Chapter 333 Blue Giant
"Hello Mr. Shirakawa, Louis Karak, just call me Louis."
"Baichuan Feng, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Louis."
In a luxury suite in the Okura Hotel, Shirakawa Kaede and his team were secretly meeting with several representatives from IBM.
"Mr. Shirakawa, what you announced at that press conference is very interesting. IBM would like to discuss cooperation with Shirakawa Electric in this area."
Louis is the current executive vice president of IBM, and he just arrived in Neon yesterday.
A week ago, the U.S. headquarters received an urgent notice from Technical Director Robert.
According to Robert, it was in Neon that a new storage technology was born, which could revolutionize the computer industry.
Because Robert was present at the Shirakawa Electric conference in person, he was full of praise and highly appreciated the great prospects of this optical disc storage.
At first, IBM was a little skeptical, thinking that Robert was exaggerating.
IBM had certainly heard of CDs, a new format developed by Sony and Philips to develop next-generation audio technology specifications.
But what does digital audio technology have to do with computer storage?
Besides, what else can Japan do except copying American technology?
The Hitachi incident, which IBM is now focusing on, is the best example.
It has to be said that although it is already the 1980s, neon is still synonymous with shoddy workmanship in the eyes of some Americans.
Especially technology companies like IBM, they tend to be arrogant and prejudiced when looking at Japan.
However, an article in the New York Times two days later changed their views.
In this report , although the reporter's perspective on the issue was still somewhat biased, some things about Shirakawa Electric at the press conference were also written truthfully.
For example, some parameters of CD-ROM, of course, this is just a quick mention.
Most of the report was devoted to mocking Shirakawa Electric's overestimation of its capabilities, and its attempt to steal the jewel in IBM's industrial crown with the help of optical disk storage technology.
There is also a lack of confidence in an unknown chip company that is trying to enter the chip market.
In short, the entire report is either secretly praising IBM or advocating Intel, and the rest is openly criticizing Shirakawa Electric.
IBM didn't care about the double standards of the New York Times, but as an expert, they were not calm when they saw some parameters in the newspaper.
700MB? Hell, floppy disks wouldn't catch up even if they were developed for another century.
They knew too well the limits of floppy disks, and unless there was a new breakthrough in materials, there was no point in trying.
After careful analysis based on the newspaper and Robert's description, IBM concluded that the realization of CD-ROM was indeed possible.
Without hesitation, IBM immediately sent Executive Vice President Louis to fly to Neon to find out the true situation.
If Shirakawa Electric's CD-ROM technology is indeed as they said at the press conference.
Then IBM may have to consider cooperating with this Japanese company in some areas.
Facing Louis's temptation at this time, Baichuan Feng smiled.
"Mr. Louis, if IBM is willing to join in the promotion of CD-ROM, we certainly welcome it.
I believe you also know the advantages of this optical disk storage technology. Not to mention the capacity, the cost alone has a huge promotional advantage compared to floppy disks. "
A floppy disk costs tens of dollars or hundreds of dollars. For ordinary people, it is considered good if they can afford a floppy disk of tens of KB for a few dollars.
But what about CDs? The cost of a CD is less than one percent of that of a floppy disk.
This alone is enough to kill floppy disks in seconds. There is no doubt that CDs are inherently more conducive to promotion and dissemination than floppy disks.
Louis certainly understood this, as he had learned about the production principles of CDs before coming here.
But now, he needs to consider the problem from another angle.
"Mr. Shirakawa, first of all, I have to admit that the CD-ROM you launched does have a great advantage in terms of capacity.
But it also has an obvious disadvantage, which is that it can only read data but cannot write data or even modify it.
In other words, it's more like a disposable storage disk, like..." Louis paused, "like paper."
"Yes, that's right. I think it's very appropriate to use paper to describe it." Louis felt proud of himself for finding a suitable metaphor.
"But our floppy disks are different. They can be reused over and over again. As long as they are properly preserved, they can even be used until the end of humanity."
If you want to get it, you must first devalue it. Lewis is well versed in the principle of playing hard to get.
"But it's cheap enough. As you said, CDs are the paper of storage. Everyone can afford it and consume it."
Shirakawa Kaede said that there is nothing wrong with paper. Although it is cheap, it can benefit mankind and has been widely used.
Low cost is the magic weapon for success. With this alone, Baichuan Feng is not inferior to any move made by IBM.
Hearing that Baichuan Feng used the paper he compared to a real person to be his own enemy, Louis was silent.
But he soon thought of another problem facing CD storage.
"Mr. Shirakawa, you may be right, but for any new thing, if we want people to accept it, we must first face the problem of promotion.
As far as I know, Shirakawa Electric does not seem to have any computer-related business. Without the recognition of the computer industry, it is a pipe dream to promote CD storage.
But IBM does, and no one can match IBM’s appeal in computers.”
Louis has enough confidence to say this, the name of the Blue Giant is not for nothing.
