Rebirth of America, this is my time

To be honest, Ethan was really startled when a dark crowd suddenly appeared with long guns and cannons. That scene really gave people the feeling of enemies coming to teach you how to behave.

But when the reporters called out Philip's name, Ethan, who was sitting in the car, breathed a sigh of relief. As long as he wasn't here to claim his life, there would be no problem. But before he could rest for two seconds, his nerves suddenly became tense again, because the words new products and threats made him sense that something was abnormal.

"Ignore them and just leave."

Ethan gave an order and signaled the security guard and driver to break through the card.

The bodyguards who received the order fired the gas in neutral, and with a loud explosion, the reporters who were not afraid of death but did not want to die instinctively ran away. During this gap, the driver who seized the opportunity immediately re-shifted the gear, stepped on the accelerator, and drove at an extremely fast speed. The speed took Ethan out of the encirclement.

Looking at the figure walking away, the reporters present felt a little regretful.

As for Ethan Jones, who returned to the company...

As soon as he stepped into the company's door, he saw Steve Ballmer guarding there.

At this moment, his head was covered with sweat. Just when he wanted to speak urgently and report his work to Ethan, Ethan had already raised his hand to refuse, took steps, and decisively went upstairs.

"I know you're in a hurry, but don't worry yet."

"If you have anything to do, go to the office and tell me."

Under his leadership, the two entered the office. As the door closed, Ballmer, who was already anxious, shouted loudly: "Boss! It's bad! Philips and the others have held a new product launch conference!"

The news brought by Steve Ballmer is exactly the same as those asked by the media.

It happened yesterday, March 9, 1979. The location was Eindhoden in the Netherlands. The content was that the Philips Group showed the international media what they currently have at its legendary incandescent lamp factory. The latest technology - compact discs.

and a player that carries optical discs—a compact disc audio player.

In the demonstration, Philips technicians used their player to show the audio signal with excellent stereo quality to the reporters present. When Beethoven's Ninth Symphony appeared in front of people in a plug-and-play manner, The reporters at the scene were immediately in an uproar.

Because the sound quality displayed by the disc is several times better than that of the tape!

What's more, the total length of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony reaches seventy-four minutes!

At present, the laser disc player jointly sold by American Music and Philips can only hold sixty minutes of content! A copy of "Jaws" requires two discs to cover!

When Philips displayed products that reduced the dimensions of existing products from all levels, everyone at the scene understood that what they were witnessing was the future!

The CEO of Philips, who was responsible for holding the press conference, also said on the spot that the optical disc and optical disc audio player technology they have mastered will definitely open a new era, and it will definitely eliminate all similar products on the market, including but not limited to Video tapes launched by Philips have gained massive market share, as well as analog laser discs also launched by Philips in cooperation with American Music.

They also promised to fully commercialize the technology they are demonstrating now within three to five years.

Yes.

Philips told everyone at its global press conference that they were going to revolutionize their lives.

When this fact emerged, the reporters at the scene were all shocked! Because this is simply not something a company can do. As a company, its core purpose is to make huge profits. When the life cycle of tapes was still very long, when analog laser discs had just been commercialized and officially launched on the market, a company said that it would personally eliminate those products?

For scientific researchers, this kind of decisive iteration may be a high respect for scientific research.

But for investors, this special code is simply crazy behavior!

Just when the reporters couldn't figure out why Philips did this, as the interview session came, the reporters who asked what they were thinking also received a surprising reply.

The CEO of Philips faced the camera and explained with a smile, "Self-innovation is the core secret of Philips' development and growth. Only by having the courage to challenge ourselves and by having the courage to eliminate stable cash cows can we maintain our position in a rapidly developing world." Extremely competitive.”

"Of course, we also admit that our self-innovation at Philips this time is also related to the rapid development of electronic games. Everyone should know that we acquired an American company a few years ago, and its name is Mi Luohua. We There are three reasons for acquiring it, one is to enter the TV business, one is to sell players through Mi Luohua, and the other is to be optimistic about the video game industry."

