"Hi Yi, I'm so sorry! President, we failed to live up to your expectations!"

Watsonton, in a hidden apartment near the Amphibious Club.

The future fourth generation of Sony, the current head of Sony's consumer electronics division, Nobuyuki Idei, bowed to 90 degrees, and he didn't dare to come out of the atmosphere, and he was very frightened.

Sony's management inheritance is also quite strange, and now it has been revealed that he is going to take over Akio Morita's class and will become a third-generation target in the future, but he is actually a musician. At the beginning, I didn't know how Akio Morita took a fancy to it, and he had to poach a musician to be an executive at Sony, and he supported him all the way to the high position of president.

However, it is also this kind of life experience of Norio Oga, so in recent years, his main business in charge of Sony has been the preparation of Sony Music, and even Sony Pictures after the acquisition of Columbia Pictures in the future, which is biased towards the entertainment industry.

Sony's traditional consumer electronics division is still in charge of Nobuyuki Idei, a middle-aged man in his 40s, as the number one.

Akio Morita sat on the sunken sofa, and subconsciously took out a cigar with a complicated expression, and naturally a maid next to him helped him cut it with a cigar cutter and then lit it.

However, Akio Morita didn't want to suck either, just as a contemplative gesture to dissipate his mood.

"How is the development and launch of the D50? After forcibly mentally suggesting that he was looking forward, Akio Morita sighed and asked a constructive question instead of holding him accountable.

"Hi Yi, it is already in the stress test stage, and the R&D cycle is still a month and a half, including the test flow, production, and distribution, which was originally scheduled to be listed on November 1, if the plan remains unchanged, it will definitely not be delayed. Nobuyuki Idei hurriedly replied energetically.

The president's willingness to care about the progress of R&D and production means that the attention has been diverted from the incompetence of the designer.

"Postpone it. Akio Morita didn't think about it this time, and directly ordered, "I'll give you an extra month and a half, don't rush to the beginning of November, I want your Christmas file to be listed."

Then, there is no need to change the rest, but the structure needs to be greatly changed, and I don't want to see this kind of stupid thing that claims to be a 'CD WALKMAN' but weighs more than a pound in my hand than the products of its peers!"

Akio Morita said as he picked up the D50 tester that Nobuyuki Idei had shown him on the coffee table in front of him, and slammed it on the floor.

Luckily, Akio Morita's living room was covered with a thick Persian carpet, so it was just broken, but it didn't splash the pieces.

Nobu Idei subconsciously retracted a little, and then realized that the president was not angry with him without grace, and the president just wanted to smash the spicy chicken, not to smash people.

Akio Morita didn't care about his reaction, his hands supported the armrests of the sofa, stood up slightly trembling, and paced two steps unsteadily.

After all, Akio Morita is also 65 years old, and his health is not very good.

He walked to the window, opened the heavy curtain fiercely, and looked out the window at the Lincoln Monument with deep eyes.

"Idei-kun, how did we Sony get to internationalize and gain a firm foothold in the United States?

In the minds of Americans, WALKMAN is Sony, Sony is WALKMAN, and Sony is a cool and lightweight young fashion trend. I can tolerate that Sony's products are slightly inferior to Philips and GE in terms of implicit high-tech selling points.

But I don't want to see that we have obvious shortcomings in areas that are superficially fashionable and understandable to ordinary consumers -- this is not conducive to shaping Sony's belief in their hearts! Sony's portable device must be the lightest and thinnest among its peers!"

Complex technical indicators that are incomprehensible to the layman. If an electronic product wants to count on "running scores" to win the reputation of cost performance, then it is estimated that the peak of the PC era is the achievement of Dell, and the top of the mobile era is also the achievement of Xiaomi. It will not really be regarded as a top fashion brand with high-end atmosphere and high-grade, low-key luxury and connotation.

Akio Morita knows this better than anyone else. (Of course, he doesn't know the specific example of Xiaomi)

Nobuyuki Idei certainly couldn't have resisted, and he made a firm and quick statement to make the president understand his determination. However, out of responsibility, he could not completely ignore the increase in costs, and he had to let the president know.

"We're not going to delay Christmas any longer......! If the structure is completely changed, it means that all the precision molds that are currently pre-opened will be scrapped......"

The mold of electronic products, especially the more sophisticated and compact equipment, generally opened a small part of the shell, in the 80s also cost tens of thousands of dollars, which is part of the research and development cost.

For a product whose structure would not have been overhauled, a month and a half before production, many structural molds have already been opened, so now the overhaul means that all these pre-opened molds are scrapped.

D50As the first CD Walkman in history, the degree of groping in the dark is still relatively high, and the Sony light mold cost is at least hundreds of thousands of dollars lost, as well as other R&D hardware costs, adding up to millions of hardware losses are necessary.

And that's not even counting the extra two months' salary for the R&D team, as we all know that the biggest cost of R&D is the engineer's salary.

However, Akio Morita obviously didn't pay attention to the small amount of money: "Is it time to care about these two or three million dollars? What we were going to pursue was the reputation and brand effect of 'the world's first CD Walkman'! Now you are slow, and the product is not as good as others!"

