Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 287 A brilliant plan
"We said we weren't going to talk about work anymore, why are we talking about it again? Well, let's talk about something else."

Ichiro Haneda didn't want to discuss too much about the mess in the company. There was basically nothing good about it, and it was annoying to see it.

Masato Takeshita agreed, "Well, let's not talk about work. What we want to talk about today is to have fun."

After saying that, he picked up a large cup of Coke and drank it gulp by gulp.

Tonight, he wants coke freedom.

Although they didn't drink, perhaps because they hadn't seen each other for a long time, the two chatted until almost 12 o'clock before reluctantly parting.

"Next time we have a chance, let's go to that bakery together."

"Okay, there's a chance."

Seeing that his senior was still obsessed with a small bakery near Waseda University before leaving, the young man became a little curious.

Is it really that interesting?

Maybe it is more the memories that beautify it.

Masato Takeshita shook his head and stopped thinking about the interesting things that happened in college.

It was chilly on the streets of Tokyo in January 1992. The stock market showed no signs of recovery, and real estate was also shrinking sharply.

However, even though the situation is dire, the vast majority of Japanese remain optimistic about the economy, including the top elites in society.

This year's Japanese economic white paper was written with confidence.

The decline in asset prices is merely a loss of unrealized gains from excessive expansion.

To put it simply, although assets are declining now, they have appreciated a lot compared to before, and everyone is just making less money.

The whole of Japan is still filled with a blindly optimistic mentality.

But soon, the Japanese government realized that something was wrong.

The domestic economy continues to be sluggish, and the revenue and profits of most industries have shrunk. If this continues, the Japanese economy will really be doomed.

Therefore, in 1992, the Bank of Japan lowered its lending rates again and introduced a basket of policies to stimulate the economy in an effort to boost market vitality.

Sadly, it had little effect.

So, how do we solve the problem of stagnant GDP when domestic consumption is sluggish and foreign markets are basically saturated?

Many people should be able to think of it.
Infrastructure, super-large-scale infrastructure.

However, the construction of Japan's three major metropolitan areas is already very complete, so everyone has turned their attention to the countryside, and the "Rural Revitalization Act" was launched.

At the headquarters of Xinghai Group, Masato Takeshita and Hiroaki Kobayashi watched as Congress passed the Rural Revitalization Act with a high vote, their eyes sparkling with joy.

"President, are we going to leave too?"

"Of course, whether our Xinghai Real Estate can develop depends on this time."

This is a feast involving tens of trillions of yen, so now that we have the chance, we naturally have to take a bite.

"Hey, I'll do it right away."

Let me tell you something that is counter-intuitive.
During Japan's bubble era, there were approximately 500 million people employed in the construction industry, but during the three-year rural revitalization period, this number increased to 700 million.

It can be said that the large-scale rural infrastructure construction in the past three years has strongly guaranteed the employment rate of the Japanese.

This is a very useful stimulant that effectively achieves the purpose of diverting the population of large cities and alleviating employment pressure in large cities.

But these are far from enough.

The 20s was Japan's post-war baby boom period.

When the time came to 1992, these baby boomers were just in need of finding jobs.

The number of people in need of employment increases every year, but the number of jobs shrinks significantly.

If no timely adjustments are made, a huge bottleneck will soon form in the job market.

Therefore, in order to delay the employment boom of high school and college students, the Japanese government began to actively prepare for the school expansion plan.

China has also done this kind of work.

For example, during the financial crisis in 98, a large number of employees lost their jobs. In order to reduce the number of job seekers in the market, the government expanded the enrollment of universities.

The effect is very good.

This group of college students after the expansion of enrollment has reaped the benefits of the times.

Like China in later generations, the Japanese government at this time was also thinking about getting through this wave.

As long as the country's economic situation improves, expanding the enrollment of college students will not be a problem.

At the same time, the enrollment of graduate students and doctoral students also officially began to expand.

The Japanese government is betting that the Japanese can develop a large-scale semiconductor industry cluster just like they developed the automotive industry.

I don’t dare to ask for a monopoly, but at least it should become an important part.

"Mr. Guo Shina, how was it? Did you gain anything from the meeting?"

Since the Japanese government is betting on the semiconductor electronics industry, it will naturally introduce some favorable policies.

