有声英语故事连载:《名人传记》之乔布斯 第51期
故事连载
So how and why did Apple get into desktop publishing, which will become Mac's killer-app?
苹果为什么研发桌面排版?它是Mac最受欢迎的应用。
I don’t know if you know this, but we got the first Canon laser printer engine shipped to US at Apple,
我们是全美第一个试用佳能激光打印引擎的公司
and we had it hooked up to a Lisa actually imaging pages before anybody, long before HP, long before Adobe.
早在惠普和Adobe之前,我们就已经把它用在Lisa电脑上了
But I heard few times people tell me “hey there’s these guys over the garage in Xerox PARC...
后来我听说有人在施乐的车库里捣腾类似的玩意
let’s go and see them” and I finally went and saw them, I saw what they were doing, and it was better than what we were doing.
我去参观,发现他们比我们做得更好
They were gonna be a hardware company they wanted to make printer and the whole thing.
他们打算成立一家硬件公司,生产打印机
So I talked to them being a software company
我劝他们成立一家软件公司,就是Adobe
and within 2 or 3 weeks, we had cancelled our internal project.
两三周后我撤消了苹果内部的桌面出版项目。
A bunch of people wanted to kill me over this. But, we did it.
有些人恨死我了,但还是撤消了
And I had cut a deal with Adobe User Software, and we bought 19.9% of Adobe to Apple,
苹果和Adobe达成协议,买下了他们19.9%的股份
they needed financing and we want a little bit control. we were off to the races so we got the engine from Canon, and we designed the first laser printer controller at Apple.
然后买下佳能的激光打印引擎,自己开发驱动软件
We got the software from Adobe, we introduced the laser writer.
接着从Adobe购买排版软件,激光打印机就这样面市了
No one at the company wanted to do it, but a few of us in the Mac group,
除了Mac团队,公司其他人都不看好激光打印机
everybody thought a 7000-dollar printer was crazy,
他们觉得一台打印机定价7000美元太贵
what they didn’t understand was that you can share it with Apple Talk,
可他们忘了客户可以通过Apple Talk共享打印机
I mean they understood intellectually, but they don't understand visionary.
虽然他们知道这项功能,但看不到它的潜力
Because the last really expensive thing we tried to sell was Lisa.
毕竟他们对Lisa电脑糟糕的市场表现记忆犹新
So we pushed this through, and I had basically do it through over a few “dead bodies”.
我们坚持上马打印机项目,得罪了不少人
And we pushed this thing through and it was the first laser printer on the market as you know, and the rest of history.
第一台激光打印机就这样面市了
When I left Apple, Apple was the largest printer company, measure by revenue in the world.
我离开时,苹果是世界上最大的激光打印机公司