Chapter 454 New Product Launch Conference
In July 1988, it was time for Shirakawa Electric's annual product launch conference.
With the continuous in-depth development in various fields, Shirakawa Electric's product lineup has become increasingly rich.
A few years ago, whenever a new product came out, there would probably be a wave of advertising in the media.
Then the new product is brought to market, and the launch mission is completed.
However, after Shirakawa Electric went public, it began to hold special press conferences every year for the launch of new products.
After all, it is a listed company, and its annual press conference is the highlight. Many financial institutions are waiting to reap the profits in this round.
And with continuous innovation, Shirakawa Electric's product launch conferences are also worth watching.
Nowadays, there are not many companies that can make products with care.
Haven’t you noticed that Sony and Panasonic both have special subsidiaries engaged in investment activities in the financial markets?
Alas, they have all fallen, Baichuan Feng was heartbroken.
If you want to do design, just do it well. You see, Shirakawa Electric has never been involved in financial speculation.
Professional matters should be left to professionals. Shirakawa Electric gave all its money to Kitatoshi Bank and asked them to help with stock and foreign exchange trading.
Well~ In short, as a technology company, Shirakawa Electric claims that it is very clean and focused, that is, it focuses entirely on products.
"In 1987, more than eight years have passed since Shirakawa Electric was founded. Last month, Shirakawa Electric celebrated its eighth anniversary.
For a company, 8 years may seem very short and young.
But in just eight years, Shirakawa Electric has brought countless new products to everyone.
Walkman, CD player, home game console, handheld game console, optical drive, VCD player, LCD TV, LCD notebook computer...
Too many. In the past eight years, we have brought so many creative ideas to everyone.
So the length of time has nothing to do with the company’s creativity, we are proud of these eight years!”
“Oh~!”, “Wow~!”
Applause and cheers rose and fell from the stage, and a beam of white light from above the hall shone obliquely on Baichuan Feng.
Standing on the stage, he couldn't see the faces of the people below, but the twinkling stars and waving arms showed everyone's joy at the moment.
This might be the last time that he would host a new product launch for Shirakawa Electric. Shirakawa Feng sighed secretly as he looked at the jubilant stage below.
As the younger generation in the group grows up, we will have to share some of these tasks with them so that they can grow as quickly as possible.
When the cheers from below the stage gradually died down, Shirakawa Feng picked up the microphone again.
"In this golden age, Shirakawa Electric has also brought more surprises to everyone this year."
Baichuan Feng stretched his hand behind him, and two new-style walkmans and CD players appeared on a large screen.
"I believe everyone is already very familiar with Walkman and CD players, but based on the past, we have significantly slimmed them down and modified their inner beauty."
Everyone smiled knowingly when he said this . Indeed, at least the two models on the screen are thinner and lighter, and have a more sci-fi feel.
However, many people focused their attention on the high-definition screen behind Baichuan Feng, which was more than ten meters wide.
They had seen similar large screens before, but this was the first time they had seen one with such high clarity.
“The new Dolby sound effect has been applied to the new generation of Walkman, which not only supports dynamic sound balance adjustment, but also has AM/FM band frequency modulation function.
In order to reduce external interference in terms of sound quality, we also redesigned the Dolby C-class noise reduction circuit technology.
Now, the FM series of Walkman has undergone a gorgeous transformation, becoming more sophisticated and professional.”
"Oh!" There was applause from the audience.
Although the Walkman has been developed for many years and there are alternatives such as CD players, there is no doubt that it still has a large number of fans.
Every year at Shirakawa Electric's press conference, these people are waiting to see what surprises the new generation of Walkman will have.
Facts have proved that Shirakawa Electric has not given up on innovating in portable players and is still making progress every year.
"Speaking of the Walkman, we have to mention its good brother, the portable CD player."
As soon as Baichuan Feng finished speaking, laughter broke out from the audience again.
As the developer of the world's first portable CD player, Shirakawa Electric is an absolute authority in this field.
"It is well known that CD players were 'fragile' in the past, and could not withstand strenuous exercise such as running or jumping.
In this case, the CD player will often stop working or simply miss some signals.
But now you don’t have to worry about this problem anymore, the ESP electronic anti-shock system newly developed by Shirakawa Electric can ignore any intense exercise.”
"Huh?" Everyone in the audience exclaimed subconsciously.
Although CD players are now very popular and widely used, it is also well known that they are sensitive and fragile.
Now that everyone has heard that Shirakawa Electric has solved this problem, they all look surprised.
"The principle of the ESP electronic anti-vibration system is to pre-read the data on the disc into the cache, and when the CD player vibrates and the laser head deviates and cannot read the data,
The CD player can then play the music data in the cache first, thus avoiding interruptions in music playback caused by vibrations."
Unlike the previous U-shaped calipers, this time Shirakawa Electric's solution is to start from the electronic level.
This mechanism of pre-storing a few seconds of data can basically solve the vibration scenarios in most cases.
Careful people will find that Shirakawa Electric's new generation of CD players will only start playing music after the disc has rotated for a while.
The previous idling is actually pre-storing data, and the sound that the human ear actually hears is the data read from the cache chip after a delay.
