Reinventing the Millennium

Fang Zhuo is quite surprised that his company's business practices can be questioned by other fields.

He turned around and talked to Su Wei about this as an anecdote. Su Wei was also surprised by LG Electronics' attempt to exert pressure through abnormal channels.

"It's somewhat reluctant," she commented.

Fang Zhuo began to consider LG's response as more symbolic: "LG is a traditional mobile phone manufacturer, and this time it is partnering with Nokia's Symbian. This year is destined to compete with traditional manufacturers. Its fierce response is just A kind of microcosm.”

Since major manufacturers announced in January this year to follow up on 3G touch screen smartphones, the competition between old and new mobile phone manufacturers has begun.

LG is the fastest among the major manufacturers to go to market, and it is also very similar to the iPhone and Mars in terms of touch screen methods and sales models. However, it chooses to use the Symbian system.

"Come on, defeat LG." Su Wei still had work to do overtime, so she gave her some timely encouragement.

The next day, when Su Wei normally presided over the first head-to-head meeting with Taobao in June, an unexpected news came. Tesco’s previous cooperation with well-known cosmetics brands such as South Korea’s WHOO, Breath 37 Degrees, and Laneige were canceled by the other party. Stop unilaterally.

Su Wei's first reaction was that Taobao Mall was ahead!

However, after the meeting, she learned about the situation in detail and conducted simple communication and found that most of the brands covering the first, second and third tiers that Tesco was preparing for this time, such as WHOO and Breath 37 Degrees, were LG Lifestyle and Health Company, a subsidiary of LG Group.

These cosmetics brands directly under LG are resolute and would rather break the contract and pay two bucks than fulfill the cooperation.

The attitudes of other Korean brands such as Laneige are slightly more ambiguous, but they also stated that cooperation has been postponed and may not be able to catch up with the June wave. As for when it will be normal, we need to continue to study.

Su Wei cleared her thoughts and felt speechless for a while.

She was on the 22nd floor of Hang Lung. She looked up at the ceiling, grabbed the documents and went straight to the president's office on the 23rd floor.

There is a guest in Yike's president's office, and it is Ma Xiliang, the president of the General Chamber of Commerce.

His visit to Yike this time was mainly to talk about a happy event. The preparation for the establishment of the Yangtze River Delta Business Association went very smoothly.

The first was Shencheng, followed by Lin'an. With the positive attitude of these two cities, and the little brothers from Luzhou where the general ice core was located, we quickly established the Yangtze River Delta jointly sponsored by the Federation of Industry and Commerce of 9 cities in three provinces and one city. Business Association.

The association is under the banner of exchange of commercial resources, which is generally welcomed.

As for whether we can really implement this matter, it may depend on Mr. Fang's ability.

Ma Xiliang has done a lot of work recently and put in a lot of energy. He hopes that such an association covering the Yangtze River Delta can play a more active role. This day's visit is the visit to Europe that Mr. Liaofang always said.

It is initially determined that this time may be November or December near the end of the year.

Su Wei knocked on the door and walked into the president's office, where she saw the president and vice president of the General Chamber of Commerce chatting happily.

When Ma Xiliang met Mr. Su from Tesco, he showed great respect and enthusiastically invited Mr. Su to join the General Chamber of Commerce this year and also hold the position of vice president.

Su Wei was not interested in these at all. She waited for about ten minutes, waited for President Ma to say goodbye in a sensible manner, and then slapped the documents on Mr. Fang's desk.

"What on earth did you do to LG? Look, you actually came directly to Tesco!" Su Wei was very helpless. This was really an unforeseen disaster.

Fang Zhuo briefly read the news and felt that LG was really capable of new tricks.

There are still endless new tricks!

It can only be said that it is indeed a large consortium and has many resources at its disposal.

"I'm in a daze now. What did I do to LG?" Fang Zhuo put down the document, looked at Su Wei, and said with a smile, "It seems that LG values ​​our Yike more than Nokia."

LG Electronics' operating conditions have been average in the past two years. The newly launched touch screen machines have performed well and may have a different positioning.

Now it is launching a campaign to quit one of them after a series of patent lawsuits.

"There's still more than a month until June 18th. I've been planning so hard to give Taobao a try, but I've given up before I even started. President Fangda, what do you think I should do?" Su Wei asked about the indirect reason. the causer.

"Business competition comes and goes. The LG Group has a big business and it's really annoying this time." Fang Zhuo thought about it carefully, "The time is tight. How about I, a foreign director of Sony, help me get in touch?" , see if you can find some supplements?”

