Chapter 1414 Microsoft's God-Fixing Knife

It's not been a day or two since Microsoft and Apple have been strangled.

Although everyone thinks that Microsoft's Windows is a copy of Apple's Windows operating system, it is undeniable that the success of Windows in the field of operating systems is incomparable to Apple, and Windows almost achieved domination, but this dream Destroyed by U.S. antitrust laws.

If it weren't for the antitrust laws holding Microsoft back, Microsoft could have killed and maimed Apple's OS almost a few years before it hit the market.

Apple is not a fuel-efficient lamp either. Relying on the anti-monopoly law, it continues to go to court with Microsoft. In the past few years, the US court used the anti-monopoly law as the benchmark and ruled that Microsoft must provide technical support for Apple for five consecutive years. In other words, in order to ensure that Microsoft Windows will not form a monopoly in the market. The US court ruled that Microsoft must provide Apple with a lot of Microsoft's own technology and product support to improve Apple's viability, lest it be completely destroyed by Windows.

The IE browser on Windows is the best choice for the vast majority of users to surf the Internet, but there is no IE on it, and Apple's own Safari was not developed at that time. What should I do? Microsoft will have to develop the IE browser for Apple...

The office software of Windows is one of the biggest dependencies in the commercial field of the Windows system, and it is also a major foundation for users to be inseparable from the Windows system. What should I do? The anti-monopoly law is coming, and Microsoft must develop the office used on the Mac side...

In addition, in order to make Apple give up accusing Microsoft of infringing its copyright, Microsoft also invested 150 million US dollars in Apple, sending Apple the most critical food and grass.

Such an anti-monopoly law is almost unimaginable in China. It means that Tengxun QQ is almost monopolizing the market. When Sina UC is dying, it can go to court to sue Tengxun, and then demand that Tengxun must provide Sina UC with QQ’s proprietary technical support even required Tengxun to invest a certain amount of money in Sina UC. Originally, he was trying to kill him, but he beat his opponent to the point of death. Not only could he not continue to fight, but he had to Turn around to save him, why?

Because of the antitrust laws...

Therefore, even though Microsoft is a shareholder of Apple, it is a complete enemy in its bones. It is only the referee of the "Anti-Monopoly Law" that does not allow Microsoft to kill its opponents. There are countless MMPs in Microsoft's heart that cannot be said.

What Microsoft never dreamed of was that Apple had a new opponent. This new opponent was an Internet company from China. Moreover, this new opponent did not compete with Apple on the operating system, but broke on the music player. Apple's way back!

In the eyes of Microsoft, this is so fucking cool! Because the "Anti-Monopoly Law" can't keep Apple's lifeblood this time, there are so many music player companies and so many products, even if the iPod is completely killed by Muye Technology, Muye Technology will not violate the "Anti-Monopoly Law"!

Seeing the collapse of Apple's stock price, Microsoft immediately decided to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and make up for it.

So, just before the close, Microsoft issued an announcement announcing several of its own decisions:

First of all, Microsoft will stop the update of IE browser on the Mac side, and no longer provide new technical support for IE on the Mac side;

Secondly, due to the reorganization of Microsoft's internal team and business, it can only be forced to suspend the Office R&D support on the Mac side, and open it after the team and business reorganization is completed;

Once again, after discussion, the Microsoft board of directors announced the latest plan to reduce its holdings of Apple shares, and continued to reduce its holdings of Apple shares.

Microsoft has been selling Apple's stock since 2000, and now there are not many left. It was originally planned to sell all of them this year, but I didn't think about selling in such a hurry, but it happened to happen that Makino Technology started a war with Apple. , so Microsoft decided to attack Apple.

When the stock price plummets, the market is most afraid that investors themselves will lose confidence in the stock. If even institutions and major shareholders announce a reduction in their holdings, then retail investors will lose even more confidence.

Microsoft’s repair this time is actually very chicken thief. Last time, the US court imposed a five-year penalty on Microsoft based on the anti-monopoly law, which just expired last year. Under normal circumstances, Microsoft would not dare to turn its face immediately after the penalty period ended. In that case , Apple can sue Microsoft again on the grounds of the Anti-Monopoly Law as soon as it turns its head.

However, now Microsoft has a surefire way to stop supporting IE on the MAC side, because at the beginning of this year, the beta version of Safari developed by Apple was launched. Since Apple already has a browser, Microsoft stopped supporting IE to Apple. It will violate anti-monopoly laws, so there is absolutely no problem in stopping the update directly.

In addition, Microsoft did not dare to really end the support of office on the MAC side, so they changed the way, not to mention stopping the service, but because the internal team and business need to be reorganized, passive suspension of support, will continue in the future Serve.

Microsoft's intention is very simple. Even if this suspension of support cannot last for too long, the main purpose of making such an announcement at this time is to give Apple a crit damage to the already gloomy market prospects. If you can't kill Apple yourself, then Of course, Microsoft is happy to see Apple die at the hands of others. In order to be afraid that Li Mu won't kill him, Microsoft has come to make up for it indirectly.

And Microsoft's compensation knife, in this darkened trading day, caused Apple, which was originally sticking to the $6 mark, and the capital behind it, to suffer a fatal blow in an instant, and the stock price plummeted like a flood.

The stock price fell from $6.02 to $5.76 in almost an instant. The two major milestones of $5.9 and $5.8 were completely crushed without even seeing each other.

Wall Street and Silicon Valley are dumbfounded. It is impossible to imagine that Apple, a star-like company, could lose so completely in one round. This also makes people start to re-examine Makino Technology and start to feel awe of this company.

