The Industrial Giant Reborn

On January 7, the stock market in Hong Kong became calm, and the stock of Hengyi Group was officially included as a member of the Hang Seng Index.

On this day, Chen Zhiwen also came to the new headquarters of Hengyi Group, which is also located in Admiralty, with a total of 22 floors. Hengyi originally wanted to buy this building, but the current office building prices are very high, and the owner is not willing to sell at all. Liao Xin thought that it would continue to rise in the future, so he could only rent it out in the end. After half a year of renovation, the entire Hengyi Real Estate Group also moved in.

"Do you think the floors here are too short for you?" Chen Tianfu said with a smile.

"It's okay, 20 or so floors are actually the norm in Hong Kong buildings. Those with 40 or 50 floors are basically built in recent years." Chen Zhiwen shrugged and said.

"If you hadn't said many times that Hong Kong real estate would have problems, I would have bought it long ago. Fortunately, you reminded me that there is indeed a problem in the current real estate market." Chen Tianfu said with a sigh.

"The office market is expected to be firmer, but I think it will be soon, and then there will be a long period of stagnation." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Although the real estate crisis broke out in September 1982, the pre-crisis symptoms this time were completely different from the previous one.

In 1973, before the crisis broke out, Hong Kong’s land prices and stock prices were still very strong, and only a few people discovered a possible crisis, but this time, as early as the second half of last year, there were already signs of abnormalities.

For example, HSBC has started to shrink its real estate business, the residential vacancy rate has begun to increase, and the transaction and rental prices of industrial real estate are also falling. However, commercial prices are still strong. The fundamental reason for this may be that international capital is cooperating with the mainland through Hong Kong. Although The current transaction amount is not high, but it has a very strong effect if it is swallowed up by Hong Kong.

"The projects I have in hand are basically short-term projects. If this is the case, the company's business will decrease sharply in the second half of the year. I'm afraid the stock market will not look good." Chen Tianfu said worriedly.

"That can't be helped. Even if you continue to develop real estate projects, it will not be as easy to sell as before, and it will be easy to fall into your hands." Chen Zhiwen said that when real estate prices fluctuate little, many people will wait and see instead. Even those who speculate in real estate will stop, because they already have a lot of houses in their hands, but they can't sell them.

The sluggish period of real estate is like this. If some large real estate companies have not been hyping the market, it is estimated that land prices will collapse earlier.

"So I am going to invest in Shenhai City on a large scale. You also know that I have two hotels there. The people in Shenhai City sent me a message, saying that they hope that I can build large-scale office buildings. Their demand for office buildings is increasing. Higher, what do you think?" Chen Tianfu asked.

"That's no problem. Since we have enough funds, let's try it. The deep sea is also attracting a lot of foreign capital. It's normal that there is a high demand for office buildings." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

In the whole country, real estate development is basically prohibited. Only the hotel projects are helpful to foreign trade and are really needed in the country. Therefore, the investment projects of many Hong Kong real estate giants in China are hotels. Others are basically No, if you want to build an office building or a community, it will not work at all.

However, Shenhai City is different. It is the front line of reform here. Many policies are decided by Shenhai City itself. As early as the second half of 1979, Shenhai City began to develop real estate communities with Hong Kong real estate developers, and sold these communities to Hong Kong people, or Hong Kong. In order to promote sales, relatives in China even provided household registration, just to help Hong Kong people take over their relatives in the Mainland.

However, the community is a project that can make quick profits. Hong Kong real estate developers are always happy, but when it comes to office buildings, which are long-term projects, they are not willing to invest. After all, the Hong Kong real estate market was also rising rapidly at that time, and the deep sea The capital of the city itself is not enough, and office buildings are relatively short, which is also normal.

"Well, I will mobilize funds to build office buildings in Shenhai City, and then lease them out. If Shenhai City can grow to 1/3 of Hong Kong's current size, then I will make a lot of money." Chen Tianfu said with a smile.