This method is actually no longer earthquake-resistant, but a means of avoidance.
The reason why Shirakawa Electric is willing to adopt cache chips on a large scale in CD players is that with the fierce competition in the semiconductor market, cache chips (DRAM) have begun to drop in price significantly.
Therefore, whether it is a game console or a CD player, Shirakawa Electric began to use chips with larger memory to replace the original design.
"So what are the prices of these new generation products?" Baichuan Feng turned his gaze to the large screen behind him.
The high-end CD player with ESP anti-vibration system is 79,800 yen, the mid-range is 58,000 yen, and the low-end is 39,800 yen.
The professional top-level Walkman costs 68,900 yen, while the mid-range and low-end ones are priced at 34,800 yen and 18,800 yen respectively.
As soon as the price was announced, everyone cheered, even though the bubble era had already arrived.
However, Shirakawa Electric has never given up on the low-end market, and the low-end prices are even lower than before.
Of course, high-end prices are more expensive than before, but because of major breakthroughs in technology, it is understandable that the prices are high.
Besides, Shirakawa Electric can sell the product even if it sets the price at 100,000 yen. However, since it has to consider the overseas market, it cannot just consider neon when setting the price.
In addition to these, Shirakawa Electric has also launched limited editions for these two products.
The materials used are extremely luxurious, and the surface of the CD player is even inlaid with diamonds. Not only that, Shirakawa Electric also accepts pre-customized signatures on the body.
We can laser engrave the signature that customers want to leave on the surface of the machine.
However, the style is luxurious and the service is excellent, but the price is also very expensive.
The cheapest limited edition is over 150,000 yen, and the customized edition can cost up to hundreds of thousands.
The target customers of these products are those who are not short of money and are audiophiles.
It was the bubble era, what a joke. Not to mention hundreds of thousands, they would be willing to pay a million.
Especially for customized signature models, Shirakawa Electric does not produce finished products and only accepts pre-orders.
As a result, before Baichuan Feng's press conference was over, the backstage reservation phone was almost blown up.
The trend of luxury has been cultivated, and it is very prestigious to wear this kind of customized model, which can be said to really scratch the itch of some people.
After introducing the Walkman and CD player, Shirakawa Feng began to introduce his own optical drives, desktop CD players, VCD players and other products.
As Apple OS and Microsoft Windows systems gradually begin to support the use of CD-ROM drives.
Nowadays, optical drives and CD burners have gradually entered the homes of ordinary people, and sales have more than doubled compared to before.
However, due to the maturity of technology and the reduction of costs, prices and profits are much lower than before.
But the vast market made up for the previous lower profits.
The press conference was halfway through when the ordinary products were introduced, and then the signature products of Shirakawa Electric were introduced.
“As we all know, Shirakawa Electric opened the era of commercial use of LCD screens.
Starting with the first 14-inch LCD TV in 1985, we have expanded the screen size to 17 inches today.”
Shirakawa Electric's LCD TVs are world-famous, and the World Expo that year earned it a lot of fame.
Sharp, which came a step behind, was also trying hard to catch up, but was still a little behind.
With the arrival of the bubble era, Sharp Trading was busy with the "Six Demons in Tokyo", while Shirakawa Electric was still buried in the laboratory.
“This year we not only brought you a larger 19-inch large-screen LCD display.
At the same time, the new display technology will be officially introduced to everyone. Please look at the big screen!" Baichuan Feng turned around and gave the audience the view.
Behind me was a brand new TV, with its screen shining brightly.
“LED LCD display, a brand new display technology.
Its response speed is a thousand times that of LCD and its color is better.
At the same time, LED consumes only 10% of LCD’s power consumption and has a longer service life.”
What is playing on the big screen at this time is the promotional advertisement of the LED display screen. Indeed, visually, the latest generation of LED is obviously better than LCD.
LED light sources were gradually discovered in the 1960s. Their response speed is at the nanometer level, while the response speed of LCDs that use incandescent lamps as light sources is at the millimeter level.
The difference between the two is obvious when compared, and the former has better saturation.
In fact, LED is also a type of LCD, the only difference is the light source used.
LED screens use LED lamps as light sources, and LCDs are mostly a type of incandescent lamp.
The former can only light up some pixels in the display, but LCD is globally controlled, which is why the power consumption of the two is so different.
As for the price, a 19-inch LCD TV costs more than 500,000 yuan, and a 14-inch LED TV is even more expensive, basically approaching one million.
It is obvious that they are not products for civilians at all. After all, they are black technologies that are unique in the world, so it is normal that they are sold at a high price.
However, for people in big cities, during the bubble era, such prices were acceptable to almost everyone.
If you go to high-end restaurants less often, wouldn’t you save hundreds of thousands of dollars?
One million yen, a display technology that is unique in the world. You won't lose money if you buy it, and you won't be cheated if you buy it.
Of course, there are also those who want to watch something cheaper. Look, a 14-inch LCD TV that was eliminated two years ago costs 200,000 yuan. That’s enough.
In addition to LCD TVs, Shirakawa Electric's LCD laptop computer, which was launched last year, also uses this technology.
