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Chapter 293 Ai Technology's New Project

In the landscape of Chinese business development, the boldness of local governments and the support at the provincial level can often become the driving force for enterprises to take off.

Mayor Li's decisive decision this time, coupled with the province's unwavering support, was originally intended to be a long-term investment with the expectation of gradual returns, and he was fully committed to promoting BYD.

But who could have predicted that the return on this bet would come so quickly?

Before the festive atmosphere of New Year's Day had completely dissipated, on January 2nd, both AI Technology and BYD simultaneously released major announcements.

AiTech invested $2140 million to acquire a 12% stake in BYD.

This was the result of multiple rounds of negotiations between the two parties. BYD lowered its valuation to $1.78 million, which is definitely not high for a leading Chinese battery manufacturer that has mastered lithium battery technology.

In addition, BYD guaranteed priority supply and the most favorable prices for AI Technology's orders, while Cook lowered his demand for shares.

Both sides compromised and reached a mutually acceptable outcome.

BYD's announcement only caused a stir in the domestic market, mostly met with envy and jealousy.

When Keai Technology's announcement came out, its impact was far beyond a small-scale domestic event; it alarmed the global electronics industry.

The previous explosive popularity of the iPod had attracted a lot of attention to this company.

Now that Ivy Technology has made a high-profile investment in BYD, it's clear to everyone that Ivy Technology is giving BYD's lithium battery technology its official endorsement, which is equivalent to sending a signal flare in the international market.

BYD's lithium batteries have been recognized by AIK Technology, and their stability can definitely withstand the test.

The quality is excellent, and the price is extremely competitive, selling for only one-third of what Japanese lithium battery manufacturers charge. Anyone would be tempted by that.

With such high-performance lithium batteries at such a cost-effective price, it would be unreasonable not to cooperate with BYD. As a result, many international electronics manufacturers have approached BYD.

In just two days, the media broke the big news: Motorola's purchasing manager personally visited BYD, intending to incorporate BYD into Motorola's supply chain system.

This has made major companies in related industries around the world extremely uneasy, and they all seem eager to try their luck.

At the headquarters of AiTech, Ernst looked at the office building in front of him, which had only recently been occupied and whose facade was not particularly impressive, and couldn't help but joke, "Looks like it won't be long before you guys have to start thinking about building your own new headquarters."

Given the speed of AiTech's development, this place will eventually be unable to contain AiTech's ambitions and scale.

Cook, who had just returned from China, had a look of joy on his face and did not deny Ernst's statement.

Building a headquarters isn't something you do only when you need it; sometimes you have to build it even if you don't need to.

Take iTech for example. One iPod made the company a fortune, so much so that the finance department had to figure out how to spend the money reasonably when looking at the numbers in the account.

If we don't quickly build a new headquarters and find other projects to absorb the profits, are we just going to wait to pay huge amounts of taxes?

This doesn't even include profits from overseas markets. If all the overseas funds were brought back, the taxes paid would be even greater.

Accompanied by Cook, the two chatted as they walked into the conference room.

Cook also introduced Ernst to several company executives he had never met before: "This is Jeremy Monroe, the HR director I poached from ADP for a hefty sum."

Ernst reached out and shook hands with Jeremy, a knowing look in his eyes.

ADP is no ordinary company; it has a prestigious name: ADP, and is one of the top business outsourcing service providers in the United States.

However, its business is somewhat different from the Big Four headhunting firms. They don't poach talent; they specialize in human resource management solutions.

For example, we can help companies build a complete human resources system, including a whole process from salary design and tax planning to benefits management.

Underpham usually serves medium to large-sized enterprises, so the fact that they were able to poach people from there shows that Cook has big ambitions.

If Cook didn't intend to lead ADP towards becoming a global consumer electronics giant, then bringing in talent from ADP would be a waste of their potential; they probably wouldn't even give ADP a second glance.

Ernst had long harbored the goal of becoming a global consumer electronics giant, but he had never mentioned it to Cook; this was Cook's ambition.

"I've heard Lalos mention you. I heard you guys are really fierce in the job market lately," Ernst joked with a smile.

