What kind of company IBM is, Linda knows something, and the widely used punching card machine in the Manhattan Project is its product. Of course, Linda's attention to IBM is only routine, not that much importance is attached to it. The reason for the concern is also because IBM is one of the two institutions that has purchased the production license of Evan's point contact transistors, the other being Occidental Electric.

Linda only understands that this is a professional manufacturer of watchmaking and computing products, with an annual revenue of more than 200 million yuan, and a large company with 20,000 or 30,000 employees. She didn't know that IBM had supported Harvard University in developing the tube computer "Mark" over the years, and that the model had reached its fourth generation. In addition, it was made into a tube relay hybrid mainframe computer SSEC. It can be said that at this time, IBM has shown signs of dominating the computer field in the future.

Therefore, although Linda already knew that Evan bought the patent for the core memory in order to enter the computer industry, she still did not understand why Evan would spend such a large price.

Unless, in Evan's view, the $200,000 is nothing compared to future gains.

If you go deeper along this line, that is, in Evan's eyes, computers are a very promising industry.

Is that so?

Linda couldn't help but ask her questions.

"Absolutely!"

Evan didn't hesitate to admit it.

"IBM is technically commendable, and while it missed Chester's photocopier, that doesn't mean it's really blind. ”

"So, Evan, you're going to compete with IBM in the computer space, and buy the core memory patent to stumble on the other side?"

Linda said with interest: "In addition, I remember that it seems to be the Morgan family standing behind IBM, you are against them so everywhere, aren't you afraid that the Morgan consortium will be annoyed and angry?"

Two months ago, Evan blocked the way back to Morgan's house, and Linda, as the chief secretary, naturally knew about this, so she said this.

"Why do you think that?" Evan corrected with a wave of his hand, "It's just normal business competition, okay." ”

"I didn't want to deliberately stumble on the other party and take down the core memory, at most it was just a precaution. ”

"After all, in the field of computers, the other party is a pioneer, if you don't have something in your hand, what if the other party gets a patent card?"

"Just like Xerox and everyone else?"

Linda immediately thought of this recent case, after the unexpected failure of Xerox Model A, several companies approached Xerox to try to seek cooperation, including RCA, which was developing a similar product. But Xerox refused without thinking about it. Not only did he refuse, but he also deliberately leaked the general content of several new patents, which offended the people of RCA a very much. Because the new patent is unexpectedly similar to the wet copier they are working on. This means that if the patent is established, RCA will have to look at Xerox if it wants to enter the copier industry.

When the news reached RCA President David Sanoff, and the company was one step behind Dumont on color television, he was so angry that he scolded Evan, a boy he had never met but was familiar with.

After the scolding, David Sanoff had to continue to send people to negotiate with Xerox. RCA has already invested a lot of capital in the research and development of photocopiers, and if it were to abandon it, it would mean that these investments would become sunk costs. That's not a good thing for him as a president.

The decision may seem humiliating, but David Sanoff is confident that the other side will relent, provided the timing is right and the price is right.

Because if Xerox really didn't give RCA a chance to enter the copier industry at all, it wouldn't have leaked the existence of those patents. The deeper these key patents are hidden, the more damage the RCA will be. Now, it can only play the role of delaying time, but it cannot scare people away.

Because there is too much time left for people to react.

At this time, negotiations between Xerox and RCA were underway, but the leader of the negotiations was not Chester, but Karl. According to Evan's instructions, Xerox and Applied Physical Systems will appear at the same time in the final agreement. This result was somewhat unexpected by the RCA, but it was not unacceptable, as Applied Physical Systems did have the leverage that RCA had so much to offer, the fluorescent substance that would help Dumont get a head start on color televisions.

Contacts between the two sides began in May and have since been slow, with negotiations even interrupted many times, and finally changed recently.

The source of the change is that in July, after the launch of the improved XeroxModel B of XeroxModel A, the reputation of Xerox copiers began to warm up with the support of the trade-in policy. The situation is good, and Xerox pays more attention to its own products, rather than how to bother to stumble on RCA.

Anyway, Xerox is confident that the technical route chosen by RCA is not an opponent of electrocopying at all.

Instead of not letting the other party enter the market, it is better to sell your own patents at a good price.

This is the tone that Evan sets.

"Pretty much. Evan affirmed Linda's statement, "Speaking of Xerox, is there any new development in their negotiations?"

Linda replied: "No, the negotiation is still stuck on the authorized price code, and the other party is still biting the bite and only accepts a one-time bid, not an authorization certificate based on the number of products." ”

"That's ...... That probably will drag on for a while. ”

Evan didn't comment much on this, and Linda took the opportunity to turn the topic back to IBM's computer: "Evan, I know that computers are a good thing, but I don't understand, is it necessary for us to confront Morgan because of this?"

"Don't talk about head-to-head competition!"

"Moreover, computers are of limited use, and the customers who need them are likely to be research institutes such as universities and state-funded projects like the Manhattan Project...... I don't think it has much market capacity. ”

"Hmm......" Evan squinted at Linda when he heard this, forced a smile, and asked, "Is this your own opinion?"

Linda nodded, blinked, saw the corners of Evan's mouth, and asked, "Am I so wrong?"

Instead of answering, Evan replied with a question: "Which of the two things do you think is more valuable in the market, a television or a computer?"

Needless to say?

Televisions, of course.

The results were clear at a glance, but Linda paused before giving an answer.

Because she felt that the answer to Evan's question must not be so simple. But she really couldn't think of the possibility of losing the TV, so she still gave the answer "TV".

After hearing this, Evan smiled and said: "In terms of the market capacity of the product, your answer is not wrong, within ten years, it is indeed the TV set that is more profitable, but after ten years, the computer will be able to catch up." ”

"In terms of profit margins, computers are a better product than televisions. ”

"As for why, Linda, what do you think? Well, you just said that. ”

"This ...... Because televisions are mass consumer goods, profit margins will only get lower as production increases, and computer customers are not short of money...... Is that so?"

Evan nodded emphatically.