Chapter 162: Subsidiary Conditions and Pressure
Shirakawa Kaede and Ohga Norio entered the small lounge next door and sat opposite each other.
Since there was no one else around, Shirakawa Kaede personally stood up and poured a cup of coffee for Ohga Norio.
After taking the coffee handed over by Shirakawa Kaede, Ohga Norio's serious expression relaxed a lot.
Having just spoken a lot in the conference room, Ohga Norio felt a little thirsty. He took a few sips of coffee before he breathed a sigh of relief.
When he looked up and saw Shirakawa Kaede waiting for him patiently, Ohga Norio showed his usual smile on his face.
This young man always impressed him and was extremely difficult to deal with during negotiations.
In private, he often shows his humble side , and his style of dealing with people is completely different.
"Shirakawa-san, now you can tell me your plan."
Ohga Norio knew that since he had specially invited him here, he must have already thought of the conditions.
This time, Baichuan Feng did not show an aggressive expression, but instead smiled slightly embarrassedly.
"I'm sorry to have made you laugh, but if you don't mind, you can just call me Baichuan."
Ohga Norio smiled and nodded, "Okay, then what suggestions does Shirakawa-kun have? If it's reasonable, Sony will consider it carefully."
After thinking for a few seconds, Baichuan Feng spoke carefully.
“It’s not anything special, I just wanted to ask Oga-san to introduce me.
As a member of the electronics industry, Shirakawa Electric very much wants to make its own contribution to the progress of the industry.
So Shirakawa Electric also wanted to contribute its part to the Electronics Industry Promotion Association.”
"Electronic Industry Promotion Association?" Ohga Norio showed a look of surprise on his face.
"That's right," Shirakawa Feng nodded. "As a newly established company, Shirakawa Electric needs guidance from many senior companies."
When Norio Ohga heard the words "a newly established company", he understood something.
The Electronics Industry Promotion Association, as the name suggests, is a mutual aid association composed of companies in the electronics industry.
Many giant companies such as Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, NEC, etc. are members of the association.
The rotating president of the association will be nominated by the member companies and will take turns to serve.
However, for Shirakawa Electric at present, the Electronics Industry Promotion Association is indeed suitable for it to join.
The association also has support plans for member companies, especially new companies.
For example, the annual corporate tax for Japanese companies is between 15% and 23%, but if the association applies to the government.
Then the corporate tax of a new company will have a significant discount in the first few years, sometimes even down by several percentage points.
Don’t underestimate this few percent discount. For Shirakawa Electric, its profit this year is likely to exceed 10 billion.
A discount of a few percentage points can mean a difference of hundreds of millions of yen.
Sony doesn't care about this little bit of money, but Shirakawa Kaede does, because that's his own money.
After understanding the logic, it was understandable why Ohga Norio made such a request to Shirakawa Kaede.
"If that's the case, the Electronics Industry Promotion Association welcomes Shirakawa Electric to join."
Seeing that Ohga Norio agreed readily, Shirakawa Feng also breathed a sigh of relief.
With Shirakawa Electric's strength, it is not impossible for it to join the Electronics Promotion Association, but it will probably take a few years.
But it’s different if you have someone to guide you, especially if a multinational company like Sony acts as a guarantor, it can be done in just a few minutes.
And the benefits of joining the association are more than that. In the future, everyone can share information about things in the industry.
The formulation of certain standards, foreign exchange inspections, etc., these are all real benefits for Shirakawa Electric.
"In that case, I'll leave it to you, Oga-san. Shirakawa Electric will be very grateful. I have another suggestion, Oga-san may also consider it."
"Hmm?" Seeing that Baichuan Feng had another suggestion, Ohga Norio couldn't help but frown slightly.
The benefits that should be given have already been given, and it would not be wise to continue to make demands.
"Mr. Ohga, you might as well listen first. It's not too late to make a decision later." As if knowing what he was thinking, Baichuan Feng explained in time.
"Okay, please go ahead, Mr. Shirakawa." Ohga Norio is also a man of great courage, and he does have some patience.
"According to the technical description provided by Sony last time, the current CD format seems to be the CD-DA format for audio only?"
Under Baichuan Feng's scorching gaze, Ohga Norio nodded in agreement with his statement.
"So Shirakawa Electric wants to continue to explore the CD format based on this project to promote CD technology on a larger scale. I wonder..."
Norio Ohga showed a surprised look. He was amazed by the other party's ambition and confidence.
Although developing another CD format is based on existing CD technology, it still requires a lot of manpower and material resources.
And without a long-term implementation plan, it is almost impossible to see results.
But Baichuan Feng is making such a request now, obviously he is very confident in his own R&D capabilities.
Ohga Norio pondered for a moment before looking up. "Another format for the target area?"
Baichuan Feng perked up, "Storage materials, such as books and documents, etc."
It’s good that it’s not music, Ohga Norio nodded slightly. As a musician, what he cares about most is the audio field.
Even the original intention of developing CD technology was because he was obsessed with the high-quality experience brought by the high-resolution sound.
If it is aimed at text materials, then it does not overlap with Sony's current strategic direction and will not affect Sony's existing business.
And what Shirakawa Kaede said was correct, the new CD format is indeed conducive to the promotion of CD technology.
Thinking of this, Ohga Norio nodded and said, "Shirakawa Electric can develop a new CD format, but it must be based on the existing patents of Sony and Philips."
"Of course," Baichuan Feng agreed without hesitation.
The so-called existing patent basis means that if Shirakawa Electric develops a new CD format in the future.
So every time a CD manufacturer presses a CD in this format, in addition to paying patent fees to Shirakawa Electric, Sony and Philips also have to pay a share.
As the inventor of CD technology, it's just unreasonable.
This is also the reason why Baichuan Feng wanted to try his best to squeeze into their alliance.
