Chapter 445: Amazon

The two-hour press conference officially ended at noon.

Afterward, the Igrit Corporation also prepared a reception at the nearby Marriott Hotel. Of course, it was impossible for all over two thousand guests and audience members to attend; only about two hundred guests received invitations this time.

In the afternoon, there was still a work schedule to follow, and Simon Westeros did not leave San Francisco immediately after the conference. Instead, he and a group of executives from the Westeros system rushed to the Marriott Hotel.

"The White House is preparing to establish an Office of Technology Policy, Simon. They should have sent you an invitation, right?"

In the bustling hall of the reception.

Simon gathered with James Lebould, Bill Gates, and Tim Berners-Lee, among others, to discuss some recent moves by Washington.

Hearing his classmate's question, Simon nodded and gestured to Tim Berners-Lee, saying, "Tim will serve as an advisor in this office."

Although the US stock market began to recover in the first half of the year, the US economic recession could not be immediately reversed. The domestic real estate market was still a mess, the unemployment rate continued to rise, and the proportion of impoverished people in the United States had reached a twenty-year high.

The glory of war could not be eaten.

Everyone sighed at the bravery displayed by the US military in the Gulf War at the beginning of the year. As the economic environment continued to deteriorate, the Bush administration's reliance on the glory gained from the Gulf War was being continuously eroded, and its approval rating continued to decline.

To recover the rapidly declining approval rate, the White House had to shift more attention to domestic issues.

The IPOs of Cisco and America Online quickly turned the two companies into corporate giants with market values in the billions. The trend of the internet industry's explosion was becoming increasingly apparent.

The rapid development of emerging industries undoubtedly meant more employment and domestic economic growth. The two newly listed tech companies just proved this point. Additionally, the reminder from Senator Al Gore's "Information Superhighway Act" prompted the White House to quickly start focusing on the internet industry and look to establish an office specifically for this area.

Simon had previously received an invitation from the White House to serve as an advisor to this Office of Technology Policy. Naturally, he didn't have the time, and for political reasons, it wasn't quite suitable for him to do so, thus he recommended Tim Berners-Lee.

Tim Berners-Lee, the CEO of Igrit Corporation, was the most crucial point, being British and not likely to get involved in too many political biases.

The CEOs of Cisco and America Online, John Chambers and Steve Case, respectively, politely declined the advisory title, citing busy work schedules.

Serving as an advisor to the Bush administration's Office of Technology Policy could definitely have a crucial impact on the White House's upcoming policies in the new tech sector.

However, if nothing unexpected happened, Bush's time in office was only left with one year.

Moreover, since he had already made his bets, even if this timeline truly had an anomaly, Simon could not ignore his own position for short-term benefits.

After all, one must have some stance.

Bill Gates certainly couldn't know about Simon's arrangements. Hearing that Tim Berners-Lee would serve as an advisor to this office, and Simon himself had not agreed, he made up his mind to decline the advisory title.

Deep down, his classmate saw himself as being on the same level as Simon.

After chatting for a while, Intel's CEO, Andy Grove, came over to greet them and brought up another matter: "Simon, what do you think of the recently established AIM alliance by Apple, IBM, and Motorola?"

The AIM Alliance, named after the initials of Apple, IBM, and Motorola, was primarily to promote the long-prepared PowerPC architecture CPU processors developed by the three companies.

PowerPC was a type of Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture, corresponding to Intel's x86 Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) architecture.

The future smartphone era's ARM architecture processors also belonged to the RISC type.

To put it in more popular terms, the difference between RISC and CISC was like that between a wild boar and an elephant, basically belonging to two different 'species'.

Intel later tried to layout mobile-end chips, and the fundamental reason why it repeatedly failed was here; putting an elephant in a wild boar cage, even a newly born elephant, would appear too 'huge'.

CISC possessed strong computational capabilities, which were more suitable for mainframes or even supercomputers during this era.

RISC had weaker computational capabilities. Before the internet era, RISC was enough to meet the computational needs of personal computers.

The three giants established the AIM Alliance to promote the PowerPC architecture and essentially to counter the rapidly rising Wintel alliance of Microsoft and Intel.

