Rebirth of the courtyard, the start is 80s

Chapter 568 The Uninvited Taiyo Yuden

After leaving the original manuscript of the novel to the young editor Yuno Watanabe, Cao Zhiqiang went straight home and continued to create silently, plagiarizing, no, creating his next masterpiece "Snow Country".

But just after returning to the newly rented house, just after making a cup of hand-made coffee, before taking two sips, I received a call from Anping.

During the phone call, Anping asked him to go back quickly, because someone from his place came to visit and said that it was a section chief of the second sales department of Taiyo Yuden Company who came to discuss cooperation in China.

At first, Cao Zhiqiang didn't understand, but when Anping repeated the name of the company again, and said that the other party had two tape production lines that he wanted to transfer, and asked us if we were interested in buying them, he suddenly understood.

TAIYO YUDEN, isn't this Taiyo Yuden? It's also an unknown niche company.

Originally, Cao Zhiqiang didn’t know about this company, but Cao Zhiqiang’s father in his previous life was a music enthusiast. He liked cassettes very much and collected a lot of cassettes. Dad loves this tape very much, so Cao Zhiqiang has a little understanding of the company that produces this tape.

That's tape is a very small but exquisite tape. Later, metal tapes are basically produced. The sound performance is very good, not inferior to famous brand tapes such as Sony.

The manufacturer of That's tapes is Taiyo Yuden, a relatively small Japanese company.

According to Cao Zhiqiang's understanding, Taiyo Yuden originally engaged in ceramic capacitors. Later, with the expansion of business, it began to produce cassette tapes in the 70s, but this was just a sideline of their business, not the main business.

Relatively speaking, this company is more flexible, and has already gone abroad and has a certain connection with China.

However, it is not the mainland, but Taiwan Province.

That's right, if Cao Zhiqiang remembers correctly, this company set up a branch in Baodao as early as 1967, and still mainly produces capacitors.

Generally speaking, this company is not prominent in the tape business, and is very weak compared with mainstream tape companies such as Sony, TDK, Maxion, and Fuji.

But no matter how weak it is, it is a Japanese company that can own Japan's mature technology and production line, which is far from being comparable to the current domestic ones.

The current domestic domestic tape manufacturers are not only small in number, but also the tapes are of very low quality among ordinary tapes. In terms of timbre and distortion, they are completely incomparable with imported tapes.

For example, Hongguang Publishing House's current largest partner, the Temple of Heaven tape factory in Beijing, actually introduced the technology and production line from the United States to mass-produce domestic tapes. Otherwise, it would not have this technology.

Other partners, such as the Baihua brand magnetic tape factory in Jinan, are also imported production lines, but they are all obsolete technologies from abroad. They are the worst iron oxide tapes among ordinary tapes, and they are cheap.

But in fact, at least in Japan, the second-generation chromium dioxide magnetic tape was mature as early as the 70s, and the relatively cost-effective cobalt-containing iron oxide magnetic tape has also been developed for many years. Even in 1978, the 3M company in the United States Mature metal tapes have also been developed long ago.

In other words, there is one domestic tape manufacturer, at least for now, all of them lag behind foreign countries.

But even for that kind of backward tape, the domestic supply is in short supply. At least in ten years, this situation of short supply will not change.

On the contrary, in Japan, the industry at this time has generally overcapacity, such as tape production capacity, which has already been overcapacity.

Because of this, Japanese companies are eager to go out, and the mainland market is undoubtedly the biggest cake.

It's just that the country is so poor that even the government is in urgent need of foreign exchange, not to mention ordinary local factories.

Japan's magnetic tape manufacturers are all making money, but if they don't have money, they will cooperate with you.

Of course, besides money, there is another way, which is to engage in joint ventures. However, there is currently a lack of corresponding laws and regulations in China, so many Japanese manufacturers are hesitant to do so.

In other words, before finding a reliable domestic bigwig to cooperate with, those big Japanese manufacturers dare not enter the water easily, for fear of being cheated.

Cao Zhiqiang remembers that in the history of his previous life, it was not until after [-], or around [-] to be precise, that a large number of Japanese tape production lines were introduced into China to produce higher-quality tapes by means of material processing.