"Because our goal at Philips is to create a home entertainment machine that can integrate thousands of entertainments. Before, entertainment was music, movies and TV. Now, there are more games, and since games have joined the entertainment family, Then we have to welcome it and embrace it.”

"We think we have accomplished the first three, because whether it is audio tapes, TV videos, or movie discs, we have these products, and video games..."

"Our ideas are different from Destiny, the current dominant player in the gaming industry."

"Destiny Games is using existing technology to make games, but we believe that the development rules of home consoles and personal computers should be the same. Only when the carrying capacity of home entertainment consoles increases, people will be able to transfer some things from inspiration to become reality."

"For example, Apple's external disk and Microsoft's spreadsheet are typical examples, so we firmly believe that large capacity will definitely bring about a new world."

"Since large capacity and high quality represent a new world, we at Philips will definitely embrace it in advance. But the reality... we are lucky, we have made the product we want. The emergence of large-capacity optical disc technology will change Music, Film, TV and Gaming Evolution!”

“And our next step is to bring them to market!”

Before the Philips CEO finished speaking, the scene was already in an uproar.

Although on the surface, Philips saw the commercial prospects of optical discs and took the initiative to seek changes, the words in the speech were filled with the achievements of Ethan Jones.

Everyone can smell the sour smell in the air!

Or rather——

Philips almost didn’t mention it by name, saying that the Destiny Game had defeated them too many times, and when they couldn’t compete with it in terms of content production, they decided to overtake them in a corner and use their skills to defeat others!

When this fact emerged, press releases related to it were spread from Eindhoden to all over the world. Due to the time difference, the American media did not receive these contents until the evening of March 9.

However, when reporters with a keen sense of smell got the first-hand reports from their colleagues, they quickly rushed to the outskirts of Ethan Jones's residential area in an attempt to obtain first-hand resources through some simple methods.

As for saying that the place where Ethan lives has long been airtight by his personal bodyguards?

If they rush over directly, they are likely to be mercilessly clashed?

Ah--

Everything in this world can be underestimated.

But we cannot underestimate the desire of those reporters to make a big news!

When Ethan read the reports published in the newspapers, his brows immediately relaxed.

For the general public, Philips CDs may be a new thing.

But to him, these are just old news.

The memories from his previous life let him know that Philips had indeed invented the optical disc, and his contact with Steven Spielberg a few years ago made him even more aware that the optical disc was originally developed by Universal's parent company American Music, and the patent was still there. In their hands, the peach was picked by Philips, who was a monk on the way.

Not only that, in order not to pay patent fees, Philips also abruptly slowed down the development of optical discs and first launched tapes, a product that could only eat so much. This behavior made American music very angry.

It also caused Universal to side with Ethan many times in various wars.

Because Ethan can help them get revenge.

This revenge is not only about Ethan making Philips lose a lot of money.

It also allows the management of American Music to have an explanation to shareholders.

When these facts were placed in front of Ethan, the press conference specially held by Philips to introduce the CD was not worth mentioning at all to Ethan.

Especially when he has invested heavily in optical storage projects and has even seen some results, the audio player presented by Philips is even less of a threat to him.

As long as Philips doesn't take out a CD player that can be sold at the press conference...

Then everyone is still on the same track!

“So – why did Philips release this yesterday?”

"What's wrong with them?"

Although Ethan was confident and not panicked, he still wanted to find out the purpose of Philips' trip, because judging from the product display at their press conference, their optical disc technology was not mature.

When a technology only has the possibility of commercialization but cannot be commercialized immediately, under normal circumstances, a company will not rush to release it unless -

There are problems within this company.

Management must release all kinds of good news to maintain the current harmony.

Of course, this is not an industry standard, but just the personal intuitive judgment of a financial practitioner.

The good news has never been made by Philips.

Ethan's question also made Ballmer stunned on the spot and shook his head.

This morning, when he was reading the newspaper as usual, performing his duties as a secretary, and collecting the latest information for his boss, the news related to Philips came into his eyes. Then he rushed to the company immediately, wanting to report the matter to his boss who was working overtime today. He didn't stop for a moment during this process, so of course he didn't know anything about other related news...

