bestfiction Chapter 108 Operation Anaconda
Chapter 108 Operation Anaconda
The video signal was cut off.
Gates and Ballmer were still sitting in the Microsoft conference room.
"Andy is in a hurry," Ballmer said. "Even more anxious than us."
"Because Intel is the direct victim." Gates stood up and walked to the whiteboard. "USB is a standard dominated by Intel. If UHSB succeeds, Intel will lose control of its peripheral interfaces. This is a major blow to their platform strategy."
He wrote "UHSB" on the whiteboard and circled it.
"The pressure is now on our side," Gates said. "If we fail to suppress them, the Wintel alliance will crack. Hardware manufacturers will think: Intel's standards are inferior to others, so why should we be tied to Intel's chariot?"
"These methods are too conventional." Gates sat in his chair, tapping his fingers on the table. "Technological questioning, market FUD, ecosystem suppression, alliance fragmentation... these are all too slow and too soft."
Ballmer stood in front of the whiteboard, staring at the words: "So, what do you want to do?"
He picked up a red marker, drew a dot in the center of the whiteboard, and wrote "star".
"What is Ling Yun now?" Gates asked, answering himself, "He's a decoy. A perfect decoy to test the loyalty of our partners."
Ballmer frowned. "I don't understand."
"Look at the UHSB alliance." Gates drew four circles around the "star," writing Dell, Compaq, HP, and AMD on them. "Of these four, who are our true friends? Who are just watching? Who already has ulterior motives?"
He put down his pen and turned to Ballmer: "If we simply destroy the stars, we'll never know the answer. These people will continue to feign loyalty, waiting for the next opportunity to rebel."
Ballmer's eyes lit up: "So we're going to use the stars as bait to test them?"
"Right." Gates drew an arrow on the whiteboard. "The first step is to make the UHSB alliance look like it can succeed. We shouldn't suppress it outright, just apply moderate pressure—make Lingyun feel it's difficult, but there's still hope."
"He will ask his allies for help," Ballmer continued.
"Exactly." Gates placed question marks on the four circles. "Who will genuinely help him? Who will be perfunctory? Who will take the opportunity to make demands? Who will secretly betray him?"
He wrote down the observation indicators on the right side of the whiteboard: response speed, resource input, public statements, and private actions.
"The second step is to categorize and deal with them based on their reactions," Gates said. "The ones who react most actively and invest the most resources are the most disloyal. We need to concentrate our firepower and take them down first."
Ballmer understood: "Make an example of them. Let other companies see the consequences of betraying Microsoft."
"Not only that," Gates smiled. "The third step is to sow suspicion among the remaining companies. We can spread rumors that one of them has secretly defected to us, betraying the alliance. Let them fight amongst themselves."
He drew a crisscrossing arrow between the four circles: "Once trust is lost within the alliance, it will crumble from within. At that point, we won't even need to lift a finger; they'll fall apart on their own."
Ballmer pondered the brilliance of the plan: "Then, in the fourth step, when the alliance is torn apart and the stars are isolated and helpless, we can easily clean up the mess."
"Moreover," Gates added, "throughout the entire process, we maintained the moral high ground. We didn't attack the stars; we were simply engaging in 'normal business competition.' The failures of those hardware manufacturers were their own mistakes in choosing the wrong companies and their failed investments; it has nothing to do with us."
"What's the specific implementation plan?" Ballmer asked.
Bill took out a file from the drawer and handed it to Ballmer. "I've written the specific plan in the file. The fewer people who know about it, the better. The executors should only be aware of their part."
Ballmer looked at the phased plan and took a deep breath: "This will take at least a year."
"But the rewards were enormous," Gates said. "First, we eliminated disloyal hardware partners. Second, we acquired all of UHSB's technology patents. Third, we completely eliminated the potential threat of StarCraft. Fourth, we showed the entire industry the consequences of betraying Microsoft."
"What about the risks?" Ballmer asked. "What if Lingyun discovers our plan?"
"He won't," Gates said confidently. "People under pressure only see the immediate predicament. He'll be forced to constantly appeal to allies for help and become increasingly dependent on them. That's exactly what we want—to get him to gather all the potential rebels together so we can wipe them out in one fell swoop."
He walked to the window and looked at the Microsoft campus in the night.
"Steve, do you know how anacondas hunt?" Gates suddenly asked. "They don't rush to attack; instead, they surround their prey and slowly tighten the encirclement. Every time the prey struggles, it gets entangled a little tighter until it finally suffocates."
He turned around: "We are the snake now. The stars and their alliance are the prey."
"Activate the plan, codenamed... 'Operation Anaconda'."
"This time we can't take it slow like we did with Netscape. UHSB is a much bigger threat than browsers. Browsers are software, which can be bundled and imitated. Interface standards are hardware, and once an ecosystem is formed, they are very difficult to overthrow."
Ballmer noted down all the key points: "I will assemble a special task force tomorrow, and the personnel must be absolutely reliable."
"There's one more thing," Gates said. "Our insider within StarCraft is now even more crucial. We need to know when Lingyun will request help, who he'll request help from, and what the request will entail. This information will determine the timing and target of our attack."
"Understood. I will arrange single-line contact, with the highest level of confidentiality."
Gates glanced at the plan on the whiteboard one last time and gave a cold smile.
"One year from now, Steve. One year from now, we'll be sitting in this room celebrating the complete consolidation of the Wintel alliance. And where will Lingyun and his friends be?"
"Notify the task force that there will be a meeting at 8 a.m. tomorrow," Gates said. "Take out the meeting minutes tonight and refine the action plan."
Ballmer left the meeting room.
Gates stood alone in front of the whiteboard, looking at the meticulously designed net.
He suddenly recalled how Microsoft, leveraging IBM's licensing agreements, ultimately overtook him to become the industry leader in 1980. Back then, IBM was like him now, brimming with confidence, believing it could control everything.
But now the roles are reversed. He is the hunter, and the stars are the prey.
"Interesting," Gates muttered to himself.
He turned off the lights and walked out of the meeting room. Only the green fluorescent light from the emergency exit illuminated the corridor.
As the elevator descended, Gates recalled Ling Yun's words on Larry King's show: "I may lose, but the stars will not lose."
"You'll lose, Ling," Gates said to the mirror in the elevator. "And you'll lose badly. Because you don't know that your enemy never wants just to win this one round."
The elevator doors opened, and Gates walked toward the parking lot.
The night sky outside was clear, and the stars were clearly visible.
But in Bill Gates' eyes, these stars are like chess pieces on a chessboard. And he is the one who decides the rules of the game.