That is, since then, various domestic tape brands have been dazzled, such as Skylark, Xinni, Tianqin, Diamond, Feifei, Rose, Iron Eagle, etc., etc. Tape brands have come out, but in essence they are all imported Second-hand molds and raw materials, and goods processed with supplied materials, are more like small workshops, not really large production lines.

For example, TCL, which became famous in the previous life, used to be a small tape workshop for processing incoming materials. Later, due to chance, it became bigger and stronger, and then it gradually became a giant.

TCL is only a very small number of successful cases. Ninety percent of those who engaged in processing materials like TCL at the beginning died.

Of course, there is no TCL yet, only a joint venture company TTK Home Appliances, which mainly produces audio tapes.

This TTK company was originally very powerful, and it was one of the earliest thirteen joint venture companies in China.

It is rare here in the north, but in the south, TTK audio tapes produced by TTK company are very common.

However, the joint venture partner of this TTK company is a Hong Kong businessman, so the production line is actually a second-hand foreign production line, and its quality can be imagined.

After seeing the photos of TTK’s early manufacturers, we know that the factory is said to be a joint venture, but in fact it is no different from a small workshop. The so-called production line is some molds and the like, and then uses key components imported from Hong Kong. Assemble the production tape.

It's just that the scale of this workshop-style production is relatively large, so the output of TTK tapes can keep up, but it is incomparable with the regular production line of the Jingcheng Tape Factory.

However, this kind of enterprise is more flexible and lacks the rigid system of large state-owned enterprises, so it can go out in the end.

In fact, Japanese manufacturers are not willing to enter China on a large scale now, and they are also scrupulous about this.

Because most of the current domestic enterprises are state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises, they understand everything, especially in Japan, so unless they are big companies that can get policies, such as TDK, they are like small companies, such as Taiyang Yuden dare not go in.

Now that Taiyo Yuden took the initiative to find him, he must have smelled it.

But it's normal, it seems that Taiyo Yuden's headquarters is in Tokyo, and the company is small, so it can be even more shameless, this is too normal.

After thinking about this, Cao Zhiqiang stopped drinking coffee, washed his face a little, changed into a suit, and went out to find Anping.

After taking a taxi and walking, I came to the Yihujian where Anping lived, and I saw that Anping was receiving two men in suits and leather shoes.

One of the two men looked in their forties, and the other looked in their early twenties. They were a typical business team with old and new.

Cao Zhiqiang is also familiar with this model, but he was familiar with watching island country love action movies in his previous life.

The kind of movie I watched in my previous life has many similar plots, but it is just a man and a woman, usually an older female boss and a young male subordinate, or an older male boss and a young female subordinate.

Cao Zhiqiang remembered that he searched for it back then, but only after actually searching did he realize that it was really just a plot.

In fact, in Japanese companies, there is indeed a tradition of older bosses bringing younger subordinates to discuss business together, but they are all of the same sex.

In other words, if it is a male boss, the subordinates who lead are usually male subordinates.

Conversely, if it is a female boss, the subordinates are usually also female subordinates.

That kind of model where men and women work together without getting tired is what I am in Greater China. This is not popular in Japan, at least not in the conservative 80s.

With this in mind, under Anping's introduction, Cao Zhiqiang shook hands with these two salesmen who obviously just came to test the water, and then sat down and talked.

As for the two men, the older one is called Ikeda Kota, and the younger one is called Takaguchi.

Among them, the title printed on Iketani Kota's business card is the section manager of the second sales department, and the other is a general employee.

Don't look at the head of the section who seems to be awesome, but the head of the department in China is not exactly like that.

In the 80s, the section chiefs in Japan, just like the managers in China in the late 90s, were already rotten.

However, in large companies, the section chief is still very good, and generally has the right to operate independently.

In other words, the other party dispatched a class leader to talk to him, and there was nothing wrong with it in theory.

Of course, it is more likely that the section chief acted without authorization, and Taiyo Yuden's senior management did not have this idea.

However, there is still a similar situation in Japan. If the salesmen at the grassroots level negotiate the business and make a plan and submit it to the top management for approval, then the company will follow the trend to implement the plan.

In other words, in some large companies in Japan, the grassroots section chiefs actually have quite a lot of power. Once they can get a good business, they can also kill first and play later.

After exchanging pleasantries, the other party explained directly to Cao Zhiqiang what he wanted to do.

In fact, their reason for coming is very simple, just like what Anping said on the phone, they are only here to sell products, and the so-called products are tape production lines and related accessories.

