There were 28 days in February 2002. Just as China was gradually immersed in the New Year atmosphere, Tanaka Mito, deputy director of the electronic design department of Sony EMCS, returned to Tokyo from New York.
New York, USA, Neon Tokyo.
It's like two worlds.
In particular, when Tanaka saw the vice president of Sony telling him face to face about his shocking experiences outside, he received only indifferent comfort from the other party, which made him feel the huge difference between inside and outside.
"Tanaka-kun, as you said, Apple's Ipod only has a sales volume of 100,000. Even if it supports Windows, Huaxia's products are only 200,000. This is enough to prove that the prospects of so-called digital music players are not that broad.
"
"Not to mention the walkman who attacked us."
"Tanaka-kun, you may not know that Sony also released a digital music player, but it hardly caused any waves."
"Our Walkman is the best product in the world."
"Our G-Protection shock absorber system can never skip sound. You said that the Ipod uses a hard disk for storage. How does it solve this problem? Isn't the shock absorber of a micro hard drive difficult to deal with?"
"What are consumers listening to? Isn't it the sound quality?"
"How can such a crude piece of hardware defeat our Walkman?"
"Tanaka-kun, you are worrying too much."
The vice president's well-founded words made Tanaka Min confused.
However, after he left Sony headquarters and went back to check out the digital products produced by Sony, he discovered that the player model "MC-P10" did not support the mp3 format. It only supported the ATRAC3 format and memory cards developed exclusively by Sony.
It can be said that there is not much difference between the MC-P10 and the mini walkman sold by Sony.
After much thought, Tanaka Mito came to Sony headquarters again. This time he went directly to the president, Mr. Nobuyuki Dei, and excitedly described the development of the MP3 market.
Nobuyuki Idei is Sony's only president who has a non-technical background and a non-entrepreneurial team background. He calmly listened to the statement of the deputy director of the electronic design department of his subsidiary company, and then gave the first response.
"Tanaka-kun, I understand your feelings, but you should respond to the marketing department first instead of finding me directly."
"If everyone came in as close to breaking in as you did, my office wouldn't be able to function."
Nobuyuki Idei thinks that Tanaka Mito is going beyond the rules.
"Tanaka-kun, the value that we at Sony have confirmed from Mr. Morita is not to make products with low added value. The MP3 player you mentioned only focuses on the stacking of hardware and only seeks the profits from the combination of different hardware. Its added value
It’s very low.”
"Our walkman has hardware, copyright, CD, MD, and patents. What does Apple have?"
President Nobuyuki Idei stood from a different angle and asked the deputy director of the design department who had returned from New York rather forcefully.
"As you said, even a small Chinese company can make a player with no technical difficulties. Why should we enter such a market that is destined to be cheap in the future?"
Tanaka Min was asked.
Moreover, it is indeed widely circulated within Sony that Mr. Akio Morita does not make low-value-added and cheap products.
Tanaka Min left in a daze.
He walked on the streets of Tokyo, looking at his reserved compatriots, and became increasingly confused. What the vice president and president said made sense, but the world outside didn't seem to be like this. MP3 players were obviously booming.
Could it be that everything I saw was fake?
Tanaka returned home confused and fell into deep thought.
Two days passed like this, and the confusion was not resolved. The idea of starting a business that originally flashed in New York spread like wildfire.
At this moment, New York came into contact with the directness and ferocity of those Westerners, which seemed to take hold of him. The depression in his bones was driven away, and he made a crazy decision that was difficult for his family to understand.
Resigned from the position of deputy director of Sony EMCS electronic design department and started his own business!
Tanaka persuaded his family impassionedly, went to the company resolutely to complete the procedures, used his contacts and accumulation to come up with the first entrepreneurial capital, and started to register his own brand. Everything went smoothly.
Considering that the disassembled Ipod and M1 have little technical content, he is confident that he can produce offline products within 2 months.
However, when Tanaka Mi went to Toshiba in person at No. 1-1 Shibaura 1-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo with two competing products, the other party rejected his order request. The reason given was "We have signed contracts with the two companies."
A supply contract cannot supply goods to a third party."
Nani???
Tanaka was stunned.
What was worse was yet to come. After asking around, he found that none of the domestic hard drive manufacturers could provide 1.8-inch commercial micro hard drives.
やめて!!!
Tanaka-kun felt great pain.
…
Shencheng's CEO Yi Ke didn't know that a new player in a neighboring country was in a dilemma. He spent a few days before the Spring Festival studying Sina's goal in depth.
At this moment, the three portals listed in the United States are almost all at low market value. Sina is particularly weak due to the dispersion of its equity. If time goes by, both the opportunities and costs will be doubled.
At present, the funds that Fangzhuo can mobilize are the payment for goods sold by Yike Technology in China. It can only use a small part and cannot affect advertising, product reproduction, and production line expansion.
The expansion of the US market is not only like this, but also requires more additional funds, because matters involving software and music copyrights must be prepared for rainy days.
Fang Zhuo briefly met with two banks that have loan cooperation, and considered using part of the equity of Yike Technology to pledge financing. In addition, he was also looking for venture capital and private equity in Xiangjiang, but these are things that will not be responded to until next year.
.
On February 24, two days before New Year's Eve, most of the company's employees had already gone on holiday, and Fang Zhuo also returned to China and saw the haggard Zhou Xin for the first time.
"Brother Fang, did you let Guahao.com make a purchase of J1?"
"Well, yes, they are used to give away to the leaders of various hospitals during the Chinese New Year. Yike basically keeps no profit. Now it happens that our own products have a brand name, which saves trouble." Fang Zhuo met at the president's office of Yike.
Here comes this heartbroken man.
Zhou Xin nodded: "It's a win-win situation. Yike's J1 can be regarded as a far-reaching publicity."
"Mr. Zhou has really made progress, I think so too." Fang Zhuo said with a smile.
"Brother Fang, this is the computer course textbook that is going to be launched in East China this year. The registration and usage of the registration network are written on it as a case." Zhou Xin was much calmer, "This batch of textbooks will be updated when the school starts in September."
Fang Zhuo took the textbook and saw the words "Guanhao.com" on it. He felt very happy and said with emotion: "Guanhao.com has gained a lot this year. This alone deserves a special mention. You have worked hard."
"It's not hard work, but life is hard." Zhou Xin sighed, "Brother Fang, I want to buy a car to drive. What do you recommend?"
Fang Zhuo pretended not to hear the first half of the sentence and said: "BMW, buy a BMW."
Zhou Xin sighed deeply: "Okay, just listen to Brother Fang."
"Ahem, Xiao Zhou, um... Happy New Year." Fang Zhuo gave his blessing sincerely and perfunctorily.