"Try to choose a better location in Shenhai City now, and then build office buildings, don't pursue building skyscrapers, about 20 floors are enough." Chen Zhiwen smiled, and didn't say too much. The future of Shenhai City is not less than In Hong Kong, the house price may not be as good.

Now, from the initial financing, listing and the current real estate cash out, Hengyi's cash assets are estimated to be two to three billion. If you take a small half of these funds to Shenhai City, you don't know how many office buildings you can build. After all, Compared with Hong Kong, the land price of office buildings there, even in the city center, is basically 0, and the only cost is the construction cost.

"Of course, the land price there is cheap, so building high-rise buildings will make you lose money." Chen Tianfu asked again: "Do you want to invest together? Your Hutchison and Wharf warehouses have a lot of spare funds recently, right?"

"No need, the current Shenhai City doesn't need so much capital. I'll talk about it when Shenhai City gets bigger in the future. I've decided on the investment direction for their funds." Chen Zhiwen said. It’s not bad to go to Shenhai City now, but how can Shenhai say that it’s a slightly bigger city at present, investing too much money into the real estate field will exceed its ability to bear, and if there are too many vacancies in the future, it may cause Hong Kong’s problems. If the bubble bursts, that's not good.

"Well, many of your industries are better than real estate, so there's no need to put too much thought into it." Chen Tianfu said with a smile.

"It's enough to be managed by a special person. On my side, it's enough to make a big investment." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. At the beginning, he valued real estate mainly because he needed to rely on the funds in it to develop other real industries. Now, in the 1980s, The electronics industry will be the highlight of his future.

But good opportunities will still be fought for. The real estate market will always be the largest market in the human economy. He will not give up. In the future, the rent of a building in Central will be more than one billion Hong Kong dollars. No matter how many large enterprises can’t earn a year So much, with enough real estate, it means that there is a super cash cow behind it, which is enough to support the future expansion of his major industries and the competition with international giants.

Now several of its real estate companies have matured in operation, and in the future, he only needs to point out the direction. For example, 84-97 was a bull market in the Hong Kong real estate market, 82-91 was a bull market in the Japanese market, and after 1984, it was suitable for large-scale investment. Domestically, etc., if there is a development direction, then professional managers will naturally know what to do.

On January 20, Hong Kong also experienced a rare major drop in temperature, and the cold current from Siberia rushed directly to the vicinity of Eastern Guangdong Province.

Because of the cold weather, winter clothes in Hong Kong were suddenly out of stock. Fortunately, Xinghe Trade had several large warehouses in Hong Kong, which contained down jackets purchased from the mainland. Chen Zhiwen ordered the warehouse to be opened directly, but he also made a small profit.

Although the weather was cold, Chen Zhiwen's heart was very hot, because Midea's first personal computer was ready to go on the market after several optimizations.

Early in the morning, Chen Zhiwen rushed to Midea Industrial City in Yuen Long, where there is a large laboratory where hundreds of Midea-1 computers are being tested.

"It's really hot in here." Chen Zhiwen walked into the laboratory and immediately felt that it was much hotter than outside. The corridor outside was at the normal temperature of the air conditioner. If it wasn't cold, it was hot here.

"Some computers here are running at high power, so the temperature is a little higher, and it happens to be able to test the state of the computer in a high temperature environment." Lei Shengli explained with a smile on the side.

"This mouse is good." Chen Zhiwen came to a computer and touched the arc-shaped mouse. As early as when he was preparing to develop the computer, Chen Zhiwen asked the team to independently develop the shape of the mouse, which must simulate the shape of a human hand. Gives the best feel, try it now, it's really good.

"We have registered a large number of mouse shape patents around the world. No matter which one, it is much better than the existing mouse on the market. After it goes on the market, many people will definitely like it." Lei Shengli said with a smile.

