Chapter 332: The Media's Second-Class Style
As soon as the Shirakawa Electric briefing ended in early August, major media newspapers began to report in great detail on the various highlights of the briefing.
"Shirakawa Electric - the leader of digital music, the gravedigger of the vinyl empire!"
This is news that praises Shirakawa Electric's portable CD player. Even the accompanying picture shows Shirakawa Kaede holding the CD player with one hand and looking at the camera with a smile on his face.
"Storage technology breaks through! Big Blue takes the initiative to make peace!"
This is a report on Shirakawa Electric's CD optical disc storage technology, but the accompanying picture is the scene where IBM's technical director Robert is the first to extend his hand to shake hands with Shirakawa Kaede.
Apparently, the scene of Shirakawa Kaede talking with IBM was also captured by some attentive reporters at the conference venue.
In addition to these reports, other news headlines are more sensational than the last .
"A new revolution in the field of CD-ROM computers", "A CD contains the contents of 150,000 sheets of 16-page paper"
There are also "the empire's treasure", "the destroyer of the world's storage technology order", "the double champion of the youngest company and the youngest president in Neon"
In short, in order to attract attention, the title can be as childish as possible.
However, thanks to their praise, Shirakawa Electric's reputation is now almost unparalleled and no one can match it.
After all, what was presented at the briefing was indeed very interesting and absolutely valuable.
Especially the huge capacity of 700MB of CD discs, for people who are still using files of a few hundred KB, it is tantamount to a earth-shaking shock.
This is definitely black technology, because the technological advancement is so great that it even exceeds the imagination of many people.
So even before Shirakawa Electric went public, the financial sector was already having heated discussions about how it would perform in the stock market in the future.
With so many media reports, the topic of Shirakawa Electric has increased dramatically, and many investors can't wait to turn into "leeks" and enter the market to try their hand.
In fact, the reason why most media praised Shirakawa Electric was related to the conversation he had with American reporters after the briefing.
In their view, what Baichuan Feng said was a clear protection of local enterprises, and at the same time greatly increased the prestige of Japan.
The market economy advocates free trade. The fact that your U.S. DRAM business cannot compete with Japan is entirely due to your own fault.
Especially the semiconductor companies under the major chaebols, after seeing this report, they all felt that Shirakawa Kaede's words were deeply comforting.
They can even confidently say that the DRAM chips produced by Japanese companies can definitely last up to 20 years.
Even the worst one is more reliable than the best quality one in the United States.
Otherwise, how could Neon swallow up nearly half of the market share in just less than a few years?
Low price is one thing, reliable quality is another major factor.
Now that Baichuan Feng said these words to the American reporters openly, it really hit the spot.
These semiconductor companies all have chaebol backgrounds and have complex relationships with the media.
So after a certain senior executive gave a gratifying compliment, the media and newspapers began to promote Shirakawa Electric.
It even did a special report on SIC, detailing SIC's innovations in the field of processor chips and its outstanding performance in consumer electronics.
For such a good thing, Baichuan Feng said please come more.
With extensive coverage by local media, SIC is now somewhat well-known.
It can be foreseen that in the future, as long as SIC does not make major mistakes, there will be no shortage of orders.
But when you choose a friend, you automatically choose an enemy as well.
That Western guy from the United States would copy Baichuan Feng's words verbatim and publish them in American newspapers on the other side of the ocean.
As for the consequences of doing so, that is a story for later.
In short, Shirakawa Electric's briefing has brought a ray of light into the haze that has been hanging over Japan's electronic technology industry.
Look, our Japanese companies have never lacked R&D capabilities. The IBM commercial espionage case is absolutely an unreasonable suppression of Japanese technology companies by the United States.
The reason why Japanese people have such an idea is that Shirakawa Electric chose a very good time for its press conference.
The former was embarrassed because of Hitachi's scandal, and Japan's manufacturing industry was disgraced.
The latter, Shirakawa Electric, emerged out of nowhere, and its two black technologies made IBM, the mastermind of the espionage case, take the initiative to show goodwill.
What this shows is that Japan has never lacked innovative companies with strong technological capabilities.
It just so happens that the government is also urgently in need of other things to divert public attention.
Therefore, Shirakawa Electric became an excellent choice, and a new example was being set.
Now the words "Shirakawa Electric" seem to have the same treatment as Sony, and it is the glory of the nation.
It is synonymous with innovation, technology and progress.
To be honest, Baichuan Feng himself did not expect this to happen. Alas, it was the time and the fate.
He accepted the title without hesitation.
However, unlike the public outcry, many companies doing business with Shirakawa Electric are experiencing a different situation.
…
"Ozone-san, please explain to me why Shirakawa Electric released the CD player before us. Isn't it said that their progress is far behind ours?
In addition, the other party released a portable CD player! Why didn't we hear about such important information?"
