Chapter 90 First, Abandon Illusions
When the official reply from Xinghai arrived — especially after Xi Xiaoding told Su Yuanshan about Carly's bold declaration — Su Yuanshan finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The battle between Wintel and PowerPC seemed undecided on the surface, but Su Yuanshan knew exactly how it would end — next year, Pentium would dominate. Two years later, Windows 95 would explode onto the scene, and the PowerPC alliance would collapse completely. Apple would lose so badly it nearly lost its underwear — lucky for them, that man would return to lead a miraculous turnaround and create a new legend.
If Yuanchip had been a few times stronger at this moment, and if Su Yuanshan were stubborn enough, they could have joined this architecture and ecosystem war, creating a chaotic three-way battle in the Western market.
But now, Yuanchip could only side with the eventual victor — the tide of history flows relentlessly, those who go with it prosper, those who oppose it perish.
The victory of Wintel was inevitable.
Thus, Su Yuanshan was determined to seize x86 for himself.
Never forget — he had once been an Intel engineer.
Yet even with this determination, he had to consider Carly's feelings.
She was the best business operator Yuanchip had. To acquire Cyrix, they needed her not just willing, but enthusiastic.
...
"You guys start the initial contact. We must fully leverage Yuanchip's dominant position in China, making Cyrix understand that if they join us, the entire Chinese market — and even Southeast Asia — would be theirs for the taking," Su Yuanshan said, then paused and smiled sheepishly. "Anyway, blow all the smoke you need. Whether they believe it or not, that's their problem."
Xi Xiaoding was laughing nonstop over the phone.
Right now, the overwhelming majority of the global personal computer market was in developed countries, especially the U.S. Even if Cyrix's chips were cheap, it was unrealistic to expect China to become their main battlefield.
To put things in perspective:
More than half of this year was already over, and China's total PC sales hadn't even reached 150,000 units — most of them imported Compaq and AST (Hongzhi) models.
Inspur was focused on servers, Great Wall, despite ordering some high-end 486s from Yuanchip, still mostly churned out low-end 386s.
Ironically, it was Huànxiǎng (Fantasy) that was starting to get ambitious, proposing a new "Gödébákè" home computer concept to enter the personal computer market.
Even if sales doubled next year, it would barely hit 500,000 to 600,000 units.
Unless Yuanchip could somehow convince the state to mandate exclusive use of Cyrix CPUs, the amount of market Cyrix could realistically capture in China was tiny.
"Carly calmed down and analyzed everything carefully," Xi Xiaoding said over the line. "Her main concern is technology. She worries Yuanchip hasn't accumulated enough technical depth yet."
"Tell her not to worry about that," Su Yuanshan chuckled.
"I've been eyeing x86 for a long time. Start the contact work. When the time is right, I'll fly over and show them what real tech looks like."
"Alright then! I'm hanging up. I still need to handle a CRM bug — our customer management software has already been adopted by AT&T, several of the Baby Bells, and TI is on board too. We're about to start negotiations with Microsoft — do you think we should approach our EDA rivals too?"
Su Yuanshan burst out laughing: "Go ahead. But you better buy the sales team a dozen life insurance policies first."
After hanging up, Zhou Xiaohui just finished printing the documents from the other side.
Su Yuanshan picked them up and walked into Chen Jing's office.
Chen Jing had returned two days later than Professor Su Xinghe — she had stayed behind in the Special Economic Zone to inspect the two factories' progress.
After nearly four months of construction, both factories' cleanrooms were complete. Next came equipment delivery and installation.
The VCD factory's cleanroom was even larger than the motherboard factory's, capable of producing at least six million VCD PCBs per year.
Chen Jing was stunned — was the VCD market really that big?
Only later did she learn that the excess capacity was intended to serve the countless small electronics factories in the area.
Of course, she didn't know that Su Yuanshan's real plan was for the VCD factory to take root firmly in the SEZ and eventually go head-to-head with Foxconn, which had entered a few years earlier.
Right now, Chen Jing was extremely busy, coordinating the massive amount of materials both factories would need.
She had the phone clamped between her ear and shoulder, scribbling furiously with her right hand.
"Yes, settle the remaining balance at once. Tell them not to worry. SOYO is an old friend, Yuanchip is a rising giant — do they really think we'd stiff them over materials money?"
Su Yuanshan leaned against the wall, idly rolling the document into a cylinder, and glanced sideways at her handwriting — after realizing her traditional characters were illegible to others, Chen Jing had painstakingly learned simplified script.
Now her handwriting was fast, neat, and efficient.
When she hung up, Su Yuanshan grinned: "We're not short on money, you know."
Chen Jing gave him a slight sideways glance: "No matter how rich you are, you must always negotiate for better payment terms. That's a basic rule."
"…Actually, I just wanted to show off that we're rich," Su Yuanshan chuckled, handing her the file. "Xinghai is preparing to acquire Cyrix. I've approved it."
Chen Jing looked at him in surprise, then quickly focused on the document, scanning it.
Resting her chin on her hand, she said puzzled: "Xinghai in Silicon Valley is under the Cayman company — it's technically under your name. But I'm a vice president of Yuanchip, not Xinghai. It's not really within my jurisdiction, right?"
"If you want, I'll appoint you immediately," Su Yuanshan teased.
Chen Jing immediately shook her head:
"Don't you dare. You've already piled too much work on me — I still can't believe you've built factories without hiring a proper materials manager."
"If you hadn't come, I would've pulled someone from Zhongxin. But now that you're here... hehehe..."
Su Yuanshan laughed shamelessly, then sat on her desk and said seriously:
"Even if you're not directly in charge of Xinghai, the two companies are deeply interconnected. One move affects the other."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Design and organize a complete branded PC solution — using Cyrix processors and SOYO motherboards."
Chen Jing's eyes widened, her mouth slightly open in disbelief.
"You've got to be kidding me.
You keep preaching that industries will get more specialized, and now you're contradicting yourself?"
She looked at him, baffled:
"Look at Intel. They're much stronger, yet they don't make PCs themselves. Manufacturing PCs is low-margin, complicated, and worse — it alienates your partners."
"Who said I want to manufacture PCs?" Su Yuanshan smiled slyly.
"Are you joking?"
"We just create the solution, then let others manufacture it. We support one company, supply them with components and technical guidance — but no direct sales or after-sales responsibilities."
"In short, we could set up a subsidiary under Zhongxin to handle complete PCs, using Cyrix CPUs and SOYO boards. If it eventually becomes big enough to threaten partnerships, we can always spin it off."
"And most importantly — this proposal is mainly to impress Cyrix."
Chen Jing: "..."
Su Yuanshan chuckled mischievously.
Intel didn't manufacture PCs because they controlled the ecosystem.
But Yuanchip, dealing with CPUs at this stage, could only build the industry chain itself.
Different national conditions, okay?
The domestic PC market was enormous — it kept countless small factories alive.
Only a fool wouldn't want a slice.
The first goal was clear:
First, make everyone abandon their illusions.
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