Chapter 246: A New Beginning

Words : 905 Updated : Oct 14th, 2025

Having his own laboratory indeed was a great joy. Bell Labs had always been quite unique, with a focus on practical research rather than chasing after the intangibles. William White acquired it not just for mobile communications. His current learning devices and PDAs were encountering issues, from simple batteries to digital voice complications. Elsewhere, they might have been stumped, but not at Bell Labs. They not only had the research capability but were also working on similar projects. As for mobile communications, that's always been one of their key areas. As long as you had enough dollars to invest, the research could continue right away. William White would be foolish to stop now. After all, if Motorola hadn't gotten some of Bell Labs' results, how could they have come up with that big hunk of a brick? In some ways, this lab already belonged to William White, though the final handover process would still take a while. ... With the first cut, the massive telecommunications group began to disband. A company with over a million employees was a miracle in any era. Sure, you said Foxconn had that many too. Heh, it's different; they have a lot of their own intellectual property. In some sense, it's almost like America's IRS; people will contribute their dollars, to varying extents. The victorious Department of Justice started waving their cleaver again. Of course, the first target was the Big Blue. Knowing the Department of Justice started entangling with IBM, William White once again sighed at Bill Gates' good fortune. Like all monopolies, Big Blue had a complete industry chain. From memory to hard drives, to CPUs, they covered almost all hardware. Their hardware was top-notch, and their software wasn't too shabby either. If they really needed a graphical user interface called Windows, Bill Gates would have to play second fiddle. If you didn't want to, that's fine. A small Microsoft would be insignificant. However, now they dared not expand. Under the banner of IBM Compatible, Compaq's monthly shipments were nearing a hundred thousand, and if you added other off-brands, IBM was bleeding from the heart. With prices over five hundred dollars, they were having a hard time breathing. And then there was William White, who was making money like he was nuts. Watching William White rake in the dough, Bill Gates drooled as well. Although his MS-DOS was making a decent sum, greed was evident. Everyone in software knew what R&D costs truly involved. Software that could be sold for years, what costs were left? ... Meanwhile, the IT industry was hitting a bottleneck. If it wasn't the CPU lagging behind, it was memory; once both were sorted, hard drives would limit performance improvements. For IT enthusiasts, this period was incredibly painful, but for the industry, it was a rare moneymaking opportunity. Compaq's 286 compatibles sold nearly twenty million units. Combined with Apple and IBM, these giants alone sold over thirty million PCs. These folks all needed software. Even if only half bought White System's software, that's astronomical. In this era, some were bewildered, some became arrogant, and others complacent. But these people would eventually be left behind by the times. White Systems' latest office suite was already in development, completely ditching the eight-bit processor architecture. This meant the latest office software wouldn't support existing systems. "Sir, no more upgrade services?" "No major changes worth making a dedicated version for." "The customers do have some concerns." "Heh, they're speeding up, too. Intel has also started developing new architectures. How could we lag behind?" "Sir, what about the Lisa computer?" "Heh, you're talking about the Macintosh II, right? They'll sell off their stock and be done. Otherwise, they'd lose their shirts." Tom understood that the boss had no interest in developing Apple's system. For those few pitiful users, exposing their hand wasn't necessary. However, whether he understood or not didn't matter; he wasn't the one in control. He didn't care about the rumors of his boss being a dilettante. Having worked with William White long enough, he knew how much the boss had going on daily. William White couldn't afford to slack off now; this was an era of change, and one wrong move could allow others to surpass him. He knew all too well that the pesky Citibank reached trillion-dollar assets by 2008. He had no intention of becoming just another part of it. ... "What? Mobile phones? Like those walkie-talkies?" "No, it seems a bit more advanced. The transmission range is further, probably for luxury cars." "Well, I remember Motorola having similar research." "Sir, I've checked the records. They made a similar invention in the '70s. It's just never been commercialized. There's similar research in Europe now." "A niche product, right? Must be expensive too." "Definitely not cheap, at least half the price of a luxury car." "Yeah, we'll see. He won't act alone." The most profitable days for mobile phones were actually the late '90s. Despite the high prices of the initial bricks, they didn't sell much, barely making any money. Of course, smartphones don't count, but that was Steve Jobs' era. Without the Chinese knock-offs, there probably wouldn't even be a handful of brands in the market. ***** https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.

Chapter 246: A New Beginning

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