In the foreseeable future, for the PC industry, which has a market capacity of up to 2 million units, will supply 3.5-inch "high-pressure goods" with a unit price slightly higher than that of a 5.25-inch floppy disk?

Or is it for the home game console industry, which may have a market capacity of 20 million or even more, to supply goods that are priced below 5.25 inches at the beginning and are close to the people?

In the former, each floppy disk may be sold for $30, and the total sales volume in the next five years will not exceed 10 million.

The latter, which may sell for as little as $20 per floppy disk, could sell 100 million in the next five years.

When the problem is calculated like this, it seems that there is no point in holding the shelf anymore.

In fact, Gu Biao still has more examples to convince the other party to cite, but unfortunately because it is only 1983, these examples have not happened yet, and they can't be cited - for example, the software that is newer than the 3.5-inch hard disk has not been able to subvert the specifications of the INDOS system PC, but it was later used by Jobs on the MP3 player of the IPOD, and then it was also imitated by other MP3 manufacturers.

Because of the huge sales of MP3, the sales of these memory manufacturers are no less than those that supply hard disks for personal computers, such as "Seagate/Western Digital".

In fact, manufacturers like "Seagate", which players are familiar with in the PC era in later generations, have only just appeared.

In the hard disk/floppy disk industry, almost 98% of manufacturers will die in every generation, and they will not survive for 20 years.

Because they will be locked by the customer needs of the existing industry, the customer does not want to make progress, and they cannot force the customer to make progress. And then they themselves, were killed by their peers who provided the next generation of customers with "overhead passes".

The hard disk vendors in the era of hard disks for servers were killed by hard disk vendors who made hard disks for small computers;

Small computer hard disk manufacturers were killed by PC hard disk manufacturers, PC hard disk manufacturers were killed by MP3 hard disk manufacturers, and MP3 hard disk manufacturers were killed by smartphone hard disk manufacturers.

Even when Christensen's book was written, the world knew about the theory, but it would continue to be killed like a textbook.

It's like telling you that you are going to die, and you are on guard, or you don't prevent it, and you are still killed.

This is a heavenly curse, and it cannot be prevented.

Unless one day, when a company is in full swing and its business is very good, it suddenly swings its knife and says to its largest sales customer: I don't do your business anymore, you don't want my next-generation products, I will change to serve a more miniature new generation of terminal manufacturers.

It's not that there are no such bold successes, but there are very few. After all, each generation only has a 98% mortality rate, and there are still 2% who survive.

For example, Andy Grove, the legendary CEO of Intel Corporation, has historically been in the 2%.

One of Andy Grove's most famous stories is that one day in the 80s, at the height of the company's business, he ran to his partner's office and asked, "If the board of directors fired us both today, what do you think the new CEO would do when he takes office?"

His partner thought about it: maybe the new CEO will give up the memory industry and go all out on CPUs.

Andy Grove: "In that case, why don't we just do it today? ”

Then Intel became the 2% god-level existence that benchmarked the 98% of companies that could not survive a generation. It is a kind of great perseverance that is still prepared for danger in times of peace and willing to practice the Sunflower Treasure Book in a state where martial arts are already invincible in the world, which ordinary people dare not think.

Although Akio Morita is also a genius CEO, he does not have the courage of Andy Grove, at least he can understand it only if a god-level existence like Gu Biao enlightens him.

……

"Gu, I'm convinced. The old man has been in business for 40 years, and today he knows that there are people in people, and there is a sky outside the sky. I can't match your opinions. ”

After a long conversation with Gu Ao, Akio Morita was completely convinced, and his five bodies fell to the ground.

He found himself old and no longer thinking about the abilities of the next generation. Even if Gu Biao ignites his generation, he can't ignite another generation.

And among Sony's current successors, even Norio Oga, who is the most optimistic about Akio Morita, seems to have absolutely no vision for Gu Biao.

As for the CEO candidate who is still only the head of the audio-visual division and is considered by Akio Morita to be the next generation of Norio Ohga, Nobuyuki Idei's vision is even worse.

But Norio Ohga is also 50 years old, Nobuyuki Idei is 40 years old, and Gu Biao is only 20 years old.

It's horrible.

Thinking about all this, Akio Morita no longer cares about the counteroffer:

"Gu, I promise your conditions, even if there is no profit to sell, or a little loss, 12 dollars a 1.44MB 3.5-inch floppy disk, I will also sell. I believe that in two years, as the price of storage pellets and other raw materials falls, we will have the same cost and we will be able to make a profit in the future.

I'm not in the mood to bargain, I hope you can pull it for today's sake, and when I die, if Sony can't do it in the future, you can pull it up. You kid is the-stirring stick of the industry, a customer in the old era does not want to make progress, you will whip them to the whole industry to enterprising. ”

Gu Biao Khan, he didn't expect today's lobbying to say that Akio Morita doubted life.

This state of mind is a bit like when the Dark Horse of the United States was president, he used his presidential authority to order the publisher to hand over the English version of "The Three-Body Problem" that had just been translated but had not yet been officially published in the United States, and then took it back to the White House to secretly work overtime to read it.

