That year the flowers bloomed 1981

Chapter 630 Do you think people in the mainland can’t afford a computer?

The reactions of Li Ye and others were beyond Wang Lie's expectations.

He had just taken over as the company's president from his father not long ago, and his knowledge of the cooperation project with Pei Wencong and others was limited to the cold introduction and data in the cooperation materials.

Hong Kong Wind Computer Company - established four months ago, with a registered capital of US$20 million.

Proprietary technology: None.

Own products: None.

Technical team: None.

Cooperation goal: jointly develop, manufacture and sell a new generation of personal computers.

To be honest, Wang Lie had no expectation or desire to cooperate with this kind of "three-no company".

Although the registered capital of Hong Kong Wind Language is 20 million US dollars, which is not too large or small, but look at what Pei Wencong does?

He was originally a publishing house owner, and later resold clothes. In the past two years, I don’t know what path he took, but he has become a "nouveau riche" and has barely gained some fame among the wealthy circles in Hong Kong Island.
But this is not suitable for a high-tech enterprise like Wang Laboratories!

Wang Lie didn't understand why his father had pushed this cooperation project to the final stage.

[Could it be that my father is getting old and his "hometown complex" has started to take effect, and he wants to establish a good relationship with the hometown he has been away from forty years? ]

[Or do you think that this company, which is obviously a speculative company, can make up for the shortcomings of our company? ]

Wang Laboratories' weakness is software. They do not have any flagship software products of their own. This did not seem to be a big deal in the past, but in recent years, it seems to be falling further and further behind.

Moreover, Wang Lie also felt uncomfortable with the purpose of cooperation proposed by Pei Wencong - to develop a new generation of personal computers.

In 1985 and 1986, Wang Laboratories and IBM began to deviate from each other in their development paths.
Wang Laboratories chose the expensive high-end computer route, while IBM, which had always been conservative, decided to open its policy after suffering a lot of torture, united a group of small PC equipment manufacturers, and chose to focus on economical personal computers that were more easily popularized.

Even at this moment, some people in the industry believe that Wang Laboratories has made a "fatal mistake."

So Pei Wencong came to seek cooperation in R&D and manufacturing at this critical juncture. Wang Lie believed that he was actually imitating IBM's development path.

My father fought against IBM all his life, so why is he now secretly learning from them?
Even if it wants to learn from its competitors, IBM only cooperates with small manufacturers like Microsoft, Apple, and ARM. Those small manufacturers have their own software development capabilities. What capabilities does Hong Kong Wind Language have?

Wang Lie looked at the joint venture documents from left to right, but could not see any software development capabilities of Pei Wencong. Instead, there was a sense of conspiracy to "steal skills" everywhere.

There is an old saying among flower growers: teach the apprentice to beat the master, so Wang Lie believes that he should either not accept an apprentice, or even if he does, he should not teach him real kung fu, and just let him do odd jobs for him.

But now looking at Li Ye, Pei Wencong and others with cold faces in front of them, they don’t seem like a group of obedient and easy-to-use disciples!

[No, you are a small company from Hong Kong, and you come to me, the world's top 2 company, to seek cooperation. Don't you have any awareness of who is the boss and who is the follower? ]

“I’m glad that you all can come to Boston today. It’s only a few days away from the Spring Festival.
In order to save everyone's precious time, we hope to put aside some of the divergent factors and sign a cooperation agreement as soon as possible."

Wang An said some polite words in a cold tone, and then said to the second employee on his right in English: "Mr. Chambers, please explain our willingness to cooperate to our friends in Hong Kong Island."

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I am Wang Laboratories' Asia sales manager. I have made the following cooperation proposals based on the computer market demand in East Asia in the next ten years."

The employee named John is a middle-aged man in his forties. He speaks slowly but clearly. I think he is used to communicating with customers from non-English speaking areas, so he avoids unnecessary communication misunderstandings due to language problems.

"We are very optimistic about the strength of Hong Kong Island Wind in market sales, so we very much hope to reach a sales cooperation project with you.

These are the latest products we recommend this year, and they have received very good feedback in the Japanese market. As an important transit point for flower growers, Hong Kong Island hopes to better develop the mainland market through cooperation with you."

John Chambers distributed several product leaflets to Li Ye and others, which showed Wang Laboratories' latest computer equipment.

Wen Leyu also got a portion. She just took a look and couldn't help but take a deep breath.

This price is too high. The cheapest personal computer costs 6,000 US dollars, and the rest cost more than 10,000 US dollars. And this is the purchase price. If you sell it...
Wen Leyu frowned slightly and looked at Li Ye quietly.

Because she had started doing homework on this cooperative project many days in advance, and knew that Li Ye's original intention was to jointly research and develop a new generation of computer equipment,
But now looking at Mr. Chambers's behavior, why does he seem to treat us as a regional distributor? Otherwise, why would he give a product quotation in such an occasion?

