Chapter 744 – Future plans
With Iron-fist Zhu’s help, Feng Yu got a Hong Kong passport in the morning 3 days later. His China Passport was still valid.
After Feng Yu got his passport, he contacted the US side and then fly to New York with some of his Hong Kong staffs.
The last time Feng Yu went to the US was to trick Pfizer Company. But this time, Feng Yu will be staying in the US for a while. The US economy was thriving in this era. Although the growth was not more than 4% and average at 3%, it was still alarming because of its strong base.
There were a lot of opportunities in the US during this era. This was also the time when the US tech industry developed. Telecommunications, PC, technology, software, etc. will replace the US traditional manufacturers as the primary industry.
This trip, Feng Yu had targeted 3 industries. PC, software, and telecommunications. These were also the industries he wanted to introduce in China.
Telecommunications does not need any further explanations. Pagers will be slowly replaced by mobile phones. After 1999, SMS technology was introduced, and it could manage more than 500 SMS every second. This was the technology that killed pagers.
Feng Yu’s plan for Aiwa Electronics was to introduce the Aiwa brand and Wind and Rain brand of mobile phone before 1997. Then they will modify their factories’ production line. Pager production will stop within 3 years after the mobile phones are introduced in the market.
This decision puzzled many people at Aiwa Electronics. They felt pagers should still be in the market for at least the next 10 years. They should increase their productions to meet the demand. Why are they withdrawing from the pager market so early?
Feng Yu told them that after mobile phones have SMS services, pagers will be obsolete. The staff at Aiwa Electronics does not believe. It was because the messaging system now could only process 1 short message per second. That’s why there was a long delay. SMS now was not as convenient as pagers.
No one would expect the SMS technology would develop so fast. In the future, it could process 16,000 messages in a second, and SMS was the most popular feature used by mobile phone users. This was because SMS cost the lowest. It was about the same as pagers.
Feng Yu told his staffs at Aiwa electronics that this is an order. There’s no room for discussion. Feng Yu was the main shareholder and could make the overall decision as long as it is not against the law. He can override the decisions made by other shareholders.
For the PC industry, Feng Yu will leave it to Lenovo. Lenovo was good at controlling their manufacturing cost. China taxes on imported electronic products were high, and Lenovo will be starting a price war this year. They wanted to take over the whole China market.
Soon, it will be the PC era as Windows 95 operating system will be launch soon.
This operating system was the main reason the PC became popular. It was simple, convenient, fast, user-friendly. Users only need to click on the mouse, and they could operate it. Even seniors and children can operate it. Microsoft will also introduce Internet Explorer. This dramatically increases the development of the internet.
This was a great opportunity that cannot be missed. It might be impossible for Lenovo to become a world-class PC manufacturer now, but it should not be a problem for them to control the Chinese market.
Lenovo had signed contracts with many companies to supply parts for their hardware products. They will also be producing the core components in China. This year will be China’s PC peak!
Feng Yu wants Lenovo to seize this opportunity, and Liu Chuanzhi agreed. He also felt this was the right time to start a price war.
Lenovo in this life was different from Feng Yu’s previous life. In his previous life, Lenovo had to get listed in Hong Kong to raise funds for its development. In this life, Feng Yu had invested in Lenovo directly and stopped them from getting listed.
Feng Yu wanted Lenovo to wait for a few more years. Even if Lenovo were to get listed now, they have to pick the best location for their listing. The top choice now is the US. Regardless whether if it is NYSE or the Nasdaq, both are much better than Hong Kong.
In Feng Yu’s previous life, Lenovo was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and got delisted after a few years. Feng Yu does not want this to happen again. Getting delisted will affect the confidence of the investors.
Feng Yu firmly oppose Lenovo to get listed now. He does not want his shares to be diluted now. Unless he could purchase more shares internally and his proportion of his stake in the company will not be affected, he will never allow the company to be listed.
As for software, Lenovo is also working hard to develop their software products. Feng Yu made some suggestions to Liu Chuanzhi. The number one Chinese software developer company, Kingsoft, in Feng Yu’s previous life, was already established. There were lots of talents in this company.
If Lenovo could acquire Kingsoft, then they will be able to gain a stronger foothold in the Chinese market. They would have software and hardware to go hand-in-hand.
Liu Chuanzhi also likes those developers at Kingsoft. They were quite famous in the software developers’ circles. But they are not the best developers in China now.
China’s best software company in this era is Rising. But it was owned by the government, and Feng Yu doesn’t suggest acquiring them. Liu Chuanzhi had wanted to merge with both Rising and Kingsoft but was stopped by Feng Yu.
Rising was a good company, but if they merged with Lenovo, Lenovo’s shareholding structure would collapse. Rising’s backing was too powerful. They were so powerful that they might takeover Lenovo.
Kingsoft was a better choice. They were strong in software development too and does not have a strong backing. It will be easy for Lenovo to take over them. Also, Kingsoft was the most advanced when it comes to Chinese language software.
In the current era, no companies in the world could catch up with Microsoft when it comes to the operating system. Feng Yu also did not expect his companies to develop an operating system which was better than Win95 now.
But it was crucial to creating a Chinese version of Win95. Microsoft still does not have operating systems in other languages except for English.
If there was only an English version of Win95, then it will be difficult for it to be introduced in China. Feng Yu remembered that it was Kinston that developed the Chinese language pack for Windows operating system in his previous life.
But later, Kingsoft used Microsoft system’s codes and produced a free version of the operating system. They were sued by Microsoft, and lots of their top developers quit after Kingsoft lost. Kingsoft changed its direction after that and entered the mobile phone systems. They started Xiao Mi and Lei Jun, the former boss of Kingsoft, entered the limelight again!
Feng Yu intends to replicate US current successful development in China. He wants to let China companies takeover and acquire US companies.
Now, Feng Yu was going to the US to check out the businesses there.