In the office, Norio Ohga was furious and a piece of his favorite porcelain on his desk was smashed to pieces.
As a classical musician, he has never lost his composure like this before.
The elegance and politeness of the past
The culprit behind all this was Shirakawa Electric's briefing.
At the beginning, Ohga Norio did attend the briefing with the intention of joining in the fun. After all, privately speaking, he and Shirakawa Kaede had a pretty good relationship.
But unexpectedly, it was hit hard shortly after the briefing started.
The mini CD player in Shirakawa Feng's hand is the most blatant mockery of Sony's hard research over the past few years.
The inventor of CD technology? So what? He still got the dust from Shirakawa Electric.
Ohga Norio, whose chest was heaving violently, stared at Ozone Kozo, waiting for him to give him an explanation.
At this time, Ozone Kozo was in a difficult situation and had his grievances unspeakable.
Who would have known that Shirakawa Electric, which he had always looked down upon, would actually make such an amazing move.
"Ohga-san, I was indeed negligent in providing information about Shirakawa Electric's CD player development.
But things are not that bad, we still have room to maneuver."
Ohga Norio glanced at him expressionlessly, "Ozone-san, you'd better find a reason to convince me.
CD is the top priority for Sony's future development, and there can be no mistakes. Otherwise, you must know the consequences. "
Ozone Kozo's heart trembled, and he thought of Nakajima Heitaro who had been marginalized.
It is said that Mr. Nakajima played an indispensable role in the great progress made by Shirakawa Electric in the research and development of CD players.
And his departure was caused by his own hands.
As expected, karma has its own way and no one can escape it.
But now that things have come to this, there is no point in expressing regret.
Ozone Kozo organized his words and spoke slowly.
"Ohga-san, Shirakawa Electric's introduction of a portable CD player really caught everyone by surprise.
But this is the same for everyone, we are still in the same race for the time being."
"You mean..." Ohga Norio narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Philips, Panasonic, Toshiba, they will also be shocked by Shirakawa's portable CD player.
We are all the same in this respect, and portable CD players and our desktop CD players should be considered completely different products.
Judging from the on-site audio-visual experience alone, the sound quality of portable CDs is still inferior to that of desktop CD players.
This also means that its target audience is the low-end market, which is not the case with desktop computers. I believe that most vinyl lovers prefer the performance of desktop computers.
So even though Shirakawa Electric is one step ahead of us, its impact on the future market is not as great as we imagined.
We are on two different tracks from the other side, and there is still enough time for Sony to react.”
In fact, Ozone Kozo changed the concept. Although he said that, it is obvious that the audience of desktop computers is definitely not as large as that of portable CD players.
After all, the so-called vinyl lovers are mostly audiophile-level users, and they are destined to be a niche among consumers.
But, there is some truth in this.
Norio Ohga thought silently for two seconds, then raised his head.
"Immediately prepare for Sony's CD player launch conference, the sooner the better, this time we must get ahead of Philips and others.
The title of the world's first desktop CD player cannot be missed at any cost."
"Hai" Ozone Yukizo breathed a sigh of relief, it seemed that he had passed this hurdle.
"In addition," Ohga Norio's voice suddenly came again, "The research and development of portable CD players should also be arranged immediately. I must see Sony's portable CD player officially launched next year."
Ozone Kozo's heart trembled, then he lowered his head and said, "Hai!"
Looking at the other person's leaving figure, Ohga Norio took off his glasses and pinched his eyebrows tiredly.
How could he not know the power of portable CD players? In the future, its shipment volume will definitely far exceed that of desktop CD players.
After all, the price is there, and the gap of nearly 3 times between the two is far from being made up by performance.
But he also needed a reason to explain to the board of directors, and Ozone Yukizo's statement could be considered an explanation.
This Shirakawa-san looks young, but every time he makes a move he causes a lot of headaches.
The methods are becoming more and more cunning, and there is also CD storage technology.
At this time, Yamato Norio didn't know whether it was right or wrong for him to agree to open the authorization to the other party.
Although his original intention in developing the CD was for music, this does not mean that Norio Yamato does not understand what the new CD standard means.
He could already imagine that soon that Baichuan-san would come to him again, he was absolutely certain of this.
As for rule-making, Sony cannot miss it this time.
…
The explanation given by Shirakawa Electric caused different reactions from various parties, but due to the silent period, Shirakawa Feng avoided any inquiries from the outside world.
Not only that, he also rejected many media interviews and TV station invitations.
The reason is ready, it's the silent period after listing.
The more he did this, the more curious the outside world became about him. Unfortunately, the youngest president of Neon, Sang, was elusive and it was not easy to find him.
However, although it is a silent period, it does not mean that Baichuan Feng has nothing to do.
On the contrary, taking advantage of this quiet time, he wanted to cause trouble again.
