631 Chapter 613 EDA Software (top)

Name：Rebirth of Northland Technology Author：Light of Bard
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Chapter 1994

The World Wide Web Consortium, also known as the W3C Council, is founded. Hiroshima Asian Games.

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Long Jiang Province Business School, Machine Room.

Li Li Na looked at her watch, it was already 9 o'clock, she had to go back, it would be unsafe to go back any later.

She greeted a few people in the house and planned to leave.

In this room, the 10 computers in the second row are the property of Bietu Corporation.

Baidu Software, Inc. was formally founded in August. At that conference, many software groups were able to secure funding. Circuit board design software was one of them.

Ms. Fengli Wang, has been appointed as the general manager of Baitu Software.

Baidu Software, which was a big hit at the funding conference, received numerous investment offers.

After the selection process, the final investment of just 1 million was accepted, which is 20% of the total capital stock. Since the total capital stock was 5 million shares, the new investor received 1 million shares.

For the rest, the Talent Fund has a 30% stake, or 1.5 million shares. The School of Computer Science holds 1.5 million shares. The other 1 million shares are allocated to the members of the project team and the relevant faculty in the Computer Science Department.

As one of the key members of the development team, she received 50,000 shares, second only to a few teachers.

But Li Li Na was not satisfied, she paid 60,000 out of her own pocket and got another 60,000 shares as an investor.

She is also a large individual shareholder, including the investors.

The other investors, many of whom are alumni of the University of Technology, have put in 100,000 or 50,000 shares.

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The first thing Manager Fengli Wang did after receiving the money was to expand.

Domestic labor, which is not high, and the main strength of the development team are students, almost free labor, so the bulk of the money spent is on computers.

This one cost over $700,000 for nearly 40 computers, ten of which were moved here.

The main reason for putting BittWare's second stronghold in the business school is that IFT has an overall shortage of programming students. Even the dual degree students were mobilized.

Since the conference, all project teams have been expanding, both those who have received investment and those who have not.

Through the coordination of the Talent Fund, the resources of students from other schools supported by the fund were also utilized. The School of Business was selected because it is not far from IU.

As the head of the UI and data group, Lina Li was assigned to coordinate and guide the process.

There are about thirty students organized here, doing some supplementary programming work. The School of Business was a late entrant into the Talent Fund, with software students just entering their sophomore year.

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The company's product, PCBA software, is initially competitive in the market after more than a year of polishing.

There are two camps of industrial software on the market. One is the PC software camp, which is dominated by Protel, AutoCAD. The other is the Unix camp, led by MentorGraphic, ProE.

Of the two camps, the Unix camp wins in terms of product functionality.

Many features, such as real-time simulation, stress analysis, and even simple automatic design, are already available initially.

But there are drawbacks to the Unix camp.

The first is the high cost of hardware.

A Unix workstation is at least 100,000 RMB to start.

Although there are reasons for this, such as large memory, large hard drives, dedicated graphics cards, high performance CPUs, and even high monitor specifications, the end result is that the total price is too high.

This is where the term "one workstation, one Audi" comes in.

The second problem is that software is hard to come by.

These software are commonly encrypted with hardware dogs. Thanks to the power of Unix, piracy is rare and uncommon.

Third issue.

Software licensing fees are incredibly high.

The Unix camp manufacturers, formerly the software divisions of large electronics giants or aerospace and military companies, are often spin-offs. It comes with a high cost, which naturally brings a high price.

The license fee for a complete set of PCBA software is more than $100,000, and the license fee for IC design software is upwards of $250,000!

It is these three things that lead to the Unix camp PCBA and other industrial software, in the domestic market is very small.

The total cost of ownership is so high that it is difficult even for Optoelectronics to afford it, let alone the average SME. Even if the software is free, only a few can afford to buy a workstation.

In addition, the software is too complex.

Although the related software is powerful, it makes it more difficult to use.

The software is not widely available, resulting in a lack of relevant information. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to use the software well without training and guidance from manufacturers.

But how could the manufacturer send someone to support the pirate users?

Together, they have created a huge market opportunity for software from the PC camp.

As the PC became more powerful, software from the PC camp, such as Protel, grew up at the same time.

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This group of software supported by the Talent Fund is mainly fighting against rivals from the PC camp. This is because their absolute strength is relatively weak.

After more than a year of development, LinaPCBA can basically compete with Protel head-on.

Although it may still be lacking in details, Lina software has its own killer feature.

One reason for the popularity of Protel and AutoCAD is its low price, around $2,000 or $3,000 for a set, and another is the widespread piracy.

This is especially important for poor students in schools. When these students graduated, they took Protel to the workplace as well.

The same idea was used by Protel, if not more so.

The charging model for Lina software did not follow the fixed price approach that was common at this time. Rather, the basic software was low-priced or even free.