Although Intel's chips in this era, even the latest 486 processors, had a computing frequency of

 only 50MHz, which was incomparable to processors over 5GHz many years later, throughout the 1980s, most PCs could only perform simple text processing operations. Graphic user interfaces had not yet reached the widespread level of later years, so the few tens of MHz computing frequency of Intel processors was still excessive relative to user needs, and the prices were also too expensive.

The PowerPC architecture processors promoted by the AIM Alliance precisely 'made up' for the two 'shortcomings' of excessive performance and high price of Intel chips.

However, if it were ten years ago, the AIM Alliance might have been able to succeed against the Wintel alliance.

Now, with the arrival of the internet era, personal computers were evolving from simple text applications to multimedia directions like images, sound, and even video. The demand for PC performance from users would only increase, and the result of the AIM Alliance promoting the PowerPC architecture based on RISC at this time could be imagined.

In the original timeline, Apple stuck with the PowerPC architecture until 2005, during which this pioneering personal computer giant continuously declined, and Jobs eventually had to turn back to Intel's new chips.

Simon did not directly answer Andy Grove's question but looked at him and his classmate, asking, "Have you seen the information on that Canadian company, ATI?"

ATI was a display chip development company established in 1985.

Many years later, anyone slightly familiar with computers and fond of gaming would know about A cards and N cards, where A cards were produced by ATI.

Now, the company producing N cards, NVIDIA, had not yet been established, but ATI already had decent technical accumulation. A month ago, after seeing the information on this company, Simon instructed James Lebould to make contact with ATI.

Graphics card chips had already appeared in the early 1980s, and professional graphics workstations were equipped with graphics card units.

However, graphics cards of this era had not yet reached the consumer level suitable for ordinary PCs, mainly because there was no such necessity before the 1990s.

With the arrival of the internet era, having outstanding multimedia functions on a computer required PC-level graphics cards to be essential.

Andy Grove and Bill Gates both nodded.

ATI had already launched a relatively successful professional-level graphics card chip in 1987 and was now one of the important suppliers of 2D and 3D graphics card chips in the industry.

Simon continued, "In the past, some people always thought that Intel CPUs were overperforming, but I believe that any user who has come into contact with the internet no longer thinks so. As personal computers' demand for multimedia functions like images, sound, and videos increases, users' requirements for computer performance will also rapidly rise. Therefore, I don't think the AIM Alliance going against the trend will have any good results."

Bill Gates subconsciously asked, "Simon, what does this have to do with ATI?"

"Of course, I believe that even Intel's CPUs will gradually be unable to meet users' performance needs, and graphics card chips can make up for the deficiencies of CPUs in multimedia aspects. Conveniently, ATI is developing PC-level graphics card chips and is expected to have products by early next year. Westeros Corporation has already invested 50 million dollars to obtain 25% of this company's shares. Next, I hope Microsoft and Intel can together promote the application of consumer-level graphics cards."

Simon had already mentioned these things in the information given to the two men.

He also specifically analyzed the demand trend for PC-level graphics cards, but Bill Gates and Andy Grove did not have Simon's prophetic advantage and thus had not yet reacted in time.

Of course, there are certainly other reasons as well.

Neither Microsoft nor Intel certainly wanted Simon to interfere too much in their company affairs.

Noticing the subtle changes in the expressions on Bill Gates and Andy Grove's faces, Simon smiled and said, "So, Westeros Corporation only bought 25% of ATI's shares, purely to promote the research and development of PC-level graphics card chips. You two can continue to contact this company. ATI has not yet gone public, and Microsoft and Intel can decide for themselves whether to invest in this company. I believe the future market size of graphics card chips will not be much less than that of CPU chips. In fact, I recommend that Intel could buy out this company completely. Andy, if you do so, Westeros Corporation's 25% stake can be transferred to you at the original price."

Hearing Simon say that the future market size of graphics card chips would not be much less than that of CPU chips, Bill Gates and Andy Grove couldn't help but look at each other, finally taking it seriously.

They did not doubt Westeros's foresight.

Simon actually did not know the later market size of GPU chips, but the importance of GPU chips in both the PC era and the smartphone era in the future was unquestionable. Investing in this industry now definitely had broad prospects.