"Cao Sang!" Ikeda Kota said with a gentle smile on his face, "Although our production line is not the latest, it is absolutely reliable in performance, reasonable in price, and very cost-effective. As long as you buy our production line, it is definitely worth the money!"

Speaking of this, Ikeda Kota winked at his subordinates, and then the young man named Takaguchi quickly picked up the briefcase, and took out a stack of documents and enlarged photos from it.

"Cao Sang." Ikeda Kota smiled and pushed the information over, "This is the basic information of our two production lines. You can read it first. If there is anything you don't understand, I can explain it to you at any time."

After Cao Zhiqiang took the documents, he looked at the photos first.

The photos are developed and enlarged, and they are all still photos of the tape production line taken from various angles.

There are photos of the production line when it is empty, and there are still photos of the production line producing tapes.

Although it is not a video, but just looking at the photos, the production line is relatively new, not the old workshop mold, but a real automated production line.

Of course, the automated production line here refers to the automated production line that Cao Zhiqiang has seen before based on the standard of this era, so it is completely incomparable.

At least in Cao Zhiqiang's view, this production line is relatively rough, and it does not have the mechanical beauty he has seen in his previous life. Many equipment and cables are exposed, but it should be very practical.

At least this kind of open and exposed production line should not be difficult to repair.

After seeing the photos, Cao Zhiqiang started to look at the materials again.

The materials are all in Japanese, not Chinese as Cao Zhiqiang thought.

Looking at this situation, Cao Zhiqiang probably knows it. This is most likely Kota Ikegani's own opinion.

Because a company like Taiyo Yuden, if it is really a high-level decision-making, will at least provide a Chinese explanation when cooperating with Cao Zhiqiang, a Chinese.

But it doesn't matter, Japanese is Japanese, and he doesn't seem to be struggling anyway.

After reading the information, he didn't understand the specific parameters, but at least he understood a few points.

That is, these two production lines were put into operation in 1975, and it has been eight years since then.

The production line in [-] is naturally not a high-end technology, at least it is not a chromium dioxide tape, let alone a metal tape, but the most common iron oxide tape.

It's just that, although they are all iron oxide tapes, because they bought the most advanced equipment at that time when they were put into production, and they can provide corresponding raw materials and accessories, the electroacoustic performance of the tapes produced is definitely better than that of Ordinary iron oxide tapes are better, at least they should be stronger than the ordinary domestic tapes.

According to the above statement, the technology of the magnetic tape produced by this production line and the accessories provided by Taiyo Yuden is comparable to that of TDK-AD magnetic tape of TDK Corporation.

The TDK-AD tape is a high-end tape among ordinary iron oxide tapes, that is, the type with particularly good electro-acoustic performance. The sound quality exceeds Sony's CHF tape. Even in Japan, it is also a medium-to-high-end tape.

Of course, this kind of medium-to-high-end magnetic tape is compared with ordinary iron oxide magnetic tape, and cannot be compared with chromium dioxide magnetic tape, cobalt-containing magnetic tape, and metal magnetic tape.

In other words, in fact, this kind of tape can only be regarded as mid-range in Japan, but if it is put in China, it will be a proper high-end tape.

Because of this kind of ordinary iron oxide tape with better quality, there seems to be no domestic manufacturer that can produce this kind of tape.

In my memory, the domestic medium and high-end tapes with AD seem to be the earliest Shanghai S-AD tapes produced by the Shanghai Tape Factory, but that was eight or six years later.

In other words, at least in [-], the domestic production lines of ordinary iron oxide tapes were all low-end production lines, and there was no production line and technology comparable to TDK-AD tapes.

After reading the information, Cao Zhiqiang nodded, put down the information, and asked Ikeda Kota: "It looks pretty good, what price do you plan to offer?"

When Cao Zhiqiang asked the price, the smile on Ikeda Kota's face became wider.

Because if you can ask the price, you are really interested, otherwise you will not ask the price at all, and at most you will talk about it.

"It's very cheap." Ikeda Kota smiled and said, "Two production lines, technology package and church, only 600 million!"

"Yen?" Cao Zhiqiang raised his eyebrows.

Iketani Kota's face froze, and then he said with a dry smile: "Cao Sang, you are joking, of course it is US dollars!"

(End of this chapter)