The entire software simply does not have a hardware dog.

All the software was genuine!

Copy the software anywhere!

As for the license fee, personal use, or educational use, it's free!

A company commercial, logically, would have to pay. However, the price is low, only $199.

In this way, it quickly became popular in the market, both at home and abroad.

The core issue in several rounds of trade negotiations between the United States and China has always been intellectual property rights. Especially for state-owned enterprises and research institutions. At the very least, there needs to be a shroud of shame.

Now it's good, our software is all genuine, there is nothing to check, there is no problem of pirated installation.

This is especially important for non-technical leaders.

Why spend a lot of money when you can use the original copies for free? Beware of being sued.

This is where some domestic industrial software vendors fail.

Competing with foreign products, other features are not as strong as each other, but the software encryption and protection, do better than foreign manufacturers.

In this way, it's strange that the software can be promoted.

Secondly, the price, commercial license 199 U.S. dollars, or just less than 2,000 yuan, compared with the price of tens of thousands of computer hardware, can afford.

A unit of twenty or thirty computers, to buy a few sets of copyright, decorating the facade, or can do.

Most of the new electronic enterprises in Ice City, in particular, are inextricably linked with the University of Technology.

I don't see the monk's face to see the Buddha's face, whether it can be used or not, Lina software is so popular.

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This is true at home, but the situation is also similar in foreign markets.

It is not uncommon for individuals to be free and companies to pay. Many tools and software are distributed in this way in the future.

This model, however, is not widespread now because it faces two obstacles.

First, in the absence of an online environment, software must be distributed through offline physical stores.

Obviously, it is not possible to have a physical store sell free software.

But with the advent of the Internet, users can download it themselves.

Second, the price.

Compression software, for example, costs tens of dollars, and you can pay it if you want, but if you don't, I won't bother you.

LinaPCBA was the first product to bring the price of industrial software down to the price of tools, and for personal use, simply for free. So it became a sensation when it appeared and even made the industry news media.

By word of mouth, it spread among enthusiasts in a manner similar to the spread of viruses.

PC industrial software, such as Protel, was blindsided.

This is not a price killing, it is a direct beheading.

They can't afford a price war that directly reduces the number of zeros by one, no matter what. Not to mention the arbitrary copying of software and the personal free model.

Backed by the open source software fund tree of the hundred map company, in the PC software market competition, very kind of adults hit the child's vestigial sense.

Protel, for example, has only a few dozen people in its program development team.

What is more frightening is the amount of human and material resources that the Open Source Software Foundation is able to mobilize.

The biggest cost and risk of software development lies in the development of core functions, which are provided and borne by the open source software platform.

Bematu's dozens of developers only need to focus on component databases, interface usability, and system integration.

Coupled with the low cost of Chinese labor, it is only a matter of time before we win.

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But companies such as Biotu are not resting on their laurels.

It's also integrating various research results from the Open Source Software Foundation. The hope is that it will have the strength to take the fight to the Unix camp.

Many of the features of Unix competitors, such as circuit simulation, are not impossible to do, but are limited by the performance of the PC and hardware limitations such as memory, and can't run.

The top-of-the-line PC configuration from '94 has just reached the 48666, 8M of RAM, and 500M of hard drive level (close to 40,000 per unit), while most users are still using the 386.

This configuration, in other words, is capable of running the rudimentary Protel, AutoCAD DOS version.

Given the high performance of the workstation, is it possible to develop software directly for Unix workstations?

The answer is no. The first thing you need to do to develop software for your workstation is to make a complete change of machine.

The first thing to do when developing software for a workstation is to completely change the machine that the developer uses.

The cost of replacing the nearly 50 Bematu microcomputers with workstations alone would be over $5 million.

Unix development tools and SDKs are not the same as the PC environment, such as ObjectWorksC++ or Saber-C. The cost of Unix development tools (with an average price tag of US$3,000 or more) is touching and tear-jerking just thinking about it.

Due to the scarcity and high cost of the Unix platform, there are only a few people in the country with Unix development experience.

There are also multiplatform issues that come with entering the Unix platform.

Unix is a generic term for a broad class of operating systems.

The name of the operating system used by Sun workstations is Solaris, HP's system is HP-UX, Digital's system is DigitalUNIX, and there are at least 20 other operating systems like IBMAIX, SCO, SPARC, etc. Each system needs to be configured with a separate port.

Each system needs to be configured with separate porters and machines, so it's not a matter of $5 million.

Let's not even talk about whether the machines are available or not, but if they are, and nothing has been done yet, tens of millions of dollars will be lost.

In addition to the cost of the hardware, there is also the compatibility certification of the systems before the software is sold, and money is needed everywhere.

Money isn't everything, but without money...