But that doesn't matter, the direction Ethan points to is the target he's looking for.

After receiving the assignment, Ballmer left. About an hour later, he came back with a magazine in his arms. It was "Fortune", which had previously reported on the game of destiny. In this year's opening column, they analyzed Philips of the Netherlands came to a surprising conclusion based on its business performance last year -

'The Philips Group, a world-renowned Fortune 500 company and one of the economic pillars of the Netherlands, is likely to report a huge loss in the 1978 fiscal year. ’

The reason is also very simple, that is, all of their core businesses have problems.

Although on the surface, their home appliance business is growing steadily, they are all new profits driven by old products. The core business of razors is selling well, and household lighting equipment has also maintained a stable trend and continues to rise. However, due to the use of Due to habit, the original radio business has been squeezed out by the new TV business. Their market share of radio products is gradually decreasing, and TV...

They did enter the television industry, but the results were not obvious.

Because of Philips' investment in the television industry, it acquired Milohua.

According to Philips's vision, Milova, a well-known brand in America, will definitely bring their TV business to a higher level, but this is not the case. Under the impact of Sony Trinitron, Milova's TVs have no Any competitiveness, and if the Milova Odyssey, the world's first home game console that came with the acquisition, sells well, then the investment may be profitable for Philips, but now... the whole world knows, There is only one king in video games.

Not only that, Milohua, who holds the video game patent, cannot receive patent fees from industry overlords!

This is the most deadly!

More importantly, Philips has repeatedly claimed that the Mirova brand will allow their tape drive business to gain more global market share, but so far, the competition between this subsidiary and them has become more intense, and Philips has become more competitive in this regard. Didn't gain enough brand advantage.

When these facts emerged, Philips' acquisition of Mirova was a failure.

According to "Fortune" magazine, this acquisition caused Philips to lose more than 300 million. Dutch Philips even wanted to merge the three major companies in North America, namely the North American Philips headquarters, Mi Luohua and Osram, which sells lighting equipment. Such a merger Come, they can close some factories and lay off some employees to save unnecessary expenses. This is also a common method used by listed companies to beautify their financial reports.

In addition, Philips' record business is not having a good time at the moment. Even though they cooperated with Siemens to establish the PolyGram Group, they have successively cooperated with MGM Records, American Music, 20th Century Fox Records, etc. The company reached a cooperation, obtained their music copyright, sold its own tape products, and once became the largest music company in the world, but...

The company has always been losing money.

Because of their disorderly expansion, they have to pay a share fee that is much higher than the profit. At the same time, in order to make their name in America, the largest market in the world, their expenditure on luxury advertising exceeds that of all peers. Currently, The entire company had a net loss of more than 100 million.

The most troublesome thing is that under this situation, PolyGram also entered the film and television industry, following the trend of "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease" and shooting a disco movie called "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart" Club Band” and brought it to market last year.

To be honest, if this movie is successful, PolyGram may still make money. Before this movie was released, it was also hailed as the "Gone with the Wind" of the 1970s, because this movie included all the popular themes in the world. Half of the music industry has featured, and countless celebrities in the music industry have appeared.

But after it was released, they earned 20.4 million at the box office at a cost of 13 million, and went straight to grandma's house. Not to mention making back their money, they didn't even make back a fraction of the profit they announced. !

As a result, PolyGram's already unhealthy financial report suddenly became worse.

If nothing unexpected happens……

Last year, they lost 200 million!

You know, this is 200 million US dollars in 1978!

You can build an aircraft carrier by just scraping it together!

When the news that Philips had a guaranteed loss of 500 million was ruthlessly exposed by Fortune, Ethan knew why Philips suddenly resorted to its killer move at this point, because if it didn't release any good news, the losses in the financial report would be wiped out. The media amplified it, and once the media started to make trouble, Philips would explode.

This is actually the helplessness of listed companies.

The market is ruthless.

If management dares to lose money, investors dare to smash the market.