But did so many of us fly across half the globe just to obtain the qualification of a regional dealer?
But when Wen Leyu looked at Li Ye, he found that Li Ye was staring at John Chambers with a slight gleam in his eyes.

Judging from the close experience that Wen Leyu and Li Ye have had in recent years, the look in Li Ye's eyes is as if he has taken a fancy to a good thing.

Pei Wencong's reaction after hearing John Chambers' words was much more extreme than Wen Leyu's.

He immediately said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Chambers, if I understand correctly, are you discussing with us the issue of the agency sales rights of your company's products?" Chambers showed a trace of helplessness in his eyes, and then nodded slowly.

Pei Wencong looked at Wang Lie and said seriously, "Mr. Wang, this is not the cooperation goal we discussed before. What made you change your mind so suddenly?"

In the business world, harmony is important, but Pei Wencong's tone was already very unfriendly. After all, his big boss was sitting next to him, and his big boss's girlfriend was said to be even more extraordinary.

As a result, such a big mistake has happened. How incompetent am I? If this happened in the company, I should have resigned, right?

"Mr. Pei, I understand your feelings. Although we discussed joint research and development before, the premise of any new product development is market demand."

Wang Lie saw Pei Wencong was angry, so he also got angry and said very bluntly: "Your main market is the mainland of China, but we have doubts about the market consumption capacity in the mainland of China.
Therefore, we believe that we should first cooperate with sales agents to test the acceptance of the mainland market, determine the specific market demand, and then more accurately determine the research and development positioning of new products. "

"."

Pei Wencong was stunned.

What does Wang Lie mean by this?
Wang Lie doubts that mainlanders can't afford computers! No wonder he takes out a price list in this situation!

[Look, look, the cheapest computer costs 6,000 US dollars. Can those hungry mainlanders afford it? ]

Pei Wencong wanted to yell at him on the spot: "Open your eyes and look at this mainlander sitting in front of you. The money in the bank is enough to buy two Wang Laboratories. How dare you doubt the purchasing power of mainlanders?"

Pei Wencong looked at Li Ye anxiously, fearing that Li Ye would lose his temper due to his youthful impulsiveness.

But Li Ye was not angry at all, instead he chatted with Chambers with great interest.

"Hello, Mr. Chambers. I would like to ask a rather impolite question. Is your full name John Chambers?"

"Oh yes, how did you know that?"

"I heard from my friends at IBM that you, Mr. Chambers, once worked in marketing there."

“Oh yes, but I’m an employee of Wang Laboratories now.”

"Mr. Chambers, since you are the sales manager for Asia, you should know about the flower growers and the technological miracles they have created. So don't you think joint research is a good idea for both parties to win?"

"Sir, although I am only in charge of marketing, I also have some understanding of the direction of computer development. Hong Kong's research and development capabilities are not as good as Japan's. The mainland is too mysterious and we cannot discuss it."

Li Ye is interested in Chambers, but Chambers doesn't want to pay much attention to Li Ye.

Because Li Ye mentioned his old employer IBM in front of his new employer Wang Lie, which is a bit taboo in the IT industry of this era.

Before the Internet was fully developed, many IT people at Lighthouse would work in one company for many years or even their entire lives.

Many employees see themselves as part of the company, and this phenomenon was even more obvious in the IT industry in the 1980s.

Companies continue to emerge, and many of them are start-ups in a field. Most employees are proud of what they do and regard it as their own career and hard work.

Why did Microsoft make many IT people hate it during this period? It was because during this period of rapid development, Microsoft continued to expand horizontally, and through bundling competition, it eroded the market of various companies, forcing many companies to lay off employees, resulting in the destruction of the hard work of IT people.

To the extent that employees of some companies that were defeated by Microsoft during that period would rather die than go to Microsoft, and some even continued to attack Microsoft's products and reputation in various ways later.

So now that Li Ye mentioned that John Chambers had changed jobs, how could he have a good impression of Li Ye?
And more importantly, Li Ye emphasized that Chambers is a "salesman".

In the high-tech companies of Lighthouse, employees who only have sales ability but no technical knowledge can hardly reach the top management position.

The people in charge of most computer companies are technical experts, or at least professionals.

But John Chambers is not like that, and this is his natural weakness.

What they are discussing today seems to be a sales issue, but in fact it is a technical issue because they still do not trust Hong Kong Fengyu's R&D capabilities.

So Li Ye repeatedly emphasized in front of Wang Lie that he was a salesperson, which made Wang Lie think that Li Ye was mocking him.

But Li Ye really had no intention of mocking John Chambers. After all, this sales manager was the man who led Cisco to a market value of $4440 billion a few years later.

"Excuse me, sir, what is your position at Hong Kong Wind Language Company?"

(End of this chapter)