DSQC601 On April 16, 2018, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security announced a ban on ZTE, banning all US enterprises and all US-related enterprises from doing any business with ZTE for seven years from that day, and all the chips and software imported by ZTE from the United States were cut off. A few weeks after the incident, ZTE announced on May 9 that “the main business activities of the company have been unable to carry out.” Now, exactly two months later, with a $1bn fine, a $400m deposit, the replacement of the company’s entire board and an agreement to US oversight of operations, it is “possible” to settle the matter. When that will happen, however, remains a mystery.
DSQC601 As soon as the incident broke out, it triggered the public’s sense of crisis and serious concerns about China’s high-tech industry. For a long time, many core technologies in China’s high-tech industry have been subject to others, not only chips, not only ZTE, not just this time. The clear and hidden arrows against Chinese companies have been shooting. In fact, in many industrial products, the lifeblood of many products has been controlled by foreign countries, and many core technologies have been unable to be controlled independently. Especially in areas such as industrial software, it has been dominated by foreign software for decades, more so than devices and chips, but the public usually does not feel it – the reason why it does not feel it is because it cannot be seen, because it cannot be seen, and it is ignored, despised or ignored.
DSQC601 However, “can not see, but extremely important, can not be absent for a moment”, is precisely one of the basic attributes of software!
Software: Big hidden in the city, elephant invisible
Software, “hidden in the market”, “invisible”. Can’t see, can’t touch, can’t taste. Therefore, many people also ignore, despise or ignore it.
DSQC601 But software is also like air to human beings, allowing countless devices in human society to maintain normal high-speed operation with correct logic to maintain the normal operation of social infrastructure, which is indispensable. Today, a society without software is inconceivable.
Forty years ago, software was only an appendage of the chip, and its scope of action was limited to the single chip microcomputer, and ordinary people did not know that there was such a thing as “software”.
Thirty years ago, software came into its own, and its role was limited to the gadgets in the operating system, which everyone thought of as “counting numbers” or “playing a game.”
DSQC601 Twenty years ago, people began to pay attention to the application of computers, because software can not be as visible as hardware, and can not be made into fixed assets, so many business leaders are willing to spend money to buy a large room of computers placed there, good-looking and have face. As for the software, the leader’s idea is to copy a few pirated copies for use, or wu lizhi said: “The software is not easy to do, find a few people who learn software and spend tens of thousands of yuan to develop it!”
In the past decade or so, software has entered the machine in a large scale, becoming the “soft parts” in the machine, and then becoming the brain and nerve of the machine, dominating the running logic of the machine world. At the same time, the development of any complex product, has been inseparable from the support of software means, since then, the world can no longer lack software. These two categories of software – the software that AIDS the development of products and the software that surrounds products – are collectively referred to as industrial software.
Marc Andreessen, Netscape’s founder and a prominent Silicon Valley investor, said: “The computer revolution 60 years ago, the invention of the microprocessor 40 years ago, and the rise of the Internet 20 years ago, all of these technologies eventually transformed industries through software and were widely distributed around the world.” His conclusion is the title of his article, “Software is Eating the World.”