Then, O'Dark Horse slapped "The Three-Body Problem" and sighed: This is the ultimate form of major events in the world, what is the use of me as the president!

The nihilistic flow of "one death and life is illusory, and Qi Peng's death is vain" in "Lanting Preface" is roughly like this.

"This ...... Why bother, how can he be in the next place, just talking about some business logic of generational change. Gu Biao could only be modest first to stabilize the other party's mood,

"In fact, the reason why you don't see it clearly is because the rise of the electronics industry has only been more than 20 years, and everyone is inexperienced enough to see through the essence of the rise and fall from one or two dynasty changes, and there is nothing to feel guilty about.

Just like a monarch of the Han Dynasty, in preventing military generals from usurping the throne, he is not as experienced as the monarchs of the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, and his cognition is more systematic. It's not surprising at all, it's not that this Han Dynasty monarch is incompetent. I just happen to have a very keen eye, and I can summarize it after one change of dynasty. ”

The two sides hastily talked about some details of cooperation, and the guests and hosts enjoyed themselves.

Through follow-up discussions, Gu Biao roughly calculated that the production cost of the 3.5-inch floppy disk currently patented by Sony is about 14~15 US dollars, so 12 US dollars a piece is supplied to Tiankun Entertainment, and each one sold will have a net loss of 2~3 US dollars.

However, based on Moore's Law and post-production process adjustments, Sony seems confident that it will reduce the cost to $12 in 1985.

After the completion of the research and development of Tiankun Entertainment's game console this year, it will be about half a year of sales, so the net loss period of Sony's floppy disk business is only 18 months. By 85 years, it will enter a state of no loss and no profit, and after that, it will make a net profit.

In the past 18 months, Gu Biao's game consoles have sold a total of 3 million units, which is very good, counting the average purchase of three or four cassettes for a game console in a year and a half, Sony estimates that it will first net a loss of 20 million US dollars, but make sure to open up the standard prospect of 3.5 inches.

Akio Morita actually has a good idea in his heart, and after being ignited by Gu Ao, he sees very far.

At the end of the meeting, when Akio Morita clinked glasses of champagne with Gu Biao, he even said with a smile: "Gu, I promise to let you use it exclusively until 1986, I want to see more than just 86 years, only game consoles in the world use 3.5-inch floppy disks."

I hope that those old PC manufacturers will be forced to sit still by you, and as soon as the exclusive period of Tiankun ends, they will come to me to order floppy drives to install on their computer products. ”

Gu Biao also returned the salute with champagne: "Yes, don't worry, maybe I don't have to wait for those people to wake up by themselves, I will take the initiative to kick their butts - maybe, in 86, I have already started to make my own personal computer?"

Akio Morita was very surprised: "You still want to make a personal computer? 3 years? From game consoles to personal computers, the gap is not ordinary. Do you really understand the difficulty?"

Gu Biao didn't want to explain more: "No, no, no, you have to look at this question like this - you look back at three years from today, what was I doing three years ago?"

Akio Morita recalled and sighed in amazement: "Three years ago, in January of '80, weren't you in Xiangjiang? I remember that it was that time that the boss of CITIC Trust asked you to do the trust and use Hanle Electronics as a model project for the inspection and investment of yen trust bonds.

At that time, my senior Matsushita and I also served as advisors to the presidents of Mitsui and Sumitomo zaibatsu and evaluated your company. That's fast, three years, you've grown like this. From a company that ships less than 1,000 arcade machines a month, it has transformed into a company that produces 300,000 handheld machines a month and is about to launch home consoles......"

Akio Morita didn't say anything, he already believed that if it was Gu Wei, it would not be a strange thing to transform again in 3 years.

……

The formal talks with Sony ended in three days.

The bosses of both sides only confirmed the grand strategy, and the specific details were still discussed by the people below.

In the end, Sony did not promise to give Gu Biao an exclusive monopoly in vain, but there was a sales bet - you can have an exclusive possession, but you must at least ensure that you ship more than 10 million pieces per natural year to be eligible for exclusivity.

Even if you can't use it, you must buy 10 million pieces and put them away, otherwise Sony has the right to cancel the monopoly and find other customers to sell.

This is normal, after all, Akio Morita can talk about human feelings, and the financial executives below are still responsible for the company, after all, Sony is already a listed company and is responsible to shareholders and the public.

When Schulhoff got the final agreement of "1983~1986 exclusive right to use 3.5-inch floppy disk", his admiration for his boss Gu Biao had reached the level of five-body surrender.

This kind of condition can be negotiated, or with a giant like Sony, what else is there that the boss can't handle?

"As soon as the recruitment of Atari technicians was completed, they were grouped forward. The cassette machine scheme and the floppy drive machine scheme, I want to see the perfect production-ready design! Gu Biao struck.

"Boss rest assured, mass production in May, both plans to ensure feasibility, we will do it. ”

Set a small goal first, such as remembering in 1 second: book guest residence