The market is wailing. Apple's stock price is like a plane that has lost its engine and wings. Not only can it not climb, but there is no possibility of even gliding. live.

The plummeting stock price does not even dare to buy the bottom, because they look at the past from the business level, Apple has almost no possibility of turning over now, Mango-ME2 has not been listed, it is impossible for the stock price to bottom at this time, and the real bottom will have to wait until Mango-ME2 is officially listed in the United States. At that time, if the anti-dumping duties can help Apple to maintain the domestic market in the United States, the stock price may still rebound. If the anti-dumping duties cannot completely resist the trend of Mango-ME2 in the United States, then Apple The iPod business is ready to go.

What's worse is that Apple's other business lines do not see any possibility to stand up and turn the tide. Now that Microsoft has come out again, and the Apple computer market will inevitably be affected by Microsoft, this is undoubtedly adding fuel to the fire. , to make things worse, maybe under this double pressure, Apple will collapse.

In the capital market, well-made products and strong R&D capabilities are not the most important things. The most important thing is to be recognized by the market. Once the market loses confidence, everything else is a bubble.

In the Internet bubble two or three years ago, the market value of countless companies shrunk by more than 90% overnight. Even the giant AOL, whose market value was close to US$200 billion, is now less than one-tenth of the market value of its glory days.

Apple's stock price plummeted from $7.36 to $5.74. In one trading day, the stock price fell by 22%, and the cumulative decline in several trading days was nearly 34%. The original market value was nearly $8 billion, and now there are barely fifty left. One hundred million U.S. dollars.

But in comparison, Apple's share price collapse speed is not the most serious stock in the Internet industry, not even in the top ten.

Still, it was enough to deal a devastating blow to Apple from top to bottom.

Rao is a very confident Steve Jobs. At this time, he also began to doubt his life. He has always insisted on hardware as the main and software as the supplement, because he thinks that the software development bubble is far less stable than the hardware. Most of the companies that fell overnight were software companies.

However, he never imagined that Apple, which is hardware-centric, would suffer such a tragic blow. A company from China, alone, has reduced Apple's market value by nearly three billion US dollars. I don't know the follow-up. How long will the bad news last? Maybe, Muye Technology's tit-for-tat this time will reduce Apple's market value by more than half.

Now, there are two problems before Jobs.

First, how to restore the stock price in a short period of time?

Second, how to reverse the passive situation in the business in the next few months?

Apple's shareholders and investors questioned Jobs is nothing more than these two questions.

Sadly, Jobs couldn't find any way to break the game.

He has always insisted on hardware, but at this time he saw the biggest drawbacks of hardware companies - turning around is too slow and the cost is too high!

A hardware company is like a fast-moving, heavy-duty truck. Not to mention turning around completely, even if there is a little problem with the direction control, the car will crash and die. Any piece of hardware will take at least a few months. R & D cycle, Mango-ME2 even if all the design and development work has been completed, it will take time to prepare for its official global launch. If Apple develops a new hardware now, and hopes that it can reverse the predicament, the possibility is almost zero.

When Jobs and the entire Apple fell into despair, Li Mu, who stayed up all night working overtime in the office, was staring at the U.S. stock market in a daze.

He expected that Apple's stock price would plummet today, but he didn't expect it to plummet so completely, and he didn't expect that Microsoft would suddenly stab Apple at this time.

Watching Apple's stock price continue to break through the two levels of $5.7 and $5.6, Li Mu checked Apple's latest market value and it has fallen below $5 billion.

Not surprisingly, Apple still failed to hold the $5.5 mark at the last moment of closing, closing at $5.47, a one-day drop of 25.6%, which became Apple's dark Monday...

The day's killing was over, and I couldn't see any gunpowder smoke, but I could feel the blood flowing into the river behind it, and it was far from over.

If this continues, Apple's stock price will only get lower and lower, and its market value will only decrease. If you wait for Mango-ME2 to go public, it will be good to have $3 billion left.

It looks like a dead camel is bigger than a horse with three billion dollars left in a business, but it's actually shit!

With Apple's current enterprise scale, not only are there a lot of people waiting to open their mouths to eat, but there are also a lot of projects under development that urgently need blood transfusions. The plummeting market value caused by the stock price is only one aspect, and the follow-up capital chain problem is Apple's biggest explosive pack.

If there is a problem with funds, Apple has a market value of less than 3 billion, and the possibility of refinancing in the context of market decline is very small. At that time, it can only watch the capital chain break. Once the capital chain breaks, all the All projects that have invested a lot of effort and research will be abolished, and all talents will be lost one after another. At that time, Apple will either file for bankruptcy liquidation, or it will only be able to ask other bigwigs to take over at the bottom price, but who dares to take this hot potato?

Suddenly, Li Mu's eyes lit up.

He said to Li Ziwei next to him: "Help me contact the people from Sequoia Capital and ask them to send a senior person who is proficient in US stock capital operations to my office immediately tomorrow."

Sequoia is the capital behind Muye Technology, and it is also a world-class capital. Li Mu asked them to find a person who is proficient in US stock capital operations. Li Ziwei was shocked and blurted out: "Mr. Li, what are you doing? Ready for an IPO?"

Li Mu waved his hand: "It's not yet time for an IPO. I would like to inquire about how feasible it is to acquire Apple, then delist Apple from the Nasdaq, and then go private..."

Speaking of this, Li Mu sighed and said, "Microsoft is really a godsend today!"