He had just finished browsing Google when Lalos talked to him about Jeremy Monroe, expressing his admiration for him.

In the past week, iTech has been very aggressive in recruiting talent, snatching many candidates from headhunting firms who had already been reserved by Google.

If it were any other company, trying to compete with Google for talent would be like throwing an egg against a rock.

But Aikron is different. On the one hand, Aikron has huge development potential, and the explosive popularity of the iPod has already proven its strength.

On the other hand, both iTech and Google are Ernst's companies, so they can be considered brothers.

Why is Google so popular? It's all about the great benefits.

Since it's also an Ernst company, how could Atech be any worse?

Moreover, Google's current framework system is already complete, so iTech clearly has more room for development.

Jeremy Monroe capitalized on these two points, attracting many promising young talents to the job market.

Jeremy simply smiled at Ernst's teasing and didn't say anything more.

He knew Ernst was just joking and wouldn't really care about these little incidents of trying to snatch people away; after all, the problem was within his own control.

After everyone was seated, Cook cleared his throat and announced the official start of the senior management meeting.

The meeting covered a wide range of topics, from daily operations to market expansion, but the two core points that will truly influence the future direction of AI Technology are actually the most important.

The first issue is talent.

Although Aikron Technology became a global sensation thanks to the iPod, it actually suffers from a severe shortage of R&D personnel.

To be frank, the entire iPod was just an assembled product; the only thing truly developed independently by iTech was the operating system.

This system was originally acquired by Ernst from Jobs.

If he hadn't merged NeXT into AI Technology, AI Technology would now be, to put it nicely, a light-asset company, but to put it bluntly, just an empty shell with no core technology whatsoever.

This is one of the reasons why Steve Jobs supported the iPod, as he is now the second-largest shareholder of NeXT.

When Ernst invested in Apple, Steve Jobs sold NeXT to him but retained a portion of the equity.

With the iPod's immense popularity, NeXT, as a system supplier, has naturally benefited as well, and Steve Jobs, as a shareholder, has also reaped considerable profits.

This is precisely why the talent problem has become a major concern for AI Technology.

Cook knew very well that if he wanted Atech to truly gain a foothold, he had to build its own technology patent pool, and the prerequisite for all of this was to have a sufficient number of R&D talents.

The second key point, which is also what Ernst is most concerned about, is the future product development direction of AIT.

After all, no matter how popular an iPod is, it can't support a company that wants to become a global giant. It must constantly launch new products to maintain its competitiveness.

"After repeated discussions by the team, we have now mainly determined two research and development directions."

First, there's the development of other versions and successive generations of the iPod; second, there's the entry into the headphone market.

The version development and iteration of the iPod is easy to understand. Currently, the price of the iPod at $339 is still a bit high for many consumers, but not everyone can afford it easily.

Therefore, launching a lower-priced version is an inevitable choice. For example, the storage space could be halved to create a stripped-down version that can store about 500 songs, priced at $199, which would attract more consumers with limited budgets.

In addition to the low-priced version, a high-end customized version should also be arranged, specially designed for wealthy people who pursue personalization and high-end experience. For example, special materials can be used in the appearance, or some exclusive functions can be added. As for the price, it should naturally match the status. Selling it at a higher price will not make it difficult to find buyers.

Of course, the huge success of the iPod meant that the development of the iPod 2 had to be put on the agenda.

Electronic products are updated and replaced quickly. If we wait until consumers are tired of the same old products before launching new ones, the market will have already been taken by others.

Ernst was somewhat surprised by the "headphone market," not expecting Cook to set his sights on this area.

"That's right. I think the headphone market has huge potential and plenty of room for development. Plus, it's a perfect match for our iPod, so it's a great direction for a powerful alliance."

Cook explained, "All the headphones on the market right now are in-ear type. Wearing them in your ears for a long time can cause pain and discomfort, and it's also bad for your ear canal. It's not user-friendly to pair our iPod with such uncomfortable headphones."

Ernst listened and couldn't help but nod.

