Rebirth of America, this is my time

Chapter 289 The future? Get√

Ethan had no intention of negotiating amicably with Xerox from the beginning.

Because Xerox has no sincerity.

When Xerox said they wanted to exchange a graphical user interface for 10% of Apple's equity, they showed a desire to take advantage of the situation.

Since Xerox was joking first, Ethan would not be polite to them and would directly offer a product value that Apple could accept. The rest was all up to Xerox itself.

If Xerox had not entered a state of crazy criticism, then they should know that acceptance is the best choice at the moment, and if Xerox was kicked in the head by a donkey, then there would be no need to continue the business.

Directly organizing manual copying is what Apple should do most.

Again, when they hold a patent, all references are original.

After the patentee is hired by them, all research and development by other companies is infringement.

Eh!

No non-compete agreement in California?

Allow free movement of high-tech talent?

Allow technology companies to engage in friendly competition in business?

I just took the patent and the people right away!

Let me see how you get stuck!

After leaving Xerox, Ethan rushed back to California non-stop to discuss cooperation with HP on presentations. When he entered HP's office building, he was greeted by John Young, who served as the company's president in 1977 and was promoted to CEO in 1978.

As for Bill Hewlett and David Packard, students of the old principal?

They have officially announced their retirement.

However, while the two of them still held a large number of shares in HP, they were still the actual controllers of HP. Therefore, when Ethan Jones appeared, he knew that his sister Evelyn Johnson was the last of the old principals. Student HP CEO John Young directly welcomed Ethan into his office. Not only that, he also thoughtfully served him a cup of American ginseng tea.

The intimacy between the two made Ethan very comfortable. The business development of the small chat at the same time also made the negotiations between the two parties extremely brisk, which was in sharp contrast to the competition at Xerox.

After Ethan said that he wanted to obtain the development rights and commercial rights for the presentation, John Young only thought for a moment and then chatted openly with Ethan.

"Ethan, we all know that the presentation has unlimited potential. As long as we can successfully promote it to the civilian market, it will definitely make huge profits like the spreadsheet you proposed, so... we don't It may be licensed to you at a very low price.”

"I understand." Ethan nodded and said, "So you can just quote us normally."

"Okay."

Ethan's kindness made John Young smile and say: "Of course we will quote normally, but before quoting, I would like to know, which company under your name do you want to obtain the commercial rights to the presentation?"

Ethan knew what John Young meant.

On the surface, Microsoft and Apple are his companies, and he has the supreme veto power in these companies, but the only one he actually controls is Destiny Game.

The real talking heads of Apple computers were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

The actual controller of Microsoft is Bill Gates.

These two companies are only part of the Ethan Jones investment section and are not subsidiaries of Destiny Games. Therefore, the resources in their hands cannot actually be interconnected in a true sense.

In the case where each company needs independent accounting, which company needs the commercial rights to the presentation, HP can only make a specific quotation based on the resources owned by that company.

For example, if Ethan wanted to put the presentation on Microsoft, HP would not be able to let Western Design Company, a subsidiary of Destiny Games, use chip technology as a bargaining chip to participate in the transaction.

And now...

"The company that needs presentations is Apple." Ethan said bluntly.

"Hmm..." This answer made John Young think for a while, and then asked: "Ethan, is Apple preparing to develop its own presentation project?"

Perhaps he felt that his description was a little inaccurate, so he added another sentence.

"I mean, is Apple ready to officially enter the software industry?"

"No -" Ethan shook his head and said: "After obtaining the presentation, Apple will entrust Microsoft to develop and research independent software adapted to Apple computers."

"?" This answer stunned John Young on the spot.

After a few seconds, he reacted, "What you mean is that the patent authorization lies with Apple and software development is handed over to Microsoft. In the future, if Microsoft wants to sell the presentation to other companies, it must first obtain Apple's consent, otherwise They can only supply to Apple?”

"Yes, that's what I mean." Ethan nodded with a smile.

In fact, after discovering that Xerox has developed electronic documents and HP has developed presentations, Ethan has been wondering where the two important software that can show its power in the field of paperless office will go in the future. put. According to the memory of previous lives, these are cash cows belonging to Microsoft. Putting them at Microsoft is a historical necessity, and Bill Gates has the ability to develop them well.

but……

As a time traveler, why should we respect history?