At first, Masato Takeshita attended many large and small meetings, but he soon became bored and gave the opportunity to Lou Gerstner.

"It's all the same old stuff, nothing new."

Lou Gerstner shook his head and sat down on the sofa without any image. He was really exhausted by the recent intensive meetings.

"It seems that no one can come up with a good solution for the time being."

"Yes, there is nothing that can be done."

The Japanese government hopes that companies such as NEC will export large quantities of electronic products such as computers, mobile phones, and televisions to increase domestic employment.

However, the wages of Japanese workers are too high, which only suits a few high-end brands. Most of them still need to invest in local factories, while Japan takes on the design work.

In addition, advanced electronic products such as mobile phones and computers can indeed be produced in Japan and marketed globally and still make money.

However, the scale of the mobile phone industry is still small and cannot accommodate too many employed people.

As for the computer industry, it is indeed more prosperous and broader.

But Japan has been marked by the United States and is targeted everywhere.

The most intuitive one is,
Computers exported from Japan to the United States are subject to a 100% tariff.

However, this one point alone directly killed the possibility of large-scale exports of Japanese computers.

Because in 1992, more than 70% of the world's computers were consumed by the United States. The inability to export computers to the United States was almost equivalent to the inability to export computers.

Faced with this situation, companies such as NEC can only stick to the domestic market, and the number of recruits will naturally not increase.

This was the reason why NEC computers later failed and were easily surpassed by Fujitsu.

Products can only be sold domestically, and sooner or later they will fail.

After briefly chatting about the content of today's meeting, Masato Takeshita suddenly changed the subject and asked.

"By the way, how is the company's self-developed desktop computer project going now?"

"It's going very well. But do we really want to join the competition in the whole machine industry?"

Now most Japanese companies purchase small items such as mouse, keyboard, motherboard, etc. from Xinghai Technology, so Lou Gerstner does not want to get involved in the complete machine market.

The competition is fierce and it is easy to offend customers.

"Yes and no."

After a little teasing, Takeshita Masato explained carefully,
"If there is a suitable opportunity, the company will indeed launch its own brand of desktop computers. But now, we are mainly focusing on technology reserves."

“So that when it is needed, we don’t have to set up a new project, design, and develop it all over again…”

Masato Takeshita already has a series of plans in mind for the development of his own computer brand.

The timing is not right now and it will take another two years before it can be officially launched.

"clear."

Lou Gerstner understands the style of big companies very well. It is better to be prepared. When talking about computers, young people think of the current computer interfaces.

"By the way, Gerstner-san. What do you think about us finding companies like IBM and Intel to develop a computer interface interconnection protocol?"

Today's computer interfaces are diverse and not universal at all.

Not only does it bring a lot of trouble to users, it also makes manufacturers like Xinghai Manufacturing feel extremely troubled.

Masato Takeshita wanted to take the USB interface route and unify the interface formats of various computers.

"Interface Interconnection Protocol, how do you say that?"

When Lou Gerstner heard about the cooperation with IBM and Intel, he immediately became excited.

He instinctively felt that there would be many benefits in it.

"There are so many different interfaces on computers now, so we found the world's most famous chip and computer manufacturers to unify the interfaces to a certain extent."

"For example, if I use an NEC computer and you use an IBM computer, we can swap our mouse and keyboard at will. This is absolutely convenient and conducive to technological progress."

Lou Gerstner looked at the computer on the president's desk, then thought about it and found that it was indeed the case.

If the mouse and keyboard are universal, then you don't have to go to a special store when the mouse or keyboard breaks.

Just buy a new one from the store and use it quickly.

Very convenient.

"No problem. Next time I return to the United States, I will describe this matter to the two of them."

"But I think it will be difficult for us to take the lead in the alliance."

Although Xinghai Technology is also developing rapidly, it is still not as fast as Intel.

In addition, with the big brother IBM around, Xinghai Technology will only receive preferential treatment.

"It doesn't matter, as long as you are an initial member."

First-class enterprises control the rules, and Xinghai Group only needs to join in, which is an invisible recognition.

"That shouldn't be a problem. IBM is in a mess right now, so it's probably willing to divert its attention."

IBM, a century-old giant and a giant in the computer field, has been on the verge of collapse after multiple rounds of attacks by the US government.

