Those Years When I Was Forced to Top the Forbes List

Chapter 365 The Englishman

2007 2 Month 18 Day.

At seven o'clock in the morning, the first rays of dawn were just beginning to appear.

Fireworks exploded across the London sky.

Chinatown was filled with cheers and thousands of people enjoying the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year.

Several people were performing a lion dance by the fountain in the square, and they were quite skilled. Amid the somewhat chaotic drumming and gonging along the long street, a large, somewhat cartoonish yellow snake was frolicking in the air. The person holding the snake's head and dancing was a black man, followed by several white people. It took Chen Xuebing a while to realize that they were performing a dragon dance.

Most of the "foreigners" here don't understand Chinese culture, yet they celebrate with all their might amidst a sea of ​​red lanterns.

Chen Xuebing held up a Kirin phone to take a picture with one hand, and held another phone with an international SIM card inserted to his ear with the other, waiting for the beeping sound.

"Hey!"

"Mom! Happy New Year!"

"I'm here! In London! Are you celebrating the New Year there?"

"Okay, okay! I'll eat! It's morning here! I have to go out to discuss business later!"

"Yes, there's food! I just had a bowl of dumplings! There's a Chinese restaurant over here!"

"Not cold! I know! I'm very busy! I'm hanging up now! Happy New Year!"

A mother's love, no matter when or where, turns into nagging within three sentences. Chen Xuebing and his colleagues were nearby. When they heard his mother telling him to put on more long underwear, they quickly hung up the phone.

“Oh, gosh.”

A white boy of about seventeen or eighteen years old walked past him and sighed softly.

Chen Xuebing realized that the phone he was holding had attracted a lot of attention, so he deliberately raised his hand to operate it, pushed the phone back to the table, swiped it a few times, and observed the reactions of the people around him out of the corner of his eye.

People were looking at the phone held up in mid-air, but no one came to say anything.

Lin Bin saw through his intention to conduct market research, chuckled, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Let's go, stop showing off. The British are very discreet in social interactions, it's all about understatement!"

"What?" Chen Xuebing asked, turning his head.

"The principle of 'not exaggerating' means downgrading the expression! For example, if they say something is 'not entirely inedible,' it means it's delicious! Seeing a Rolls-Royce Phantom, it's like saying 'Adequate motor.'"

Chen Xuebing laughed: "Goodness, he's just faking it!"

After saying that, he chuckled and tapped his phone screen, loudly imitating, "Adequate mobile!"

People around them gave them strange looks.

Goto Miki laughed and pointed to Lu Xiaochun not far away: "President Lu looks more like an Englishman."

Chen Xuebing glanced over and saw Lu Xiaochun, dressed in a long trench coat, standing calmly in the crowd with his hands in his pockets, but he carefully maintained a foot's distance from everyone around him. A black man was laughing wildly and about to brush past him. Chen Xuebing frowned, avoided the man, and patted his sleeves.

Chen Xuebing grinned: "Old Deng from Shanghai!"

Cambridge Science Park, within London's one-hour economic circle.

The park is filled with oddly shaped buildings and greenery, and is home to the headquarters of high-tech companies that account for 15% of the UK's GDP.

The much-anticipated science and technology park.

GDP remains the most important metric for policymakers worldwide, but it won't be long before they start focusing on two other deadly indicators: LIBOR (interbank lending rate) and the CDS (credit default swap) market.

When Chen Xuebing arrived here, he had the above thoughts in a vicious rage.

Damn, the British are too good at this. They built a science park in a park, and now they're working in the greenery every day.

Hey.

With so many tech companies, I wonder if there will be an opportunity to acquire a few when the financial crisis hits.

Still lost in his fantasies, he was met with a cold reception as soon as he arrived at the entrance of ARM.

The blonde receptionist, while checking the visitor list, claimed that Sir Robin Saxby's (founder of ARM) schedule indicated this was a "non-public technical assessment," meaning they could only send one engineer.

Chen Xuebing found it strange. Before coming, they had clearly arranged to discuss equity cooperation with ARM China, but no one was quite clear about the British people's procedures. Only Lin Bin felt something was wrong and suggested calling the middleman at PwC.

After more than half an hour of searching, they learned that Robin Saxby was not there and had gone out of town. Then, a chief architect named Mike Muller came down to meet them.

As they got on the elevator, Chen Xuebing sensed that the major shareholder wasn't there, making the discussion potentially difficult. He couldn't help but ask Mike Muller, "Where's Robin Saxby? When will he be back?"

Mike Muller smiled but did not answer.

Lin Bin gave him a look, indicating that this was a rather impolite question.

But what happened next made the team realize that the British weren't exactly polite either.

Mike Muller led them to the door of a laboratory on the third floor filled with oscilloscopes, and held out his hand to them, saying, "Could you give me your products? I'd like to do some security and compatibility testing."

The team members looked at each other in bewilderment.

Chen Xuebing frowned: "Why do we need to test?"