When these facts were placed in front of Ethan, he was sure that Philips held a hasty press conference and mentioned itself. It was just a means of self-protection by the management. They wanted to tell shareholders, Philips' next target is video games, and they already have a complete countermeasure.

When Ethan Jones can make hundreds of millions in cash a year from games...

They Philips will definitely take a bite of this tempting and delicious cake!

This little thought made Ethan laugh, closed the magazine, and said: "Go and make a public statement and say that Destiny Games welcomes any company to enter the game market."

"We are not afraid of any challenges. At the same time, we also hope that those who leave sadly will suffer less loss."

"No need to polish it! Just send it!"

"Oh, by the way! Let's list Warner's annual losses after the fight with us!"

"They are all enemies anyway. If you hit one, it's still a fight. If you hit two, it's still a fight!"

"Okay!" Steve Ballmer nodded excitedly, turned around and left.

The fiery movements made Ethan cross his legs.

He thought Philips was so awesome!

I have been fighting with him since 1975, and I won’t let him go even if I continue to spend money!

The results of it?

I can't hold it anymore!

You want to save yourself!

And what’s even more funny is, is this way to save themselves or continue to take advantage of the popularity of their destiny game?

Ah!

You can rub it! I can fight too!

Do you want to kill me?

Dream on you!

And just as Ethan was shaking his legs, estimating how long it would be before Philips' deadline was reached and how long it would take for this old rival to retire, the sound of rapid footsteps suddenly penetrated his ears.

Looking up, the half-open door was pushed open by Evelin.

"Ethan, did you read today's news report?"

The girl asked anxiously as soon as she entered the room.

"Look, the matter has been resolved."

Ethan shrugged.

"What?"

This answer made Evelin's eyes widen and she made a sound of disbelief.

"You've already sorted things out? How is this possible?"

"How is this impossible?" Ethan said with a smile: "Philips just wants to cover up its financial results by showing off new technologies, and then wants to ride on our popularity and create a picture for shareholders. A better future to keep your position.”

"When faced with such boring things, the way to deal with it is very simple. Exposing our competitors' losses will make them extremely painful, so... I asked Steve to do this."

Ethan’s light words made Evelin open her mouth.

The next second, she slapped the newspaper in her hand in front of Ethan.

"Oh - Ethan - we are not talking about the same thing!"

"This is IEEE's announcement today! Look what they said about Philips CDs!"

"As mentioned above, they witnessed a miracle at the scene yesterday, because Philips' CD does not use continuous analog signals, but discrete digital storage!"

"Binary!!"

"0 and 1!!!"

"Can you understand???"

"Dong dong dong!"

Evelin knocked on the table loudly.

Ethan, who was still looking relaxed, frowned instantly.

"WTF?"

"Binary?"

"Are our research methods the same?"

Ethan's eyes widened and he stood up.

When he turned his attention to the newspaper that his sister pointed to, the bold and bold title made his eyesight go dark.

‘Oh Sxxt! ’

‘How could things be like this! ’

Note: ① Philips did release the CD on March 9, 1979, and the product it released at that time was indeed not a complete product. There are different reasons for this. Some say that Philips concealed its financial reports, while others say that Philips is unable to develop. This article is just one of them. ②Although Philips of the Netherlands suffered a huge loss of 2 billion in 1990, the collapse of the empire never happened overnight. They were already in decline at the end of the 1970s. In reality, in the late 1979 and early 1980s, they did merge the North American companies Milowa, Osram and Philips North America, and they used the method written in the article to create good revenue. As for why North American companies affect Philips of the Netherlands, it is because their annual reports must be consolidated. ③PolyGram is expanding rapidly, but those markets are all fake and created with money. In the 1980s, they lost 220 million. For a company, it is indeed important to seize market share, but it is even more important. The most important thing is to find the profit point in the end, otherwise it will definitely be sent. ④ "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" has two things. One is the Beatles' music album, ranked first among the top 100 classic albums in history by Rolling Stone magazine, and the other is shot by Michael Schulz. The movie was released in 1978. It was very bad. In China, it was translated as "The Light".