Unfortunately, the company's capabilities did not allow it at the time, but now Shirakawa Electric can still give it a try by developing an extended format of CD.
Seeing that Shirakawa Kaede agreed to his preconditions, Ohga Norio nodded with satisfaction.
"So what happened this time..." Ohga Norio looked at him straight.
Shirakawa Feng continued in tacit understanding, "Just as Ohga-san said outside, 500 million yen, and Aihua will publicly apologize to Shirakawa Electric.
As a result, Shirakawa Electric no longer pursued Aiwa’s infringement, and the two parties reached an out-of-court settlement.”
"Good" things finally came to an end, and a smile appeared on Ohga Norio's face.
As for the deal that the two of them just discussed in private, everyone tacitly kept silent about it.
That is outside the agreement and will not be reflected here.
Now that the matter has been settled, Shirakawa Kaede is ready to get up and return to the conference room to wait for Ohga Norio to announce the results.
But before he left his seat, Norio Ohga called him again.
"Shirakawa-kun, maybe it's time to untie the patent on the Walkman."
"Huh?" Baichuan Feng raised his head and looked at him in surprise.
Ohga Norio sighed slightly and looked at him meaningfully.
"Panasonic, Toshiba and Hitachi have all contacted Sony."
Baichuan Feng was startled for a moment, then reacted. "Ohga-san, you mean..."
"That's right," Ohga Norio confirmed his guess, "Sony cannot refuse the joint pressure from its peers."
This matter is also related to Aiwa's infringement controversy. Shirakawa Electric and Aiwa were in a heated dispute over the Walkman issue.
These giant peers naturally noticed this, because apart from Sony, Shirakawa Electric was the only company that produced Walkmans.
At that time, they would still murmur a few words about whether the two families had some private connection, but Aihua's entry completely made them unable to sit still.
As colleagues in the same industry, they can even roughly estimate how popular the Walkman has been in the past six months and how high the profits have been.
Now that more and more people are entering the market, there is no reason for these giants to have no ideas.
Taking advantage of this incident, they joined forces to put pressure on Sony. You have already opened up the license to the other two companies, why only reject us?
Faced with such arguments, even Ohga Norio could not find any reason to refute them.
After getting the exact answer, Baichuan Feng's mind started working rapidly.
The participation of these large manufacturers will inevitably lead to increasingly fierce competition in the portable player market.
By then, it will be difficult for Shirakawa Electric to make money without doing anything.
"Ohga-san, can you agree to release the Walkman authorization?"
"Huh?" Ohga Norio thought he had heard it wrong.
If the patent licensing of Walkmans is liberalized, Shirakawa Electric will obviously suffer the greatest impact in the market.
Is Mr. Shirakawa sure he knows what this means?
"You can release the Walkman authorization, but you have to set a time limit." Baichuan Feng's eyes became brighter.
"Deadline?" Ohga Norio seemed to have thought of something.
"That's right," Baichuan Feng nodded, "We will lift the restrictions on Walkman licensing in a year. If our competitors strongly oppose it, we will have to hold out until the end of this year at least."
Another year or even more than half a year will be enough for Shirakawa Electric to consolidate its existing portable player market.
Ohga Norio's eyes lit up, and it was obvious that he also understood Baichuan Feng's plan.
But this is also a good thing for Sony. After all, Sony's walkman now occupies more than half of the market share.
"Okay." Ohga Norio is confident that he can convince them in half a year. "Then what about the overseas market..."
"Shirakawa Electric is not considering opening overseas market authorization for the time being," Shirakawa Feng added tacitly.
"Yoshi!" Ohga Norio praised, and he no longer had any doubts.
Are you kidding? Baichuan Feng is planning to enter the overseas market himself. If he opens up the authorization to those foreigners, how can I make money?
So far, consensus has been reached on all negotiation contents today.
Aiwa paid 500 million yen and made a public apology in exchange for Shirakawa Electric's forgiveness.
Sony recommended Shirakawa Electric to join the Electronics Industry Promotion Association and authorized Shirakawa Electric to develop an extended format of CD. From then on, Shirakawa Electric no longer pursued Aiwa's patent issues.
Sony's Walkman domestic patent licensing has been delayed until after the new year, in exchange for which Shirakawa Electric has taken the reciprocal measure of not opening overseas licensing for the time being.
Every transaction is a compromise of mutual interests.
Overall, no one sacrificed too much, but everyone got conditions that satisfied them.
Such negotiations can be said to be a win-win situation for everyone.
Back in the conference room, Norio Ohga directly announced the negotiation results of this meeting.
Of course, what is said openly is only the one that everyone knows about, and the others are all behind-the-scenes deals.
Although Nakajima Heitaro knew this, there were some inside stories that he didn't know.
But as someone from Sony, he didn't even have the right to question.
But the result wasn't too bad after all, and he didn't take it too seriously.
After the meeting, Shirakawa Kaede walked over to Nakajima Heitaro with a smile and put his arm around his shoulders.
"Brother, please forgive me for offending you just now.
You know I was targeting Aihua, after all, they were the ones who went too far in the beginning.
I have great respect for you. Now that the grudges have been resolved, we can be friendly businessmen again.
I will come to apologize in person someday, and I hope you will forgive me for my previous offense."
Nakajima Heitaro felt very annoyed, but when he thought about it, he realized that Aihua was indeed in the wrong in this matter.
Now that the other party came in person to apologize, seeing that his attitude was relatively sincere, he reluctantly nodded and agreed.
The other people in the conference room looked at this scene with strange expressions.
They were fighting each other just now, and now they are back to normal in the blink of an eye?
In the corner, Ozone Kozo smiled in an ambiguous manner, while Ohga Norio seemed to be thinking about something.