“This is about taking responsibility for the products we license our technology to.” Seeing his unfriendly expression, Mike Muller explained, “Apple has also had us test their new products. They sent them to us voluntarily, which isn’t a bad thing for you. Give me the test unit, and I’ll have someone take you to see our CEO.”

This statement doesn't explain why they're conducting the test, but it does reveal some clues.

Apple.

Apple is an old shareholder of ARM. Although its current shareholding is very small, in the early days of ARM, Apple was the 30% largest shareholder who selected ARM's CEO and was ARM's largest customer in the first generation of RISC chip technology.

Apple's Newton handheld computer in the 90s brought ARM its first pot of gold. Although it was a failure to sell, ARM made the deal and then came into contact with Motorola, Texas Instruments, Nokia, Nintendo and others, expanding its business.

After Jobs returned to Apple, based on the failed collaboration with the Newton handheld computer, he was not very optimistic about ARM's chip design capabilities. Although the iPod used ARM architecture chips, Apple did the chip design itself. The iPhone chip was initially intended to be designed and manufactured by Intel, but Intel's Paul Otellini felt it was not cost-effective and rejected Apple's chip bidding, so Apple turned to Samsung.

After Apple went public with ARM, it sold some of its shares and has had very little direct cooperation with ARM. Instead, other companies take orders from Apple and then use ARM technology licenses to design chips.

Chen Xuebing had spoken with Jobs and already knew this inside information, but he didn't ask Apple to handle the negotiations because he didn't want Jobs to discover too much of his intentions.

Mike Muller wouldn't bring up Apple for no reason; they must have obtained some information from Apple, and Apple must have also obtained some information.

Chen Xuebing and Lin Bin exchanged a glance, and Lin Bin nodded. Only then did Chen Xuebing say to his engineer, "Test it for him."

When engineer Xiaolin took out a mobile phone, Chen Xuebing said to Mike Muller, "Let our engineer do the testing with you."

Mike Muller immediately shook his head warily: "No, your people are not allowed into our lab."

Chen Xuebing breathed a sigh of relief, but for the sake of the bigger picture, he held back and instructed Xiao Lin, "Then you stay here and guard this place. Our machines cannot leave this laboratory."

Kobayashi immediately stood by the lab door like a little soldier. Mike Muller seemed unhappy, but Chen Xuebing didn't care whether he was happy or not. The group went to the CEO's office and met Warren East, the current CEO of ARM.

Warren.

A middle-aged man with a hawkish smile and a receding hairline.

Despite the somewhat impolite first encounter, Chen Xuebing restrained his temper, shook hands with Warren, and smiled, saying, "Mr. Warren, I've heard that Apple has said a lot of bad things about me to you?"

Warren was somewhat surprised, but after thinking for a moment, he smiled and said, "Mr. Steve said you are a shrewd businessman."

The word "shrewd" is a Cambridge English C2 Advanced vocabulary word. It carries both positive (good at judging opportunities) and negative (skilled at calculating self-interest) connotations, but its etymology comes from the shrew and has a derogatory meaning.

Chen Xuebing, who was recently reading "Cambridge Business English Vocabulary," smiled upon hearing this and casually sat down on the sofa.

That damn Steve Jobs, it really was him.

Did Steve Jobs tell you why he wanted to partner with us?

Warren hesitated briefly.

Yes.

Why did Steve Jobs choose to collaborate with this businessman who possessed a distinctly Eastern shrewdness?
He had seen the video of the Kirin launch event, and it seemed that he had a good relationship with Steve Jobs.

"Do you have a patent swap agreement?" he guessed.

Chen Xuebing smiled; this guy is quite clever.

“Mr. Warren, you’re quite shrewd too.”

Warren's expression immediately darkened, clearly indicating that this was not a good word.

Chen Xuebing immediately stopped smiling and said, "However, your answer is inaccurate. The reason is that I understand smart touchscreen phones better than he does."

Warren raised an eyebrow, showing no surprise.

Chen Xuebing continued, "Furthermore, what I control in China is not just a smartphone, but a mobile phone market. You can understand the word 'market' as dozens of mobile phone manufacturers, or communication standards, or the full support of government departments. So you can think of us as a business alliance, or China's Qualcomm, or some other more influential entity. Our capabilities can make ARM architecture chips appear all over the country, or disappear altogether."

Warren's expression returned to calm, as if he was enduring something, but he said calmly, "Mr. Chen, if you really have this ability, why did you come all the way to the UK? And your mobile phone system and chips already use ARM's licensed technology. You don't need to refute it. I've seen your press conference video, and there are many traces of ARM. Our laboratory is testing it and will soon prove it."

Chen Xuebing understood. The so-called testing downstairs was to see how deeply Kunlun and ARM were bound together, in order to determine their bargaining chips.

Robin Saxby, the founder who is on good terms with PwC, is absent today, precisely to make it easier for Warren to make his moves without restraint.