When Silicon Valley in the United States was still a wasteland, IBM had already started working for the government.
From the tabulating machine that started it all, to the world's first electronic computer, to today's mainframes, minicomputers and personal computers.
It can be said that IBM has been leading these businesses for more than half a century and has always been at the top of the industry.
And if we combine this with future technology development trends, from a bird's eye view, IBM has hardly failed in the past few decades.
This foresight alone is scary enough, as if one is cheating.
Although it was still the early 1980s, IBM was already the leader in the computer industry.
Any specifications he develops or is the first to be applied to computers will soon become the industry's default standard.
Take floppy disks for example. IBM used 5.2-inch floppy drives on its own computers.
So other computer manufacturers followed suit and used the same size floppy drives in their computers.
Then the 5.2-inch floppy disk replaced the 8-inch floppy disk by default and became the new generation of floppy disk specification.
And all this happened without IBM even proposing to standardize the 5.2-inch floppy disk.
But because everyone followed suit, looking back, it has become an established fact.
IBM's appeal in the computer industry is so outrageous.
In sharp contrast, Sony's 3.5-inch floppy disk, after more than two years of hard work, is still only available in Japan.
With such a comparison, it is clear which one is better and which one is worse, and IBM is worthy of its title of blue giant.
So at this time, Louis had enough confidence to tell Shirakawa Kaede that with the assistance of IBM, standardization of CD-ROM would not be a problem at all.
In fact, the reason why Shirakawa Kaede secretly met with IBM representatives was that he valued the other party's appeal in the computer industry.
Otherwise, in Japan's current social environment, making peace with IBM is not a good thing.
Because of the Hitachi incident and the biased attitude of the Japanese media, the public generally believes that IBM is deliberately harming Hitachi.
So you can imagine what the Japanese think of IBM, and if the meeting between Shirakawa Kaede and IBM executives were to be revealed at this time, things would be interesting.
Don't forget that some media are still promoting Shirakawa Kaede as a responsible entrepreneur who supports the domestic company Hitachi.
As a result, these two multinational companies turned around and secretly got together regardless of their identities. How could that be tolerated?
Therefore, before reaching a definite agreement, Baichuan Feng kept a low profile and secretly visited the IBM people.
As for the two companies announcing their partnership in the future, that is another matter.
In order to make money, Baichuan Feng doesn't care about the national glory.
Of course, this is what happened, but you can't say it that way.
Baichuan Feng is already considering a safer way to deal with the situation, but that’s a story for later.
Faced with Louis' full confidence in the promotion, Baichuan Feng decided to consider the issue from a different angle.
"Mr. Louis, IBM will indeed play an important role in promoting optical disk storage.
But please don't forget that CD-ROM was developed based on the CD format.
As a member of the CD Alliance, Shirakawa Electric will consider seeking cooperation within the alliance when necessary."
I admit that IBM is a big name in the computer industry.
But don’t forget, there is also the CD Alliance, and I, Baichuan, am not fighting alone.
Although the CD Alliance's several manufacturers have limited influence on the computer business, as the saying goes, three heads are better than one.
After hearing what Baichuan Feng said, Louis really became a little cautious.
He almost forgot that CD has been recognized by the International Audio Organization. Although it is a specification in the audio field, it is still an international standard.
If CD optical disk storage is promoted on this basis, it naturally has the advantage of standardization.
Seeing Louis fall silent again, Baichuan Feng breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. He finally shocked the blue giant.
In fact, there is no support from the CD Alliance at all. This is completely Baichuan Feng's own act of waving the flag.
Although Shirakawa Electric was the first to launch the CD-ROM format, during this period of time, Sony, the inventor of CD technology, was not even around the corner.
Even other companies that were just playing supporting roles, such as Panasonic, Toshiba, and Pioneer, did not take the initiative to contact Shirakawa Electric.
Sony probably felt jealous and was too embarrassed to approach Shirakawa Electric.
Philip was hesitant and seemed to be a little interested, but he was still unwilling to take the initiative to speak.
As the inventors of the CD, they were surpassed by Shirakawa Electric, which has always had a low profile, in terms of in-depth technological development.
So although it is surprising, these two companies still maintain their dignity as leaders in CD technology. The situation of Sony is even more complicated.
As for the other companies such as Panasonic, their focus is not on the personal computer business at all, and they have no interest in CD-ROMs.
But this did not affect Baichuan Feng's decision to bring them over to strengthen their momentum. IBM didn't understand the ins and outs of this anyway.
The main focus is on information gap.
Seeing that the other party was still thinking, Baichuan Feng also took out the steps he had prepared long ago.
"Mr. Louis, why don't we talk about more practical issues?"
"Hmm?" Louis raised his eyes and looked over. "What practical problem does Mr. Shirakawa mean?"
Baichuan Feng smiled and said, "For example, what does IBM hope to gain from CD storage?"