Su Wei frowned: "You, Sony's foreign director, have already been squeezed out of your value once."

When she went to Japan last year to investigate and discuss cooperation, she took on the identity of Mr. Fang to find resources. Now that time is so tight and Japanese brand manufacturers are relatively conservative, it is difficult to rush the work and cooperate.

Su Wei sighed and looked at the frowning Fang Zhuo, feeling that she could only admit that she was unlucky this time.

"Let's see, I'll be with you when I visit Europe at the end of the year. Aren't those European brands highly recognized? L'Oreal, Lancôme, Clarins, let's see if we can talk about cooperation." Fang Zhuo stretched out the timeline and added He added, "I happened to make a little money by shorting Lehman. I will see if there is an opportunity to buy some shares or an independent brand. It is difficult to discuss cooperation with a small website, but it should be easy to negotiate with shareholders."

When Su Wei, the webmaster of the small website, heard this arrangement, she suddenly felt, Hey, my mood doesn't seem to be that bad anymore.

She nodded and asked the most sincere question: "You always said that you made a little money by shorting Lehman. How much money was it?"

Su Wei felt that this was almost becoming Fang Zhuo's recent mantra.

"It's hard to say, Lehman's stock price has rebounded recently." Fang Zhuo shook his head, "After a while, remember to ask me again."

Su Wei looked at President Fangda: "Okay, you'd better help me find someone to ask in Japan. If we can talk about it, we can try to promote domestic brands."

Which brands Tesco promotes depends on consumers' market recognition. Domestic brands still have a lot of room for growth in the positioning of cosmetics.

There was another rather hasty knock on the door outside.

Fang Zhuo encouraged the development of small websites while letting people in: "Mr. Su, come on, defeat LG."

Su Wei glared at Mr. Fang, today's refueling was very painful! Yesterday's story becomes today's accident!

The person who came in was secretary Liu Zonghong.

When Su Wei saw it was him, she waited to hear any urgent news.

On May 3, LG Electronics sued Yike Mars in South Korea for infringing four of its important mobile phone patents.

On the same day, LG Electronics filed a civil lawsuit in the U.S. federal court over the invalidation of Yiko Touch and other patents, officially launching a legal counterattack.

Two days later, support from Nokia came belatedly.

Similarly, Nokia has the same idea, but it filed a patent invalidation request with the Patent Litigation and Conflicts Committee of the US Patent and Trademark Office, and is expected to get a decision within six months.

On May 7, it was still Nokia, which began to try to deny the validity of Yiko touch patents in Europe.

After several days of news, after Apple and Yike sued LG of the Symbian camp, LG and Nokia also gave procedural responses.

However, LG is quite forceful and directly countersued Yike for infringement, while Nokia is still making a fuss about the validity of the patent.

In the previous dispute between Apple and Yike, the former also had a patent idea, but Apple had similar patents.

Over the past few days, Yike's legal departments in the United States and Europe worked overtime and conducted close attention and analysis.

Let’s not mention South Korea. LG Group can exert too much influence. As for Yike’s current two big markets, the prospects for the continuation of patent validity are still quite optimistic.

LG reacted passively, while Nokia took the initiative to maintain the system this time.

It's just that it's really troublesome for Nokia to accuse me of infringement. It's really difficult to directly try to remove it from the root.

Fang Zhuo smelled a hint of wanting to cut leeks from Nokia's indescribable action. The boy in the camp was bullied. Don't take action. It doesn't make sense. Let's take action. The benefits are not that big, so just do it symbolically. Once done.

After all, even if LG ships with Symbian, it still has the status of an important competitor.

It seems that the sales of one million units of LG's new phone are enough to verify the power of Symbian's new system.

Fang Zhuo speculated on the thoughts of Nokia's senior management from a malicious perspective, and was quite calm about the recent developments.

From the time LG started speaking out to now, its actions in the past few days are worth taking a second look at, but they are still somewhat scratching the surface. We will wait and see the results of the court and ITC deliberations in the third quarter, and then the real deal will come.

Domestic public opinion remains stable, pressure through informal channels is ineffective, Korean public opinion is not taken seriously, and allies are attracted from the legal level. LG's turmoil gradually calms down, and everything must return to the right track of the market and the law.

Fang Zhuo was not stressed about this, but he was a little annoyed when he kept seeing news jumping up and down.

However, there is a subtle situation in the past few days that may be more important. LG's new phone, which has exceeded one million units in sales, has not received much enthusiastic word-of-mouth response, and now there are gradually greater negative voices.

Not only for LG, but also for Symbian system.

“Facebook’s software is not easy to use.”

