Chapter 828 Killer Application
In addition to these popular booths, other booths are also very popular.

For example, due to the advancement of electronic technology, more compact and portable radios are also popular products. However, compared with other products such as tape recorders, these products are more favored by foreign trade personnel, and ordinary visitors don't even care about them.

In this scene full of vitality and development, some staff members came to the exhibition area of ​​the 12th Ministry of Machine Building and began to set up a new booth.

There are people who cut in line at the last minute? This surprised the visitors, as it is not common.

For us, this is the first time, so it’s normal to be a little surprised.

This new booth was very interesting. There were no physical products, only some promotional materials. Some of them were enlarged and hung on the booth wall, and some were 16K paper that could be distributed directly, placed in piles on a glass table.

Two staff members are debugging a computer and laughing as they do so.

"This database is so convenient. It is very easy to add or remove sales items."

"Yeah, in the past, this kind of work would take a whole day, but now it only takes a dozen minutes of typing on the keyboard."

"..."

The two chatted and laughed as they worked, but their conversation attracted the attention of some visitors who were curiously watching them set up the new booth.

When they finished their work and were packing up to hand over the computer to the booth staff, they were stopped by an old Russian.

"Davri, can you tell me about your sales software? I noticed that it seems to be very different."

This is a Russian computer expert with very keen technical observation skills. The Russians roughly know what we are going to do this time, and the people who came here have relatively comprehensive professional backgrounds.

"Ah, hello, you mean the sales system? It's actually quite simple, just a simple application of the database, not complicated." These two were people sent by the 12th Ministry of Machine Building to be responsible for the deployment and maintenance of the sales computers in the entire exhibition hall. They knew the software very well, but this was obviously not the place for them to give a long speech, so their answers were relatively concise.

Although concise, this Russian computer expert and some foreign guests, including the Gauls next to him, were very keen and grasped the key points during the translation process.

"Database? What kind of software is this?"

This seemingly vast topic overwhelms our staff and we are unable to hold classes for you here.

Fortunately, they were also well-trained and pointed their hands forward.

"You can go to our software product exhibition area of ​​the 12th Ministry of Machine Building, where all your questions can be answered." That's right, we not only sell hardware, but also exhibit and sell software.

What's the point of just selling computer hardware? If you want to sell it, you have to sell it together with the software and the ecosystem. Once you get on this boat, it won't be easy to get off.

Of course, the Japanese's outrageous operations in the 21s, when they relied on fax machines and floppy disks to conduct elections and polls, have nothing to do with ecology. They are purely self-contained.

The foreign guests nodded in satisfaction, but they were not in a hurry. They knew that software did not have a capacity problem. They could give you as much as you wanted. If they were anxious, they could just give you a blank disk and make a copy. Thinking of this, they felt the benefits of floppy disks again.

They still stayed here to see what this temporary queue-jumping thing was. It was rare in large-scale formal exhibitions that we could break the routine and make such arrangements.

The promotional materials hanging on the wall are still in four copies. The official languages ​​of the five great benefactors of the League of Nations are all gathered here. As the official terms of the League of Nations, it is very normal for these languages ​​to appear anywhere, including on the instruction manuals that grew out of the desert.

"Video Cassette Recorder!!!"

After seeing the products listed above, their first reaction was surprise. It was OK for it to record audio with cassette tapes, but it could even record videos?
Some of them knew that there were VCRs available, but the price was beyond the reach of ordinary consumers. In any case, if the estimated selling price published in the promotional materials was calculated based on the weight ratio, it would not even be enough to buy a VCR's tape reel motor.

Most people don’t know the background at all, they only know that Orientals are selling VCRs!!!

This thing is a perfect match with color TV! Who doesn't want to pick a favorite tape, eat snacks, drink beer, and lie on the sofa to watch it for a few hours on a leisurely weekend?
So their second reaction was to rush straight to the booth staff.

I want to buy! My country wants to buy!

Fight for yourself and fight for your country.

But this time, they don't need to be so anxious.