Chen Xuebing suddenly remembered what Xin Mengzhen had said, "We can't let them control us." However, his guess at the time was not wrong. If Warren went to such lengths, he must have the intention to cooperate with him. Putting on a tough front was just a way to gain some advantages.

“We use ARM’s technology, which is only natural. We have already paid for it, and you have no right to take it back. If ARM cannot ensure that we have the latest ARMv7 technology, then we can let Chinese manufacturers buy OMAP chips.”

Although Chen Xuebing cannot find an architecture to replace ARM, he is not at the mercy of ARM.

Texas Instruments' OMAP series processors use ARM processors as their computing core and can also support the ARM underlying layer.

However, Texas Instruments has already paid a huge upfront licensing fee to acquire the IP rights, and even if chip sales are high in the future, ARM will only receive a small share of the revenue.

ARM makes money by licensing its technology to different chip manufacturers and charging a large one-time technology licensing fee. But that's not all; the most profitable part is the subsequent commission of a few dollars for each mobile phone that uses chips from these manufacturers.

The cooperation and concession agreement between ARM and Texas Instruments was one of their assets for survival in the era of multifunction media players, but it has also become a constraint on their development in the era of smartphones.

This constraint will actually disappear within three to five years with Nokia's exit. Without Nokia as its biggest customer, OMAP chips will be transformed, and Texas Instruments will withdraw from the mobile phone market.

But apart from Chen Xuebing, no one else knew this. At least for now, Nokia and OMAP are still at their peak and show no signs of decline.

"As for other chips licensed by ARM."

"While you're conducting tests downstairs, we can also arrange a test in China to prove that the ARM reference design uses some surveillance technologies that the Chinese military doesn't allow to appear within China. Warren, I suggest you take a look at our investment agreement and see who the shareholders are."

After Chen Xuebing finished speaking, he waved his hand, and Goto Miki placed the drafted cooperation agreement on Warren's table.

The Englishman felt threatened, leaned back in his chair, and didn't want to move.

But the threat was too great, and after hesitating for a few seconds, he picked up the agreement.

While flipping through the pages, he said with a slightly arrogant and nonchalant tone, "If you do that, you will never be able to obtain an ARMv7 license."

Within seconds, he saw the names of the fund investors, Central Huijin and the National Social Security Fund. His eyes flickered, and he immediately closed the agreement and slammed it back onto the table.

Then, remembering something, he took a newly released financial report from the drawer, placed it on the table, and pushed it forward.

“Mr. Chen, ARM’s revenue last year was £4.2 million. All the world’s best mobile phone companies are coming to us for cooperation. If you don’t come to us, you will soon be eliminated by the world.”

"Really?" Chen Xuebing chuckled. "Then I can also tell you that our Kunlun system is the world's only open mobile phone system. There are quite a few mobile phone companies that want to cooperate with us. And how many more years can the ARMv6 and ARM11 microarchitectures still be used? Is the ARM architecture really the only one? Do you know how big the consumer market in China is? In a few years, if we release some conditions, many excellent chip design companies in the world will spare no effort to develop an architecture for smartphones."

Warren was silent for a few seconds.

During this period, although ARM unified the standards, it still felt very unworthy of the title of "dominant force".

With only a little over a decade of experience, this tech-savvy realist can't yet utter a statement like "ARM is king."

Their collaborations with world-class companies are still conducted in a cautious manner, aiming to gain acceptance from everyone through subtle influence. They are particularly wary of Intel's older x86 architecture. At this moment, they are like a duck on the water, seemingly calm on the surface, but actually kicking its webbed feet frantically beneath the surface, afraid that others will target them and catch up.

In reality, they were overthinking it. Intel not only lacked vision but was also more arrogant than them, taking on too many computer orders and even daring to refuse Apple.

Because Apple was rejected, Chen Xuebing never considered that x86 would give Kunlun the green light and make special instruction set simplifications.

However, it's still quite effective as a threat.

Both sides made tentative moves, and Chen Xuebing saw from the other's face that he was in a difficult situation, so he smiled and offered a way out.

"In any case, we always prefer to make friends rather than enemies. If the strength of friends is combined, ARM's future will be brighter."

Warren clasped his hands together, his fingers moving silently.

Chen Xuebing cursed inwardly, but still maintained a smile.

"Let's talk?" He raised his voice.

Warren gritted his teeth and suddenly pressed the alarm button next to him, causing the glass curtain wall on the corridor side to instantly fog up.

His gesture of taking control of the space amplified his imposing presence. He pulled out another technology license from the drawer, concerning Singularity Corporation's purchase of ARMv6, waved it at Chen Xuebing, then stood up and loudly proclaimed:
"The price you paid for the technology license from ARM China was far too low, only $300 million. We didn't know you were going to make an open system. Now, let's talk about the real price of a perpetual architecture license."

The room fell silent for a few seconds.

Chen Xuebing smiled and said, "Sure, go ahead and name your price. But what I want to buy is not just the license, but also ARM China."

(End of this chapter)