"Why does Facebook have fewer features on Symbian than on Android?"

"The software adaptability of LG mobile phones is not good?"

"I originally thought Android was not as smooth as Apple, but I didn't expect Symbian to be even less smooth. Why can't Nokia make Symbian better? Apple and Yike are both new companies making mobile phones!"

Fang Zhuo wants to tell users that the new company has no baggage, and Nokia's Symbian system is dancing with shackles.

However, he restrained his desire to express himself and wanted to focus on his business colleagues in the Yangtze River Delta first.

It's a statement, it's support, it's a real recognition that it's up to you.

On May 9, the Yangtze River Delta Business Association, which was about to be established, organized a group to inspect Hang Lung Yike. Many company bosses actively participated in the mood of making friends, hoping to catch a glimpse of the richest man in the mainland.

In addition, the European study trip that has been revealed has also aroused the interest of some people.

The richest man in the Mainland has a very good business overseas. Is this an opportunity he took from his hands?

The situation is unknown, but if there is a chance, then you have to stand forward to receive it.

On the evening of the 8th, many CEOs from all walks of life arrived in Shanghai. They held a small party first. By the afternoon of the next day, almost everyone who had planned to come over arrived, and everyone rushed to the Yike headquarters together.

As for Hang Lung 23, where Yike's headquarters is located, it has become somewhat magical and legendary since Mr. Fang's fame gradually grew. Many people came here with a feeling of admiration.

When will I be able to jump on the table like Mr. Fang, grabbing investors by their collars and asking them to inquire about this street?

At 3:30 in the afternoon, Fang Zhuo personally went downstairs to pick up a business tour group of forty or fifty people. He was thinking about how to create a win-win situation for the trip abroad at the end of the year and make everyone return as full as possible.

A group of people exchanged pleasantries for a while, and then Fang Zhuo led everyone upstairs.

However, during such a pleasant moment, several reporters with cameras on their shoulders and microphones suddenly rushed in front of them.

Fang Zhuo subconsciously thought it was an arranged interview, but the next second he saw the secretary asking someone to keep his distance, he realized it was an emergency.

"Mr. Fang Zhuo, what do you think of LG suing Yike Mobile for infringement?"

"Mr. Fang Zhuo, do you know what Korean public opinion says about you?"

"Are you worried about the validity of Yike's mobile phone patents? What do you think of the abnormal competition between Yike and LG?"

The reporter holding the microphone forced himself forward and asked questions about LG.

Fang Zhuo glanced at the microphone's logo, which seemed to be the Korean media.

With people from the Yangtze River Delta business group nearby, the situation was a bit confusing, and forcing people to take the reporter away seemed to have a bad impact.

Fang Zhuo changed his mind, waved his hand to the bodyguards not to take action, turned around and said seriously to his business colleagues: "Don't panic, everyone, you are here to see me, not to expose you."

The embarrassment of the group of people was relieved a lot, and many people still had smiles on their faces. I had actually seen this scene before.

Fang Zhuo emphasized in his next sentence: "Don't be afraid, it's not the domestic media, it's the foreign media."

A burst of laughter.

"Oh, you are from South Korea's Dong-A Ilbo? I have read your reports, and you said that I am a traitor, right?" Fang Zhuo found out the truth.

Now that he was an old friend in a way, he was more relaxed.

"You came from South Korea to Shanghai. I am very touched by this interview." Fang Zhuo said slowly, "As for these issues, what do I think about the competition between Yike and LG..."

"Mr. Nam Yong, the president of LG Electronics, flew from Seoul to Shanghai to apologize to me. His attitude was very sincere, which also moved me very much."

"However, I can't easily make business concessions just because of his sincerity. Mr. Korean journalist, don't you think so?"

Fang Zhuo shrugged, very embarrassed: "I usually don't personally interfere with specific matters related to the company's mobile phone products, but the United States told me with great certainty that LG is infringing on Yike's patents. If this were not the case, LG would not be involved either. We will try every possible means to invalidate our patents."

"I actually understand LG Electronics' approach very well, and I also understand the changes in Mr. Nam Yong's attitude before and after."

The Korean reporter had already taken a stand, but he still kept faithful records at the scene. He knew that the interview would not last long. However, China's richest man in the mainland had a kind attitude and was still very graceful.

Two seconds later, a faint smile appeared on Fang Zhuo's face: "I have always wanted to pursue a win-win situation in business, but sometimes, business competition means people eat people, he eats you, I eat you, it is very cruel. "

Finally, he looked at the camera, put away his smile, gave the camera a staring look, and asked: "LG, do you think so?"