"Well, this can be regarded as an advantage. In addition to our split design, it can also solve the heat dissipation problem very well, although it won't last for a long time." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

In this era when personal computers have just started to rise, all companies focus on the performance of computers and what they can do, or software, and the appearance of computers is basically the same type, and the only consideration is heat dissipation.

Starting from Apple, followed by Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, and IBM, all computers are integrated, that is, the computer is on the top, and the host is on the bottom, and the two are integrated.

The first-generation computer that Chen Zhiwen requested to develop is the split type in the future. The main unit and the screen are separated, so that the heat dissipation problem can be solved well. Yes, it's just that people are generally used to this kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, just turn up the air conditioner when it's hot, or use an electric fan to blow on it.

Although the weight of the computer is still the same, it is much easier to carry because it is not integrated. From a point of view, the split style is much stronger.

But just like a mouse, even if a patent is registered, people can bypass it. There is no absolute monopoly on the shape of this thing, but it can have an advantage for a year or two. The only one that can make long-term profits is the middle button of the mouse, which is a unique patent. People may not need the middle button of the mouse now, but when the computer is powerful, Midea can just lie down and collect some patent fees.

A computer with a big ass is above the table, and the main computer is under the table. If you don’t bend over, you can’t see it. Chen Zhiwen controls the mouse and controls the computer. There is no image management system yet, and many of them need to enter dos commands to control them. Basically, a large number of non-professional players are excluded.

Chen Zhiwen naturally knows about this problem, but developing an operating system is too complicated. Midea currently does not have the personnel reserve. It took more than a year just to develop this new computer, and the current computer market does not allow any further delay. , and the operating system will be a very sensitive field. Once it succeeds, it will be suppressed. In the 1980s, a Japanese company was about to launch its own system, but it was quickly suppressed. If Midea also plays like this, the operating system will not work. Small, it is very likely that other industries will also be suppressed, and the loss outweighs the gain.

However, the operating system does not, but there are some auxiliary methods. For example, there will be a dot in the lower left corner of the screen. As long as the mouse is clicked in, several options will pop up, namely games, word text editing, Excel table editing, etc. Wait, it can be regarded as the most basic version of the shortcut.

Games naturally include games such as minesweeper, solitaire, Magic Cube, and Snake, which are Midea’s strengths. Naturally, they need to use this as a bait to guide consumers. After all, except for company computers, most people buy computers for playing. Computer games will also be one of the main battlefields of Midea's game department in the future. It has not officially started yet, and it is just a benefit for my computer.

Word and Excel are very basic versions of Mosquito Editing and Table Editing. These two softwares are what Chen Zhiwen has been paying attention to. The currently released version basically includes the most basic editing functions of later generations. It will be very useful for ordinary clerks to use .

Although these functions are not perfect, they are all registered with global patents, and will be gradually optimized according to user needs in the future. Once this track is established, the dream of making money lying down can be realized.

Lei Shengli went on to say: "We have already installed Wubi software on our computer, and we can input both traditional and simplified characters, but there may still be some imperfections."

"It doesn't matter, it's good to have it. This input method will be released for free when Midea's computer is released, and everyone can use it." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

One of the problems plaguing China at present is that when Western characters can be easily input into computers, Chinese cannot. The input speed is very slow, maybe only seven or eight characters a minute.

Therefore, Chen Zhiwen also asked to develop Wubi. However, as a person in the 21st century, he also does not know Wubi, so he can only ask the development team to start research and development from zero according to the basic rules of Wubi. The input method is completely different, but it doesn't matter. The input method is actually a matter of habit. After you get used to it, even if there are better ones later, it will be difficult to change it.

With this solution, it is actually possible to make some money with this, but Chen Zhiwen decided to make it completely free, one is because he doesn't like the little money, and the other is to gain a good reputation, there is no need to earn everything.

Before the intelligent pinyin input method appeared, Wubi was the absolute king.

"Okay." Lei Shengli nodded.