Chapter 346 Mission Completed
"For mainframes and other business-oriented computers, Shirakawa Electric will design a separate optical drive.
From materials to design structures, we strive to achieve the best in safety and reliability.”
Shirakawa Feng understands the design principles for business purposes. Performance does not have to be optimal, but it must be stable and reliable.
"So what about pricing?" Louis asked next.
After thinking for two seconds, Baichuan Feng expressed his thoughts.
"A 2x business-class optical drive costs $600, and a 4x business-class optical drive costs $1,300."
"Very reasonable pricing" Louis was extremely satisfied with the price.
This is the value that an optical drive should have, and he even thinks it can be a little higher.
A thousand dollars for a capacity hundreds of times that of a floppy disk, isn't that a great value?
Louis knew that there would always be a market for those commercial computers no matter how expensive they were.
After all, the United States is too big and there are countless wealthy companies, and they are definitely willing to pay this money.
Seeing Louis's expression, Baichuan Feng felt that the price he set seemed to have room for increase.
In fact, it is not surprising to think about it. In the eyes of gamers, the business laptops or desktops of later generations have rubbish configurations.
But the prices are basically more than 10,000, and even so there are still many companies purchasing in bulk.
They claim that the product has first-class stability and also provide thoughtful after-sales service such as door-to-door service.
In that case, Shirakawa Electric can also be used.
Changing the materials, adding a chip, the price increases two or three times. That's reasonable, right?
It turned out that it was not only reasonable, but even Louis felt a little bit wronged for him.
Alas, my heart is still not dark enough.
"Well, now that the price has been decided, we should also talk about its channel costs."
Isn’t this the reason why Louis would like Shirakawa Electric to be priced higher ?
The more expensive the optical drive is sold, the more commission IBM can get.
"Mr. Shirakawa, I think with IBM's influence, 20% is what we deserve."
Facing Louis's loud mouth, Baichuan Feng simply spread out his hands.
"Mr. Louis, are you kidding? Our Baichuan Electric's profit is not that much."
"Mr. Bai, I know your profits are much more than this. 20%, IBM only took a small part of its profits.
Also, please think carefully. With IBM's leading promotion, optical drives will definitely be popular among other computer manufacturers.
By then, the optical drive will surely become another revolution in the computer industry. What a great thing it is.”
Louis spoke passionately, but Baichuan Feng had a blank expression on his face.
"Mr. Louis, the 20% commission made IBM great, but Shirakawa Electric lost money."
"Come on! Mr. Bai, you and I both know that the profit of optical drives is far more than this..."
"Wait a minute, Mr. Louis, one price! 10% for personal computers, 15% for mainframes and other business computers.
This is our bottom line. No matter how much Shirakawa Electric can do, it cannot sustain the high cost of manufacturing optical drives, and the huge amount of research and development costs invested in the early stage will not be recovered. "
Baichuan Feng looked at the two representatives of IBM with burning eyes and slowly explained his reasons.
“I think IBM also invests huge amounts of R&D costs every time it develops a new generation of computers.
Now IBM is using it to make profits to make up for its previous investment, and this is what you deserve.
The same is true for Shirakawa Electric's optical drives now, and this is what we deserve."
Seeing Baichuan Feng's serious expression, Louis shrugged helplessly and said, "Well, this is what you deserve."
Phew, Baichuan Feng breathed a sigh of relief. Facing a giant like IBM, it was not easy to make them give in.
"But Shirakawa Electric has to agree to one of our conditions." Louis, who had just backed down, suddenly added .
"What conditions?" Baichuan Feng perked up again.
"10% or 15% is the percentage given to IBM, while other computer manufacturers are at least three percentage points lower.
We must ensure that IBM computers equipped with optical drives are sufficiently competitive in the market.”
The commission of other computer manufacturers is three percentage points less than IBM's, which means that IBM's purchase price is three points cheaper than theirs.
In this way, IBM can do something about the overall selling price of computers.
For example, it could offer slightly more favorable prices, and with IBM's reputation, it could still maintain its dominant position in the computer market.
Baichuan Feng thought about it and nodded to agree to Louis' request. He wanted to borrow the appeal of IBM, so he could still guarantee this promise.
"Happy cooperation" The deal was done, Louis relaxedly picked up the champagne and nodded slightly to Shirakawa Kaede.
"It's a pleasure to work with you." Baichuan Feng took the wine glass handed to him by the person next to him and returned a glass to the other person from a distance.
The sweet taste lingered in the mouth, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief in satisfaction.
"Mr. Shirakawa, the agreement with IBM is complete. What are your considerations regarding the third-party authorization of the optical drive?"
We just talked about IBM’s own business, now we can talk about the licensing issue of optical drives.
IBM is so eager to determine the standards for optical drives because it wants to get rewards at this time.
As one of the parties who set the specifications, it is not excessive to get a share of the licensing fees or patent fees.
Baichuan Feng understood the other party's thoughts, but it seemed that Baichuan Electric and IBM alone could not make a decision on this matter.
"Mr. Louis, if we want the optical drive standards to be recognized by many manufacturers, should we invite some other companies to participate?
For example, Microsoft, which is responsible for software support, would have been hard to make a breakthrough in the field of personal computers without their participation.”
