spain in the sixteenth century. Although its Invincible Fleet has been defeated by the British and lost its status as maritime hegemony, there are still many virgin lands in the world that can be colonized, supporting this Sea Lao Er prospered for two centuries.
It was not until the nineteenth century that there were no more colonies to develop in the world, and the crisis that Spain had laid in its early days did not manifest itself.
Of course, decline came faster than prosperity. In a short period of time, Spain fell from a rich country in Europe to a poor country. So does Sun Microsystems.
From 1986 to 2001, Sun Microsystems' revenue increased from US$210 million to US$18.3 billion, with an average growth rate of 36% per year, which has been maintained for fifteen consecutive years. Such rapid development.
Only Microsoft, Intel and Cisco have ever done it.
In this situation, few people can calmly see the crisis behind the rapid development.
Sun Microsystems was unconsciously satisfied with pinching the soft persimmons of SGI, DEC and HP, and was obsessed with its victory in the hardware market, ignoring the threat from Microsoft.
But when the Internet bubble burst in 2000, its hardware business, mainly servers and workstations, took a sharp turn.
In fiscal year 2002, its turnover dropped by 30% from the previous year, and its profit fell from US$900 million in the previous year to a loss of US$500 million.
Sun Microsystems could not find a stable source of profit and new growth points. Since then, Sun Microsystems has been in decline, from the most valuable company in Silicon Valley to the company with the lowest per capita market capitalization.
That's a bit far.
"Xiaobo, please pay more attention to the negotiations between Oracle and Sun Micro. If Oracle initiates a formal acquisition of Sun Micro, remember to notify me as soon as possible."
"Yes. "
"Also, you send someone to contact Hasbro and find a way to buy the movie adaptation rights of "Transformers"."
Now MGM. The acquisition is about to be finalized, and it’s time to arrange the next shooting plan.
"Understood."
"Also, I really like the novel "The Da Vinci Code" by American writer Dan Brown, and I'm trying to buy the right to adapt it as a movie." Xu Liang explained.
Actually, he has more movie shooting plans in mind than these two, but things have to be done one by one, and he needs to get the rights to the two movies first.
After explaining Lu Xiaobo, Xu Liang hung up the phone.
Picked up the table and read the information on Shanghai Lux.
Hynix was not originally called ‘Hynix’, but ‘Modern Electronics’.
In 2001, because Hyundai Electronics was split from Hyundai Group, the company was renamed Hynix.
In the same year, Micron acquired the memory division of Texas Instruments.
With the end of the consolidation of the memory industry from 1999 to 2001, Samsung, Micron, Hynix, and Infineon control nearly 80% of the global DRAM market share.
Hynix occupies 19.36% of the global market, which is not much different from Samsung, which ranks first at 23%.
However, at this time, competition in the DRAM market had become fierce, and product prices were close to production costs. Later, the Internet bubble burst and DRAM prices collapsed.
While DRAM capacity demand increased by 56% in 2001, DRAM prices dropped by 46%. The DRAM market in 2001 is expected to be only US$23.8 billion, a decrease of 18% compared to 2000.
Under such market conditions, Hynix lost US$2.5 billion, was unable to repay its loans, and its asset-liability ratio was as high as 206%.
Seeing this, Xu Liang frowned.
Now Hynix’s losses have climbed to US$16.5 billion.
This number is too huge.
(End of this chapter)