According to the current relationship comparison, putting electronic documents and presentations on Apple is the best thing for Ethan to do, because he controls Apple far better than he controls Microsoft.

Especially in this era, Steve Jobs has listened to advice and is not as paranoid as in his previous life. In this case, leaving the office suite to Apple can better suppress Microsoft.

As for why not put it in the Destiny game?

Very simple.

Businessmen who can develop a company from scratch into a world-famous enterprise are not fools.

As long as Ethan comes up with the Destiny Game, these people's goal can only be the company's shares.

And when video games are the best cash cows in all industries now and in the future, it is impossible for Ethan to share the benefits with others. In this case, not putting them on the negotiation table from the beginning is the only option to avoid trouble...

"Okay, then what we need at HP is very simple."

John Young said: "We took out the patent for the presentation, and Apple took out the patent for the external disk, and the two parties signed a patent interoperability agreement. In the future, Apple will not have to pay us patent fees when using the presentation in any form, and we When HP uses Apple's external disk patents to produce HP disk products, it does not have to pay patent fees to Apple."

"Ethan, what do you think?"

"I'll ask the CEO of Apple to talk to you about this."

Ethan thinks there is no problem, but he will not make the decision without authorization.

And as he responded, John Young also laughed, "Okay, I'll wait."

Negotiation in business can be said to be simple or difficult.

It’s simple because if there is a shareholder with absolute say in a company, then his personal will is the will of the company. As long as he feels that his efforts are directly proportional to his gains, the deal will be completed.

The difficulty is because even if this shareholder controls the overall situation, many details still need to be handled by subordinates in the company one by one, for example...

When Ethan brought HP's sincerity back to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, even Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak thought the business was a good deal, but Apple CEO Roger ·Corrin still has no intention of signing the contract immediately, because he wants to first understand a series of contents such as the patent term, patent protection scope, and chances of success of the HP presentation.

“The expiration time of the patent can help us judge who has an advantage in this transaction, the scope of patent protection is the basis for judging whether the transaction is fair, and the probability of being copied can let us know whether the transaction is done well. Necessary...we can only discuss whether the transaction can truly proceed and whether the other party needs to add cash to the transaction to compensate for their shortcomings."

"Similarly, HP will also review our patents from these aspects. If they feel that they have been disadvantaged, they will also ask us to add a sum of cash to the transaction, and all we have to do is refute."

Roger Corian's professionalism made Ethan and the others feel at ease.

Just leave the matter to him directly.

After handling the task of obtaining the patent for the presentation, there was only the last item left on Ethan's task list, which was to purchase the institute's patent from the old principal.

This job is actually the simplest. When Ethan appeared in front of the old principal with Apple's financial report, Fred Terman, after reading the report, directly quoted the most fair price.

"Thirteen patents totaling three million US dollars."

"Based on a valuation of 1.6 billion and a share capital of 300 million, that's 560,000 shares?"

"180,000 of the shares belong to the institute, and the remaining 380,000 shares belong to the school."

"In addition to a supplementary agreement, we are not allowed to sell stocks within ten years."

"At the same time, if there is a sell-off, the top ten major shareholders have the right of first refusal."

"Are you okay?"

"Of course." Ethan shrugged, "This condition is very good, so I won't have any problems."

Whether it's the patent package price of three million, or the ten-year lock-up period and shareholders' right of first refusal, these are things that Ethan likes. The former's offer is simply cheap, and the latter's terms are obvious. Tell Ethan that if Stanford sells its shares in the future, you will be the first choice buyer.

Since the old principal has already done this, it is naturally impossible for Ethan to mention anything else. And after he photographed the deal in front of the two Steves, the two Steves naturally saw it. Unfortunately, the fact that the patents were purchased at a price of 0.19% of the total equity was still too tempting, so they directly signed and agreed with a stroke of a pen.

Maybe it’s because Lady Luck is smiling, but it’s also possible that the fact that Apple and Stanford have reached a deal has never been hidden from well-informed people. When Apple CEO Roger Corrin signed the contract with Stanford Research Institute on behalf of Apple, he told After Stanford University donated 380,000 shares of Apple stock, Xerox also contacted Ethan again and made a latest offer that they considered reasonable.

"Ethan, after our serious internal discussions, we at Xerox are willing to come up with two products, graphical user interface and WYSIWYG, to participate in the transaction."