Cook hit the nail on the head. Most headphones these days are just speaker-shaped structures that have to be stuffed into the ear, like shoving a small horn into the ear canal. You want to take them off after half an hour, and the experience is terrible.

"So I think we need to find a way to liberate our ears and change these in-ear headphones to semi-in-ear headphones so that users can wear them more comfortably," Cook continued.

Ernst had actually noticed this problem long ago, but he hadn't brought it up because there was an unavoidable difficulty involved: "So you want to solve the noise problem?"

There is no such thing as noise-canceling headphones now. The reason why in-ear and over-ear headphones are popular on the market is because they have strong noise cancellation capabilities, which can block out external noise and allow users to concentrate on listening to music.

If it were changed to a semi-in-ear design, the noise wouldn't be blocked, and the experience would be greatly diminished.

"That's right. If we're going to enter the headphone market, we have to come up with innovative products. We can't just make a copycat and fool consumers," Cook said firmly.

"Our iPod has already elevated the AkinTech brand positioning, and consumers now have high expectations of us. If the newly launched headphones don't have any highlights, or even make people feel that we're just trying to make money, then the damage to the brand value would be enormous."

Seeing that Ernst didn't speak, Cook put forward an even bolder idea: "Besides solving the noise problem, I've recently become quite interested in wireless headphones, and I think this might be a good direction."

Ernst couldn't help but laugh when he heard the words "wireless headphones".

As expected of Apple employees, they can even come up with the same ideas.

Wireless headphones are Bluetooth headphones. Although Apple didn't invent them, it was Apple that later solved their pain points.

Before Apple's AirPods were released, Bluetooth headphones on the market were either single-ear models, meaning you could only wear one earbud, or dual-ear models, with the two earbuds connected by a wire.

This is because Bluetooth technology has a fatal flaw: when the main and secondary earbuds transmit signals separately, sound delays are likely to occur.

However, this problem is not easy to solve, not to mention that Bluetooth technology has not yet been developed.

Let alone technology, research and development hasn't even started yet.

"Wireless headphones?" Ernst deliberately feigned interest.

Cook, thinking Ernst hadn't heard of the concept, quickly explained, "This is a wireless transmission idea recently proposed by Ericsson of Sweden, which mainly uses short-range communication to achieve wireless connection and data transmission between electronic devices."

"However, Ericsson has only put forward this concept and has not yet started research and development. But I heard that they are forming a wireless communication technology group and have brought in several industry giants to jointly promote the standardization of this technology."

After discussing the idea of ​​wireless headphones, Cook reported on the iPod business.

As he was talking, he suddenly seemed to remember something funny and couldn't help but laugh out loud. "By the way, there's something you might not know. Recently, someone had the same idea as you and started making MP3 music players too."

Ernst looked at him curiously. "Oh? What's going on?"

"It's a South Korean company that just released their own MP3 player two days ago."

Cook couldn't help but laugh as he spoke, "But to be honest, compared to our iPod, their product can't even be described as garbage; it's practically an entry-level toy."

"Their MP3 players only have 32MB of memory, which can only store 6 to 8 songs at most. Their only advantage is that they are really small, about half the size of our iPod."

Cook shrugged, his tone full of disdain. "But what can you do about it? Consumers buy MP3 players to listen to music, to be able to listen to their favorite songs anytime, anywhere. With such small storage space, what's the difference between them and disposable items? This is practically a death sentence for them."

"Moreover, this company's player has a very simple structure; it's just a combination of flash memory, a motherboard, and power resistors. It doesn't involve much technology and is too easy to imitate. Any electronics factory could make an identical product."

Without Cook mentioning the name, Ernst knew which South Korean company it was: Sehan, the company whose title as inventor of the MP3 player was snatched away by A.Tech.

However, such products do have a market, since they are much cheaper than iPods.

Especially with the development of flash memory technology, which allows for the storage of more songs, there is still a certain low-end market to be captured.

But to sell at a high price like in my previous life and become a representative of high-end fashion is simply out of the question.

Ernst was just taking it as a joke, but suddenly a brilliant idea flashed into his mind, and he came up with another blockbuster product for AiTech.