Chapter 318: Commercial Espionage Case
Shirakawa Electric's mid-year advertisement caused a heated discussion throughout Tokyo. Companies with overlapping business paid attention to his products, while companies without overlapping business paid attention to his subsequent listing announcement.
For a company to go public, in addition to the initial announcement, there is still a lot of follow-up work to be done.
For example, the initial public offering prospectus, briefing session, listing details, etc. will be announced in the coming days.
However, Shirakawa Electric is currently undergoing an external audit and has not yet issued any public announcement.
But the general time is within these two weeks, because the audits by Deloitte and KPMG are coming to an end.
As for the Shirakawa Kaede, the central figure of Shirakawa Electric who everyone was discussing, he did not make a public appearance at this moment, but drove to Chiba Prefecture in a low-key manner with people within the group.
What we are here for is still to invest and build a factory.
This time he was planning to build a CD factory, and the site was chosen in Chiba Prefecture, across the sea from Tokyo.
Since the 1950s and 1960s, this place has been a cluster of chemical and materials industries.
Most of the raw materials and upstream and downstream services of the industry can be found here, and the processing of optical discs also belongs to the chemical materials industry.
Therefore, if we want to build a factory, Chiba is the best choice. It is separated from Tokyo by Tokyo Bay and has relatively convenient transportation.
As for why Shirakawa Kaede built the CD factory, it was also to make early arrangements for future industries.
The laboratory at SIC has confirmed that CD-ROM will be released this year.
As this is the first industry standard that he participated in formulating, Baichuan Feng also attaches great importance to it.
This technology will change the future storage landscape, so of course you have to prepare in advance.
If the format is launched this year, then CD-ROM discs must be officially put into production next year.
He could already imagine that the technology that SIC had been researching for more than two years would become another money printing machine for Shirakawa Electric in the future.
In addition to CD-ROMs, the CD player that will be launched this year will also require a large number of records to support its distribution.
Next year, Shirakawa Electric's CD factory will also take on external work if a record company wants to release CDs.
Look, we have it ready in Chiba. It's close to Tokyo, so you can to check on the progress of the pressing.
Although the formats of CD-ROM and CD-DA are different, 90% of the processing techniques are the same, the only difference is the mold used for pressing.
Therefore, after internal estimates, Shirakawa Electric believed that building its own CD factory was a very necessary option.
At this time, Shirakawa Kaede was negotiating with Chiba government officials about the location of the factory. Suddenly, Assistant Komatsu, who was accompanying them, came over in a hurry.
After apologizing to Chiba Governor beside him, Shirakawa Feng walked aside alone, "What's wrong?"
"Michiyoshi Mazuka and Ryuji Tokita from Fujitsu just called me. It seems like something very urgent."
Assistant Komatsu, who was responsible for answering the phone in the car, also had a serious expression on his face at this time.
It is not difficult to tell from the other party's anxious tone just now that there must be something important.
When he heard that it was Fujitsu, Shirakawa Feng was stunned.
Is there something wrong with the chip? That shouldn't be the case. SIC8089 has been on the market for almost a year and there are no major bugs.
But no matter what, it must be related to me, and Baichuan Feng also put on a serious expression.
"Do you know what it is? What did the other party say?"
"They refused to say anything specific, but they stressed several times that they wanted to see you immediately."
It seemed that something really happened. Shirakawa Feng turned his head and took a look at Governor Chiba who was still standing not far away, and sighed.
Forget it, I'll come visit you another day.
There was no other choice, Shirakawa Feng could only go over and explain the situation to Governor Chiba, and leave first as he had something urgent to do.
However, the accompanying Nakajima Heitaro will remain here, and he also has his own professional opinions on the construction of the CD factory.
Governor Chiba also generously said that it was okay, as it was normal for a president who was about to go public again to be busy.
After hurriedly bidding farewell to Chiba, Kojima immediately drove back to Tokyo.
They went straight to Fujitsu's headquarters in Minato without even entering their own Shirakawa Electric.
As soon as they arrived here, the staff who had been waiting for a long time immediately took Shirakawa Feng and others to the office of Michiyoshi Mazuka.
"Shirakawa-san, you are here."
As soon as I entered the door, Jianzuka Daoyi hurried to greet me.
"Mazuka-san, what's wrong? What are you so anxious about ?"
Shirakawa Feng was very surprised to see that Mazuka Michiyoshi's face was pale and he looked extremely anxious.
Not only him, but also Ryuji Tokita from the Electronics Division had the same expression.
Both of them hold positions above the ministerial level at Fujitsu and are bona fide senior executives.
But now this appearance is really not consistent with their identities.
Hearing Shirakawa Kaede's question, Mazuka Michiyoshi immediately handed him the Yomiuri Shimbun on the table without hesitation.
Without time to ask in detail, Baichuan Feng looked down and saw the bold black news headline was extremely eye-catching.
"IBM and FBI jointly arrest Hitachi and Mitsubishi employees, a case of commercial espionage has occurred!"
Baichuan Feng took a deep breath. This short sentence contained an astonishing amount of information.
Not only the Yomiuri Shimbun, but also the Nikkei Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun have similar reports.
"Hitachi and Mitsubishi employees arrested for industrial espionage!"