"Dear guest, please be patient. This product is still in mass production and debugging, and is not available for delivery at the moment. The delivery period will be half a year later. If you are interested in purchasing, you can register with us first."

Although the staff were smiling and very polite, what they said made the people at the scene very discouraged, especially the individual buyers.

"Comrade, that individual consumer..." "Don't worry, individual consumers can also register. We will still sell at a preferential price. Once put into production, we will produce the orders of individual consumers at this exhibition with the highest priority and distribute them through foreign affairs channels. We will only charge fees at that time."

This may be the highest-standard delivery method for personal consumer goods in history. However, there is no other way. Logistics at that time were not as developed as they are today, and without the intervention of foreign affairs channels, it was very difficult to send it directly to individuals.

Although it is a bit troublesome, it is worth it if it can win the favor of customers at the exhibition and leave us with the image of keeping our promises.

How many people can attend the entire exhibition? This thing is not cheap, how many people can afford it? And for the group of people who can buy it, leaving a good impression on them is definitely a sure win.

We are not servile, but we are honest and trustworthy.

The booth was surrounded in an instant, and there were even more individual buyers than traders. For traders, they may not be in a hurry and want to wait and see, but the situation is different for individuals.

If you miss this opportunity, you will never find it again!

This was different from the others, the Friendship Store had none for sale, and this was their only chance to get a VCR at a low price in the fastest time.

There are many people who want to resell one. Once you get this thing, it is very easy to resell it. The difference of hundreds of Citibank dollars is not a small number.

It’s just registering a name and you don’t have to pay any money, so what’s there to be afraid of?

These people later even gave rise to a special profession in the economic assistance countries.

——People who have the conditions to frequently travel between their own country and Eastern countries have become international traders.

It’s no wonder that for people in economic aid countries, this business can make a lot of money.

In the exhibition area of ​​the 12th Ministry of Machine Building, in sharp contrast to the bustling exhibition halls of these consumer products, the software area looks deserted and almost deserted.

These days, any computer software is out of reach for individuals because there is absolutely no demand or market. First of all, ordinary people do not have the hardware conditions - computers are too expensive!
Therefore, only professionals stop here to visit.

The staff at the booth had anticipated this situation, so they were not worried and continued to warmly entertain every visitor.

Although it seems deserted, this place is actually one of the places that the Ministry of Foreign Trade attaches the most importance to.

Although there are few people, every product here has two distinct characteristics.

——Extremely low cost, extremely expensive price.

Another hidden feature is that for anyone who wants to buy any of the goods here, in this era, these goods are a necessity for them.

Operating systems, email systems, software development systems, communications software, mathematical computing environments, and even a few games...

The computers we sell do not come with software. They only have the earliest and most basic loop monitoring environment, and a matching C language compiler and simple editor. There is not even a systematic programming environment. Our main feature is that they can be started and run. Skilled professionals can buy them and write their own programs for use, or they can buy the software here.

If the above items are basically used by professionals, then the remaining one is the latest one and is useful for most industries. Its comprehensive ability has a special term in later generations.

——Killer app.

This software is the database system.

The people who come here are all professionals and are familiar with most of the software mentioned above. The only thing they need to communicate with the staff is the order quantity.

But the remaining one is different. People have never heard of it, never seen it, and never used it. People know nothing about it.

So the most concentrated communication is related to it.

For computer professionals, they will be attracted as soon as they see the introduction to the database system hanging on the wall.

"…This is a new generation of large-scale comprehensive application software developed by software technicians led by Comrade Gao Zhendong, a famous computer technology expert in my country. The software can be used for the storage and management of various types of data, has simple statistical analysis functions, and supports external applications to call the data in the database through query language for further application…"

Apart from anything else, the ability to store and manage data well is enough to make computer professionals who come to visit salivate.

"…The system can run independently of other applications. A database system can serve multiple different applications. Data is organized and managed in the form of databases, tables, rows and columns. The data of different applications are stored in different database files, which do not affect each other and are easy to use…"

(End of this chapter)