Chapter 89 Join Them, Then Defeat Them
Carly always considered herself a bold, adventurous woman. Otherwise, she wouldn't have continued expanding Xinghai after taking over, pushing each department to produce budgets, and nearly maxing out finances to buy a plot of land — aiming to start construction on a corporate campus before year-end.
After all, what kind of company dared to call itself a true Silicon Valley enterprise without its own headquarters?
As her peers joked, Carly always danced right on the edge of financial disaster.
But when she saw the acquisition plan Xi Xiaoding sent over, she realized her own "adventurous spirit" was nothing in comparison.
Buying a company that had just been sued by Intel?
That wasn't bold — it was suicidal!
"No, Xi! We have no money, and the risk is way too high," Carly shook her head almost instantly, not even needing to think about it. She knew Xi Xiaoding and Su Yuanshan had a special relationship, but now that Su Yuanshan had entrusted Xinghai to her, she had to be responsible for the company.
She wouldn't even entertain such a reckless idea.
"Let's not talk about money yet," Xi Xiaoding said calmly. "Let's first find out if Cyrix is willing to sell, and if they are, whether we can buy them — and what the potential gains would be if we do."
Carly gave him a suspicious look but eventually nodded: "So you mean we treat it as a mock acquisition analysis, right? Fine, let's see."
She lowered her head and started reviewing the document carefully.
The document, of course, was originally drafted by Su Yuanshan, then edited and finalized by Xi Xiaoding before being handed over.
Meanwhile, Xi poured coffee for both of them and dragged a chair across from her, watching quietly.
He noticed Carly's frown deepening, her lips tightening into a line — and the corners of his mouth curled slightly upward.
In the two months they had worked together, Xi had learned that the deeper Carly furrowed her brows and pressed her lips together, the more seriously she was thinking.
"Convincing them to sell won't be a problem," Carly finally said, looking up at Xi, her expression more relaxed. "You know Klaus, right?"
Klaus was one of Cyrix's founders and currently its CEO.
Xi nodded: "He's an old partner. He's visited a few times."
Carly nodded as well: "Klaus has been under enormous pressure lately. If a well-funded company offered him a way out, he'd definitely be willing to make concessions. After all, their CPUs are barely launched, and now they're being sued by Intel — that's a huge blow to customer confidence."
Xi smiled: "Then back to us — legally speaking, can Xinghai actually complete such an acquisition?"
Carly hesitated for a long time before shaking her head: "It would be difficult. Professor Su is the most charismatic Chinese scholar I've ever met, and his son is a miracle worker. But the reality is, Xinghai's corporate structure — both offshore and here — classifies it as foreign capital. If we try to acquire Cyrix, it would be treated as a cross-border acquisition."
Xi had guessed that would be the answer. He smiled bitterly: "It's not bad enough to alarm the Department of Commerce, right?"
"Not necessarily," Carly shook her head and smiled. "As long as Xinghai restructures its equity, brings in enough local capital, and promises an eventual IPO, it should be doable. But you're not seriously planning to push Young Su to approve all this, are you?"
Xi laughed: "Carly, if Su really agrees — even adjusting Xinghai's shareholding structure — would you support it?"
Carly froze, her eyes narrowing sharply at him.
This was dangerous ground — discussing such massive decisions behind the real boss's back was a major taboo.
Xi quickly explained:
"Carly, this came up casually during a conversation with Su. I mentioned the lawsuits as a joke and half-jokingly suggested buying Cyrix. He got interested and asked me to draft a preliminary plan for you to review. If you approve, we'll formalize it. As for the money... well, if we adjust our equity, funding wouldn't be a problem anymore, right?"
Carly finally relaxed.
So Young Su really was a good boss after all.
She buried herself back into the document. Having lived and fought in Silicon Valley for so long, she knew exactly what Intel was like — getting x86 authorization from them through normal channels was a complete fantasy.
Buying Cyrix would mean betting on the x86 architecture.
But was x86 really still the right horse to back?
In the 1980s, when Microsoft and Intel were still underdogs, they had teamed up to form the "Wintel" alliance to counter Apple. With the surge of Windows 3.1 this year, Intel's position had skyrocketed, and the x86 architecture seemed unstoppable.
However, wherever there's a market, there's a war.
As Wintel grew increasingly domineering, Apple, Motorola, and even IBM — ironically the very company that had nurtured Wintel's rise — formed the PowerPC Alliance, hoping to use Apple's OS plus Motorola processors to counter Microsoft's OS plus Intel CPUs.
Now both alliances had their own followers. On the surface, it was just intense competition, but underneath, it was a brutal, bloody fight. Ironically, it was also fueling the rapid popularization of personal computers.
"You really believe in the Windows+x86 combo?" Carly asked Xi.
"Our company's PCs all run Windows," Xi replied calmly.
Carly tapped her finger lightly on the desk, her lips pressed into a thin line: "We have to consider that.
If we acquire Cyrix, we'll officially join the x86 camp. But remember — just because you're in the same camp doesn't make Intel and AMD allies."
"Frankly, I don't fully trust Klaus's ability. Even if Cyrix wins or settles and gets licensing, that doesn't mean Klaus can design CPUs that keep pace with Intel. Look, the CPU they launched this year is basically a 386 — Intel released that seven years ago."
"You're forgetting Yuanchip," Xi said quietly, locking eyes with her. "You've seen YX01. But Yuanchip deliberately chose a different path, avoiding the x86 vs PowerPC battlefield. Otherwise, with open-source Linux and the YX architecture, we could have launched our own machine to fight in the desktop PC war."
Carly gasped sharply.
She had actually forgotten about the miracle boy and Yuanchip.
"So you mean," she said slowly, "in this preliminary plan, all the future technical advantages you mention are based on support from Yuanchip?"
"Exactly. And I've even been conservative in my estimates," Xi said calmly — silently thinking that Carly had no idea how much Su Yuanshan coveted the x86 instruction set.
"Good." Carly's eyes narrowed into delighted crescents, not caring one bit about the crow's feet that appeared.
With a bold wave of her hand, she said:
"Then I agree! Join them — and then defeat them!"
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