Many people even bet on when IBM would go bankrupt.

If they can create some splash to divert media attention, IBM's top management would be very willing to do so.

"It's okay, there's no rush. Even if everyone is willing, it will probably take a few years to discuss it."

Integrating computer interfaces is a big deal, and some of the world's most well-known computer hardware and software manufacturers need to communicate with each other.

If we propose it now, it would be a victory if we could produce the first edition in 93.

Many things that are commonplace today were considered huge fortunes in 1992.

For example, the operating system that Xinghai Group is secretly developing.

When Masato Takeshita drew the sketch of the Windows 95 interface, everyone was immediately amazed.

The mouse can actually be used like this, the start menu is so convenient.

There is also this browser that can actually search URLs directly.

All of this makes the people involved in the research and development very proud.

They were not abandoned, but were fighting for Japan to crush the American software conspiracy.

Of course, because the interface is too easy to be copied by competitors.

Therefore, the current R&D center of the Xinghai operating system is not in Japan, but in Suzhou, which is adjacent to Shanghai.

This is more covert and makes it more difficult for information to be leaked by an insider.

"By the way, one more thing, what do you think of CD technology?"

Gerstner did not respond directly, but instead asked, "Is the chairman planning to get involved in the format competition?"

"Uh, do you think so?"

"I don't think others will do that, but I'm not sure about the president."

Our president has created too many miracles. As long as he is around, nothing is impossible.

Masato Takeshita was a little speechless, not knowing whether to be happy or sad.

"Okay, my arms aren't that long yet. I asked you about the CD because I wanted to know if the sound and the picture can be compressed on the same disc."

You can't just participate in format competition if you want to.

At least you need to have a lot of supporters behind you and your product should not be bad.

If you don’t have supporters, then you have no content to produce.

Sony suffered a great loss in this regard, so it spent a huge amount of money to buy Columbia Pictures.

Even if it means huge losses, we must grit our teeth and persevere.

If your product is terrible, even staunch supporters will run away.

Xinghai Group has nothing to do with either of these and can never come to the fore.

"I don't know about this either. Can I give you an answer tomorrow?"

"no problem."

When Masato Takeshita suddenly mentioned CDs, he was thinking of the VCD player that represented the innovative spirit of China's 90s generation, a household appliance that has long been eliminated by the times.

In April 1992, Jiang Wanmeng attended the Television Technology Expo in Las Vegas, USA, and discovered a chip called MPEG in a booth of only 4 square meters.

This chip can store both sound and images on a small CD.

Jiang Wanmeng keenly discovered the business opportunity.

If I develop an audio-visual product based on this, wouldn't it be possible to watch movies just by using a disc?
Jiang Wanmeng took action as soon as he thought of it. He quickly started relevant cooperation with chip manufacturers and established Wanyan Company.

Unfortunately, Mr. Jiang did not apply for a patent for his invention, nor did he purchase sufficient audio and video chips in advance, which resulted in the majority of the profits from VCD products going to foreign companies.

All I can say is that Mr. Jiang Wanmeng has greatly underestimated the value that VCD can create.

But this is normal,

Developed countries such as the United States, Japan, and Europe are all researching DVD technology with larger capacity and better picture quality.

As for the existing VCD technology, the picture quality is not as good as that of videotapes, and the capacity is also not as good as that of videotapes. Naturally, no one is interested in developing VCD players.

Everyone thought that there was no market for this thing.

However, VCD is not suitable for developed countries, but it is just right for developing countries.

There is no other reason, just two words.

Cheap!

Price is always the most sincere killer move.

At the same price, VCD has many disadvantages compared to VCR.

When the price is half, both become advantages, since the image quality difference between the two is not that big anyway.

In addition, it is also related to piracy.

Pirated CDs are simpler and cheaper to produce and can be quickly distributed across the country.

Over time, people will become more accustomed to watching discs rather than videotapes.

Masato Takeshita was not interested in competing for the VCD business. He would only make a little money in the early stages and work for chip parts manufacturers in the later stages.

He wanted to monopolize MPEG chip production orders in advance, and even monopolize MPEG chips.

I can’t make the most money, but I can still feel good collecting tolls.

(End of this chapter)