……

After reprimanding Shinyuki Idei for a long time, Akio Morita's inner frustration was vented for most of it.

Still, he felt aggrieved.

Gu Biao, this kid, has always been his strategic ally, and this time he finally became his competitor.

Is that guy growing up too fast?

Akio Morita faintly felt a hint of alarm in his heart, always feeling that his successor, Norio Oga, might fall into the current situation of Nintendo's Yamauchi Pu in the future.

Of course, Akio Morita has no worries about the last years of his tenure, he is almost 65 years old, and he still has a few years to do. He has always planned to give up the position of president after the age of 70 and enjoy life in his old age.

(At present, Akio Morita has passed the position of "president" to Norio Oga, and only the "president" has been retained.) That is, it is equivalent to the Chinese handing over the "general manager" to others, leaving only the "chairman" themselves. Or similar to Ma Feng's 13 years of passing on the CEO of Ahri Baba to others, and he only retains the "board of directors")

Even if Gu Biao is really big enough to turn his face with Sony in the future, Akio Morita thinks that he won't see that day.

He is worried about his successor.

Akio Morita thought about it alone for a long time, and finally decided to invite Gu Biao to come to Huashengton, and everyone negotiated and tested it in person.

He asked his secretary to help make the call.

"Gu, I think, in the music and player industry, our layout is a bit of internal friction, I know you are in the United States, if it is convenient these days, come to Watson to sit down, the old place. ”

Gu Biao on the other end of the phone sounded very sunny, and he didn't hesitate or refuse at all: "It's rare that President Sheng Tian is full of energy, but I'm still watching the Olympics in Los Angeles for the past two days, or the day after tomorrow, when the closing ceremony is over, I will fly to Watsengton overnight." ”

Actually watching the Olympics?

Akio Morita was a little surprised.

Why did Gu Biao suddenly enjoy life so leisurely.

Or is he not at all worried about the release of the CD Walkman to the market?

Akio Morita suddenly felt that he looked like he was in the same place.

Didn't Gu Biao see Sony as a competitor at all? Or did he not feel that he was competing with Sony?

Before making this call, Akio Morita was more or less expecting to hear Gu Ao's voice a little weak or flickering.

"I was watching the Olympics, so there's no hurry, I understand you. After all, it is the first time for your Chinese team to participate in the competition, and it is right to care about national affairs with a pure heart. You don't have to rush, in three days, the old place, the amphibious club. Akio Morita also changed his tone, and almost called Gu Biao "virtuous nephew" in a friendly manner.

Three days later, on Monday, August 13, 1984. Gu Biao took Mina and Xiao Sui and flew to Watsonton, and after tidying up a little in his villa on the banks of the Potomac River, he asked the bodyguard to drive a Cadilla Kvile straight to Sony's "Amphibious Club".

Because Akio Morita didn't tear his face with Gu Biao, he nominally defaulted to inviting him to eat, drink and have fun, and Gu Biao naturally had to put on a look of going to eat, drink and have fun, and seemed very sincere.

"President Morita, it's been a long time, and I'm so happy to see that your health is getting better and better. ”

As soon as they met, Gu Biao greeted him with a spring breeze on his face.

Of course, Akio Morita will not show any undue emotions, just like the generous elder who welcomes him implicitly.

"This young lady is ......"

"Oh, this is my classmate at the Diplomatic Academy, Miss Madrina Isminaya. She has been a diplomat for two years, but President Morita should also know that my country has completely loosened the shackles on collective private enterprises this year, and she has also followed the tide of going to the sea and feels that business is more promising, so she completely resigned.

Her family originally had an influential winery in China, and later developed horizontally, and by chance won the energy drink brand Red Bull. This time, she came to the Olympics to see how well her brand endorsement was effective - I just accompanied her to see the Olympics, so I came to the United States by the way. ”

Listening to Gu Ao's explanation, it seems that he is going back to the United States this time to take Mina's business, and the core purpose is to accompany Mina, but he is doing business conveniently and does not attach importance to it.

At the same time, although he didn't explicitly say that Mina was his lover, how could he not see it with the eyes of an old fox like Akio Morita.

"Then I really want to congratulate Gu Sang for being proud in all the scenes, and the confidantes around him have such an ability-Miss Mina, in this way, we can be regarded as peers. ”

Mina was slightly puzzled, just smiling diplomatically, but Gu Biao was beside him to help the business blow to each other: "As we all know, President Morita's family is the authentic sake family 'Zi Ri Song', which has been passed down for 15 generations.

At that time, "Kohimatsu" was the No. 1 sake in Nagoya, and in the era of Oda Nobunaga, which was still called "Kiyoshu Castle" in Nagoya, Zihimatsu was already a famous wine in Owari. ”

The brand, which is decades earlier than the National Cellar 1573, will have to catch up with Oda Nobunaga to be the "Owari Great Fool".

"President Morita's crossover is really successful, and he is really a role model for the younger generations in the business world such as us. I just crossed over from liquor to energy drinks, which is really not worth mentioning compared to the courage of President Morita. Mina slapped her ass in a thoughtful manner in order to better stabilize the other party's emotion.