Chapter 249 Tablet Computer
"President Shan, you're teasing me." He Wei blushed slightly, but soon managed to regain her composure.
After all, the initial excitement had already passed three days ago, and she had already gone to explain the situation to President Zhang—she waited three days because she still brought her "brain" to work for those three days, and even drafted a market analysis in the meantime.
After all, she had graduated from the Provincial Trade School with a four–year technical diploma, majoring in marketing and sales. Writing an informal report like that was something she was quite familiar with.
"I wasn't teasing. I was just curious—how did President Zhang agree to let you go?" Su Yuanshan noticed that Wan Yongliang was holding two files, most likely the girl's records. He smiled and added, "Don't tell me you just ran away."
"No… President Zhang approved it." He Wei shook her head, steadied herself, and smiled. "He said we're all family anyway."
"Mm." Su Yuanshan nodded.
At this moment, Wan Yongliang handed the file over to Chen Jing. Su Yuanshan glanced at it and saw that He Wei had a four–year diploma from a technical school—meaning it was a state–keyed institution. That meant the girl had the official status of a national cadre… which, in later times, would be equivalent to a civil servant.
"Since you graduated as a cadre, why did you come to the mall to work as a salesperson?" Su Yuanshan remembered that a few days ago, he had guessed her education would be at least high school. He hadn't expected her to be a cadre, so he asked curiously.
"I graduated two years ago and was assigned to our county's Economic and Trade Commission." He Wei hesitated, as if recalling something she didn't want to remember. Her expression dimmed briefly before she smiled again. "I realized the work there didn't suit me, so I decided to come out and try something different."
At this, Chen Jing gave a soft "Mm," looked up, and smiled. "This analysis you wrote is pretty good. Have you studied psychology?"
He Wei nodded. "Yes, a little. But most of my experience comes from observation and reflection during my work."
"Not bad." Chen Jing nodded again, smiling warmly. "Welcome to Yuanxin."
"Currently, Yuanxin's marketing department is in need of administrative management talent with frontline sales experience. I hope the department can make full use of your strengths, and I also hope you can bring new energy and insights to the team."
After the formal encouragement, Wan Yongliang asked He Wei to return to the marketing office, while he himself stayed behind.
"President Shan, you really have a good eye." Wan Yongliang chuckled. "When this girl called me, I was stunned for a moment, thought it was some kind of scam, and almost went to ask Zhou Xiaohui about it. Later I found out you two had met at the Jiangdu Building. And the fact that she even took the initiative to write an analysis from the perspective of a salesperson—that's extremely rare."
Chen Jing smiled and nodded. "Indeed, very rare. At present, most salespeople's education and culture are lacking. Even if some of them are capable, it's usually due to shrewdness in dealing with people. Someone who actually uses her brain in sales—well, that's very uncommon."
Su Yuanshan laughed. "Mm, now let's just hope she can help make the marketing department run more smoothly."
…
After seeing Wan Yongliang out, Su Yuanshan turned to Chen Jing. "Sister Jing, can your brother still spare people on his side?"
"You mean for the laptop design?"
"Yes." Su Yuanshan thought of the sudden idea Qin Weimin had mentioned before he left.
Tablet computers. They had already appeared years ago, also called "tablet computers," but compared to the tablets of later generations, they were far inferior.
Conceptually, they had been around a long time, proposed as early as the 1960s—in science fiction, no less. But for them to be truly accepted and popularized by the market, that required one company.
That's right—Apple again.
The popularization of smartphones had depended on Apple, and the same was true of tablets, with the Apple iPad.
The timing of when to launch the right product was something Su Yuanshan had been carefully weighing.
If launched too early, the technical reserves wouldn't be sufficient, and the market's acceptance could backfire. If launched too late, they might lose competitiveness.
So at the beginning, Su Yuanshan hadn't considered tablets.
But when Qin Weimin suggested that tablets could share the same system as laptops, it suddenly dawned on Su Yuanshan that he had been thinking too narrowly.
Since he wanted to follow the Apple + Intel path in semiconductors, he couldn't wait for Andy Rubin of the later era to develop the Android system.
He needed to develop Android himself—first. And also create tablets suitable for Android.
Building the ecosystem for a new operating system was the hardest part. But before an ecosystem could exist, there had to be an operating system. And without a platform, what use was the system at all?
"I've thought about it carefully. Our laptop design is based on reduced instruction sets and low–power consumption. That means we can make the motherboard very small—even smaller—while still meeting the needs of most non–professional users." Steadying himself, Su Yuanshan sketched a rough design of a tablet computer on the laptop for Chen Jing.
"Technically, a tablet computer like this isn't too difficult. My senior brother's YX Division currently has three teams, and one of them is working on integrating CPUs with graphics accelerators. They'll have a chip ready for tape–out by the end of the year."
Chen Jing frowned. "But isn't that chip meant for Sony?"
"Yes, but in theory, both laptops and tablets can use it." Su Yuanshan nodded.
Since the YX Division had begun pursuing SoC integration, it had split into three teams: one focusing on architecture upgrades, and the other two on SoC integration. One was integrating CPU with the display core, the other CPU with the baseband.
It was no exaggeration to say that once integration was complete, the YX architecture would truly become the king of low–power platforms!
That was also why Su Yuanshan had been so eager to push for laptops—because right now, every electronics manufacturer was rushing to shed the image of bulky, clunky machines, all competing to make devices thinner and lighter. Gaming laptops? Sorry… no demand.
"Mm, then I'll reach out to him. After the second half of the year begins, the graphics card market heats up, and his workload will ease up a lot. He should be able to spare some people." Chen Jing nodded. Seeing Su Yuanshan breathe a sigh of relief and show signs of wanting to leave, she thought for a moment, then softly said, "Are you going to Russia next month?"
"Uh… I might, I might not. My senior brother is still negotiating over there."
When it came to the north, Su Yuanshan immediately felt a headache coming on.
As Vice President in charge of overseas markets, Wang Rui had, since May, been focusing all his energy on Russia. On one hand, he wanted to leverage the former "comrade" relationship between the two countries to break into the base station and mobile phone market. On the other, he was responsible for setting up an R&D center there, to scoop up Russia's talented workforce—especially in mathematics and computer science.
But while the vision was bright, reality was troublesome.
Russia was suffering the aftermath of shock therapy, and, for certain reasons, public sentiment toward China was… not very favorable.
(END CHAPTER)
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