“At the same time, we promise that within ten years after the deal is concluded, Xerox will not release a personal computer with a graphical user interface, transfer the entire team to Apple, and will not continue to develop WYSIWYG electronic documents, let alone commercialize them. to the market.”

"For that, we need ten million worth of Apple shares."

"As for Apple's valuation..."

"After our detailed investigation, we feel that the 1.6 billion you proposed is advisable."

"Based on this valuation, Apple only needs to pay 1.87 million shares to obtain the patents for two products. As long as you agree, I can come to California to sign a contract with you today."

When this offer appeared, the word "reasonable" came into Ethan's mind instantly, but he did not agree immediately. Instead, he forwarded it to Jobs and asked him and Woz to discuss it themselves.

And what do the two of them think?

Of course I agree!

You know, this is buying two monopolies with 10 million!

Xerox just packaged and sold its laboratory!

Anyone would do this business!

As a result, Apple CEO Roger Corian received a new arrangement to negotiate a deal with Xerox. When a series of emergencies emerged, Roger Corian was immediately busy negotiating with Xerox. It's like a top, but these have nothing to do with Ethan.

Because he has to run for his own things.

While he was working hard for Apple, Evelyn also took care of Douglas. The old man decided to sell his company to Destiny Games for two million US dollars. At this point, Destiny Games will enjoy all the personal patents under Douglas's name, and the company The headquarters also moved back to Palo Alto from Atherton.

After a simple name change, the previous company has disappeared, replaced by Engelbart Labs, which is the same as Edgar Coder's SQL Lab and is affiliated with Destiny Game.

With the deal concluded, all the urgent tasks in Ethan's hands were taken care of. Looking at the brand new sign in the Stanford Research Park, he turned around proudly with his hands in his pockets.

He hummed a little tune and returned to the company.

When the graphical user interface and office software were all firmly mastered by him...

All the problems encountered before have been solved!

Komodo wants to plot?

Then let him plan it!

Anyway, he doesn’t have much time to play!

"Want to plot against me?"

"Ah--"

"childish--"

"I'm a man with all my mist open!"

"All planning is useless!"

And just when Ethan was imagining that in at most two years, he could personally push the heads of his competitors into the toilet and let them taste the bitter taste, everything that happened in Palo Alto had already been revealed. The members of the Avengers saw it and took it to heart.

There is no way, who makes these transactions impossible to hide?

Patent transfers need to be recorded, company acquisitions need to be changed, and donations to schools need to be announced.

Even if Ethan Jones doesn't say anything, these actions will be witnessed by those who are interested.

And when they discovered that after being hammered this time, Ethan Jones not only did not get angry, but instead bought a patent in Palo Alto, countless questions came to their minds in an instant.

After several years of contact, everyone knew that Ethan was a small-minded person.

No matter who hit him, no matter whether it was intentional or not, he would take revenge.

But now?

Sony cooperated with Philips, but he was indifferent;

Casio and Commodore united, he remained motionless;

Ron Miller started fighting back to rob the company, and he turned a deaf ear;

Goldman Sachs was secretly bullish on Hollywood and helped Disney stabilize its stock price, but he had no idea;

Many of Neon's game manufacturers have released reference games in an attempt to hit the market. He...

Doing business in California seriously.

In the eyes of the Avengers, Ethan Jones's behavior is extremely abnormal!

But the crazy acquisitions also made them a little uneasy!

Because according to Ethan Jones's character, this kind of sudden purchase is definitely trying to hold back a big move!

no way……

Who told Ethan Jones to do this kind of thing before?

After the last time he kept silent, "Starry Night" appeared.

The last time he was holding back and playing dumb, it was Star Wars.

And when everyone felt that in the next second, a black hole might appear in the air, and Ethan Jones would spread his fangs and reach out with his hands from inside, and pinch his neck fiercely...

The captain of the Avengers, Steve Ross, had already picked up the receiver on his desk and called the members of the alliance, "Do you have time? We..."

"Have a meeting?"

Note: ① In reality, Xerox is indeed very greedy. When they first negotiated cooperation with Apple, they only offered a graphical user interface deal, and then wanted to sell the mouse themselves, and the price offered for the mouse was three hundred dollars a piece. This offer made Jobs feel so outrageous that he went directly to the Stanford Research Institute to buy the patent and develop it himself. Xerox gave in because it found that Jobs was having trouble handling it. ②In reality, Xerox's graphical user interface team has been integrated into Apple. This is part of the deal.