Additionally, ATI, already possessing sufficient technical

 accumulation, if it could gain the support of the two giants, Microsoft and Intel, it was unlikely to be overtaken by NVIDIA, which would emerge later.

Of course, Simon did not plan to put all his eggs in one basket.

Besides ATI, Westeros Corporation was also contacting other graphics card chip companies recently, but these companies did not have as profound an accumulation as ATI, and it was unlikely they would launch PC-level graphics card chips within two or three years. Only ATI could reach this goal by early next year.

However, to promote PC-level chip development, corresponding OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) support was essential.

Microsoft and Intel had strong influence in front of OEM manufacturers like Compaq, HP, and Dell. If ATI was affiliated with these two companies, promoting PC-level graphics card chips would be much more efficient.

Bill Gates and Andy Grove understood that although Simon was discussing this with them in an advisory tone, this young man had clearly made up some ideas. If the two did not cooperate, Westeros Corporation might have to formally propose related motions at the board meetings of the two companies as a major shareholder.

Whether it was Bill Gates or Andy Grove, both founders of Microsoft and Intel, of course, did not want outsiders meddling in their companies, but neither were the kind who could not accept correct advice.

They solemnly promised to seriously discuss this matter later, and the group started talking about other things.

The midday reception could not last too long. By one o'clock in the afternoon, guests began to leave one after another.

Simon saw off Andy Grove and his classmate and returned to the reception hall. Claire Gain, who had not found an opportunity to greet him earlier, came over with a petite girl by her side, another Jennifer, the little girl who had rushed onto the stage at Madonna's concert back then, who was now studying computer science at Stanford University, Jennifer Brei.

After greeting Claire, Simon looked at the underage-looking young girl beside her, feeling an urge to pat her head, and smiled, "Jennifer, how have you been lately?"

Perhaps it's a woman's innate sixth sense, but Jennifer cutely shrank her neck, her beautiful eyes carrying a faint expectation.

Moreover, the little girl seemed less constrained in front of Simon, as if she had known him for a long time like a close friend, and spoke with some familiarity, "I've been helping Claire with some things."

Claire explained, "Jennifer has been acting as my assistant lately, just the right opportunity to get some practice."

Simon glanced at Claire, then turned to the young girl, "Don't you need to attend classes?"

Seeing Simon's smile seemed to recede a bit, Jennifer Brei quickly shook her head, "No, it's all during my free time."

Simon didn't actually hold a belief that academics were supremely important, it was just a casual question. Sensing the girl's nervousness, he returned to smiling, "Make sure to manage your time well. Although I don't think college courses are that important, you still need to learn what's necessary."

Jennifer Brei immediately nodded like a pecking chicken, "I will."

I really want to pat her head.

Then, the young girl in front of him shrank her neck again.

As if she had already been patted.

Noticing these details, Claire's lips curved into a smile.

After chatting briefly and seeing that it was almost time, Simon reunited with a few Igrit executives and left the Marriott Hotel together.

The reception in the hall did not end immediately. Amidst a large crowd, Claire took Jennifer Brei back to the hall, looked at the girl for a few moments, and raised her hand to ruffle the young girl's beautiful blonde hair.

After Claire ruffled her hair and let go, Jennifer Brei blinked, looking puzzled, "Claire, what's wrong?"

Claire pinched the girl's tender cheek and smiled, "Little fairy."

Her disguise unveiled, Jennifer Brei no longer pretended, and while glancing in the direction Simon had left and surveying her surroundings, she suddenly asked in a low voice, "Claire, have you and the boss, you know, slept together?"

Claire nodded without hesitation, "Of course, the boss is very impressive in bed. You'll know in the future."

The young girl looked at Claire, her eyes blinking a few times, shaking her head in disappointment, "I guess it was pointless to ask."

Claire raised her hand and knocked on the girl's head, "Can you be a bit sillier, please? Men like silly girls."

Jennifer Brei tilted her head, unable to dodge Claire's knock, yet still retorted, "Simon doesn't like that."

Claire raised her eyebrows slightly, "How do you know?"

The young girl matter-of-factly said, "I just know."

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