"A clever trap: FBI undercover officer uncovers a 'big deal'!"
The headlines were more sensational than the last, and the reports were accompanied by pictures of arrests.
A Neon man wearing a tie and a shirt, with his hands handcuffed behind his back, walked in front dejectedly.
Behind him, a foreigner put one hand in his pocket and walked out of the airport with the other hand holding the Japanese man in front of him as if he was not seeing anything.
To be honest, this scene looks exactly like a master teaching his disobedient dog a lesson.
Although he had not read the specific content of the news report, Baichuan Feng already had a general idea of what had happened.
After being patient and reading the news in detail, Baichuan Feng finally understood the details.
The facts were just as he thought. This was indeed a case of industrial espionage with wide-ranging implications.
Two days ago, two officials from the capital government of the United States, on the other side of the earth, announced the details of the arrest of Hitachi and Mitsubishi employees.
The FBI director declared at the press conference, "This investigation is a good example of how we should be vigilant against Japan's infiltration of our high-tech industry and theft of key secrets in all aspects."
It was only two days after the incident that Japan began to report the incident on a large scale.
Various news outlets also gave detailed interpretations of the inside details of the commercial espionage case between Hitachi, Mitsubishi and IBM.
Basically, in order to obtain the technical data of IBM mainframe 3081K, Hitachi's liaison in the United States secretly sought confidential information from former IBM employee Perrin.
Perrin, former director of IBM's Computer Systems Laboratory, was shocked when he received the first ten volumes of secret information on the 3081K model provided by Hitachi.
Although he had left IBM, he knew that this was IBM's most confidential mainframe technology information and the confidentiality level was very high.
But now Hitachi came to him and asked if he could get the remaining seventeen volumes.
This made Perrin realize that there were astonishing commercial secret transactions involved.
After careful consideration, Perrin finally ignored the huge compensation offered by Hitachi and instead told his former employer, IBM, about the matter.
So a typical case of sting enforcement or an Infernal Affairs story unfolded.
After IBM obtained the intelligence, it decisively contacted the FBI.
At this time, IBM and the US government had a lot of business cooperation, and almost all the servers and computers of government departments were provided by IBM.
This includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the FBI, so IBM has a very close relationship with the government.
Faced with the information provided by IBM, the FBI sent an agent posing as IBM's technical consultant.
At the same time, the FBI asked Palin to pretend to agree to Hitachi's conditions and introduced the Hitachi contact to the FBI's disguised technical consultant.
Faced with the agent's ambiguous attitude, Hitachi's contact person flattered him in every way and promised various benefits.
In fact, the FBI already had enough evidence to arrest the Hitachi liaison at this time, because every one of their meetings was secretly recorded and even videotaped.
But the FBI and IBM wanted to catch bigger fish, so under the instigation of the fake technical consultant, the Hitachi liaison took him directly to Neon.
In a hotel in Neon, the director of Hitachi Kanagawa Computer Factory personally met with the fake consultant.
So, under the huge temptation of 500,000 US dollars, the fake agent pretended to agree to Hitachi's request to obtain the remaining 17 volumes of technical data.
After returning to the United States, IBM and the FBI quickly set up the situation and notified Hitachi's senior management to come to the United States in person to take away the information.
So the foolish Hitachi went to pick up the goods without any precautions, but was pinned to the ground by several burly men as soon as he entered the door.
At the same time, the same situation occurred at Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi employees even took the information to the airport and prepared to fly back home immediately.
However, the FBI had also set up a tight net here a long time ago, and the other party was caught as soon as he showed up.
This commercial espionage case began to be planned in October 1982, and was not officially closed until the end of June this year.
It took more than half a year to capture the criminals and Mitsubishi red-handed, and the crime of commercial espionage by Hitachi and Mitsubishi was completely proven with solid evidence.
So far, the Infernal Affairs method of solving the case has been a great success.
Japanese companies have once again lost all their reputation in the United States.
Even more and more industrial and commercial capital is lobbying Congress to strengthen technological surveillance of Japan.
The specific results are unknown, but it's like a depth bomb was dropped here in Japan.
Not to mention the major media outlets, there are already many people discussing it on the streets.
Baichuan Feng went out early this morning and didn't see the relevant news.
It was only when I returned to Tokyo that I felt the undercurrent beneath the public opinion level.
But the FBI is arresting people from Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, why are you, Fujitsu, so nervous?
Suddenly, Shirakawa Feng's heart moved. He turned to look at Mazuka Michiyoshi, "Mazuka-san, Fujitsu won't also..."
"Of course not!" Michiyoshi Mazuka and Ryuji Tokita jumped up at the same time.
"Shirakawa-san, Fujitsu has nothing to do with this! All of our technology is developed in-house, without borrowing from anyone else!"
The way Mazuka Michiyoshi swore and swore made people think that it was Shirakawa Kaede who was interrogating him.
Uh, I'm just asking casually, is there any need to be so nervous?
The more Fujitsu denied it, the more Shirakawa Feng started to grumble in his heart.
If it really has something to do with Fujitsu, it won't involve me, right...?
Mazuka Michiyoshi also has his own difficulties. The fact is that there is indeed a little relationship...