Baichuan Feng didn't care about other people, but he thought Microsoft had to be included no matter what.
IBM may have the final say on mainframes, but personal computers still have to rely on Microsoft.
As far as Shirakawa knows, the system used by IBM's personal computer 5150 is also Microsoft's MS-DOS.
Even a big company like IBM has to use Microsoft's system, let alone other computer manufacturers.
Louis and Robert discussed it for a while and then agreed with Baichuan Feng's suggestion.
"In that case, let's contact the major companies in the industry as soon as possible and work together to determine the specifications of the optical drive.
But it is very likely that Mr. Shirakawa will need to fly to the United States at that time."
Today, most of the world's major computer manufacturers are concentrated in the United States.
If they want to standardize optical drives worldwide, then Shirakawa Feng may have to fly to the United States again.
“No problem, I am personally ready to answer Mr. Louis’ call at any time.
But when will IBM computers be equipped with optical drives? "
Louis raised his eyebrows and smiled playfully, "As long as Baichuan Electric is fast enough, I can ensure that IBM computers can be equipped with optical drives at any time."
It just adds an optical drive for storage and does not affect the layout of the computer at all.
Add an interface to the motherboard, leave a space for the optical drive, put the software in place on the system, and you're done.
As for redesigning it, that is not necessary at all. If you want, you can easily make it into an external removable optical drive.
Moreover, this thing is definitely black technology, so there is no need to worry about whether consumers can accept it.
Before the official release, IBM will also do enough advertising, so Shirakawa Feng doesn't have to worry about this marketing issue.
After getting Louis's assurance, Baichuan Feng nodded with satisfaction.
He was so anxious to ask about IBM's listing plan because he naturally wanted to make money earlier.
The CD factory in Chiba is about to start production, and there is no need to worry about the CD-ROM production line.
Some of the processes used in CD players are common to it and can be used with just a few changes to the production line.
If things go well, Shirakawa Electric's optical drives will be officially put into production after the New Year, and that will be the time when Shirakawa Feng can just lie down and count his money.
As for the standardization of optical drives, of course we have to discuss it.
However, the specific implementation time can be later, at least until Shirakawa Electric's optical drives have been on sale for a year or two.
It is impossible for an inventor to monopolize the market, but this bonus can still be guaranteed.
Having the exclusive global optical drive market for one year, although it is just the starting year, as long as Shirakawa Electric can digest it, it will make a fortune.
Having reached a cooperation intention with IBM on the market of optical drives, Shirakawa Feng finally put his mind to one thing that had been bothering him for some time.
After all, this concerns another major product of Shirakawa Electric in the future, so we have to be cautious.
The specific agreement will be drafted later, and will be signed by both parties after confirmation that there are no problems.
By then, Shirakawa Electric's overall deployment of CD-ROM will have completed the last step of the plan.
The specifications of the CD-ROM disc itself have been officially launched in cooperation with Sony and Philips.
Currently, more than a dozen companies in the industry have discussed developing storage optical discs in accordance with the technical specifications of the Blue Book.
As for the content, it will mainly focus on business information, and other applications will gradually follow, such as music, video, and images.
A preliminary agreement has now been reached with IBM on the optical drive that can read CD-ROMs .
As long as IBM launches computers equipped with optical drives, I believe this revolutionary storage technology will bring incredible shock to the public.
The promotion of CDs and CD-ROM drives was carried out separately and all of them were implemented, and even the content was initially planned.
Looking at the overall situation, the ecological environment for optical disk storage has been initially established, and all that is left is implementation.
Looking back, from July to now October, it has been three months. It is really tiring to move back and forth between these giants.
Fortunately, the ending was pretty good, and it was worth it for me to jump back and forth between IBM and Sony.
Alas, the foundation is still not strong enough.
The issue of the optical drive came to an end, and Shirakawa Feng turned his attention back to Shirakawa Electric itself.
The new generation of Walkman has been on sale for some time, in addition to the previously planned additional features such as adding LCD screens to high-end models.
In addition, Shirakawa Electric also released a new Walkman this year, the D series professional Walkman.
Its positioning is more audiophile than that of high-end Walkman. In addition to its all-metal body, its internal structure is more complex.
It has a shock-absorbing mechanism, a more wear-resistant amorphous head, and more importantly, Dolby sound effects.
On the top of the Walkman, the two English words "Professional" and "DOLBY Certified" are enough to highlight its identity.
Of course, due to the huge cost investment, its selling price is as high as more than 60,000 yen.
Although it is much more expensive, it turns out that there are really many music enthusiasts, and Shirakawa Electric's D series Walkman actually sells quite well.
It has also won the title of "the most powerful portable player in history", which shows how much audiophiles love it.
In addition to these, Shirakawa Electric's Walkman also has various models such as radio version, recording version, sports version, waterproof version, etc., with more than a dozen versions in total.
These are models designed to enrich the product lineup, and of course all of this is derived based on consumer demand.
Due to the increasing variety of products and the development of the European market, Shirakawa Electric's Walkman shipments have experienced a rare explosion.
Looking at the financial report in his hand, Baichuan Feng felt very happy. If he just posted it to the public, wouldn't the stock price go up again?
