At AT&T Corporate Headquarters in Jasmine Hill, New Jersey, a serious board meeting is underway!

Li Xuan's previous estimate was not wrong at all, after the U.S. stock market opened today, almost all telecom stocks were in the red, and only MCI rose 3.2% against the trend. It can be seen how influential he is the richest man in the world!

AT&T, as a well-deserved leading stock in the U.S. telecommunications industry, naturally failed to avoid this "flying disaster", and turned red directly from the opening of the morning. The mainstream stock markets in Europe and the United States use red stocks to represent declines, and green stocks to represent rises. By the time the lunch break was held, AT&T's stock had fallen 3.7%.

Of course, AT&T's board of directors did not meet entirely because of the decline in the stock price, and the 3.7% decline is still within the normal floating range.

But to say that this conference has nothing to do with today's stock market is not necessarily true. After all, according to the original schedule, today's meeting should have been held in two days.

But just yesterday evening, the directors were given a short notice that the meeting was brought forward to today. So much so that the two directors, who were on a business trip on the West Coast, had to take a business plane back to New Jersey overnight.

As the U.S. government began to deregulate the telecommunications industry, the U.S. long-distance telephone market has become increasingly competitive in recent years. So even without Li Xuan's surprise attack yesterday, AT&T has not had a good time in the near future.

On the one hand, fast-growing emerging telecom giants such as MCI and Sprint have begun to launch a fierce attack on AT&T's position as the leader. On the other hand, more and more small regional long-distance telephone companies began to pop up across the United States, and through intensive market cultivation and low-price competition, they also eroded a lot of market share that originally belonged to AT&T.

In the latest market share statistics, AT&T's share of the long-distance telephone market fell below 60% for the first time. This has put AT&T's management under a lot of pressure.

At yesterday's Global Internet Conference, Li Xuan directly singled out another challenge faced by telecom operators. That is, the new technology represented by the Internet will eventually replace the current telephone and become people's new communication choice. Just like when the phone call came along, it quickly made writing obsolete!

What is most troubling for investors is that the pace of change may be much faster than telecom operators anticipate. At least compared to MCI, which has been vigorously deploying Internet communications in recent years, AT&T gives people the impression that it is slow to respond and has no sharpness.

The comparison between the stock prices of the two companies rising and falling this morning also directly reflects the attitude of the capital market towards these two companies!

"I don't think we've made a fatal mistake in the layout of the Internet, in fact we've invested heavily in network infrastructure, including the laying of fiber optic cables!

According to the analysis of our evaluation department, the current speed of Internet development cannot bring much return to our huge investment in the short term! MCI is telling a story with huge losses! "The current statement is made by an executive in charge of Internet investment, who obviously does not admit that there is any mistake in the department he leads.

"But MCI made a bet, and investors are now apparently more likely to believe that Walker is a long-term thinker, and that we are a bunch of idiots!"&T is very heavily weighted in their fund, and a drop in its share price could even significantly lower the fund's yield.

"The intimate relationship between the White House and Mr. the richest man is well known, and even in Congress, whether Republican or Democratic, there are a large number of lawmakers who advocate for the Internet!

We are indeed overconfident in our own judgments, and it is clear that the Internet is moving faster than we expected!

In terms of infrastructure, we seem to be lagging behind, but it is not impossible to catch up! But now the problem is that we have lost the opportunity of public opinion!

Even if we announce now that AT&T will increase its investment in the Internet infrastructure, everyone will only laugh at us for being slow to react! What we need to do now is not to follow in the footsteps of others, but to fight back!" Robert Allen said, knocking on the table.

The white man, who became president of AT&T in '86 and also served as chairman of AT&T's board of directors in '88, is definitely the most powerful man in AT&T.

"The richest man is right, the Internet represents the future! But what is the carrier of the Internet? It is the computer! The Internet is only valuable when all computers in the world are connected together by wires and optical cables!

IS MCI OUR RIVAL? NO! We still have a 58.6% market share of long-distance phones in the United States, which is more than the market share of all our competitors combined!

MCI is not worthy of being our opponent, our target should be Lee's Eastern Group! Why is Li and his Eastern Group so keen to promote the development of the Internet, because it can greatly expand the use of computers!

Let's take a look at Li's layout over the years, tracing back from the computer, first software development, and then the Internet, step by step to improve the practicality of the computer. Let the personal computer from the toy of the Jobs era, to the basic equipment of today's business office, and may be an important carrier of family entertainment in the future!

From the computer to the top, from the heart of the computer, the CPU, to the wafer factory that manufactures chips, and even to the lithography machine, the core equipment of the wafer factory, Li controls almost the entire industrial chain!

It is through the integration of upstream and downstream systems that the Eastern Group can firmly control the development direction of the global computer industry! Therefore, I think that if AT&T is only limited to competing with MCI, then it will be difficult for us to win first, because the opponent will always have a better grasp of the overall situation than us!" said one of the directors.

His argument was long, but the whole process of analysis was frequently nodded by others present. It is not that there are no smart people in this world, and the great success of Li Xuan and the Eastern Bloc is impossible not to attract the attention of others.

Universities, think tanks, and major enterprises in the United States are all carefully studying the reasons for the success of the Oriental Group! And Li Xuan's practice of infiltrating the entire industrial chain has naturally won the admiration of many people!

"Two months ago, we made an offer to acquire NCR, and NCR's management and board of directors did not explicitly reject it!

Now, I think it's time to speed up this merger and acquisition plan! As Director Eugene said earlier, we are facing a behemoth like the Eastern Bloc!

We shouldn't just passively wait for the other party to make a move, but should take the initiative to enter the other party's territory and declare war!" Robert Allen said solemnly, obviously the long speech of the director of Eugene just now was to set the stage for him.

Li Xuan didn't know that his butterfly had once again influenced the trajectory of history, bringing AT&T's acquisition of NCR a full year earlier. This NCR company is actually a company with a very long history. It was originally founded in 1884 and is already a century-old shop.

If you work in the banking sector, you may have heard of the name NCR. For a long time, NCR was the world's largest manufacturer of ATMs. It wasn't until a few years before Li Xuan's rebirth that the second and third in line behind it decided to merge, and the new company surpassed it in market share.

Anyone who has ever withdrawn money from an ATM knows that an ATM is actually a professional computer, so NCR is also a computer manufacturer.

In fact, NCR entered the computer field not much later than IBM. It's just that as a company that started by producing cash registers, it is more focused on the application of computers in the financial system.

Because of this, with the rapid improvement of personal computer performance in the 80s, the market for the original minicomputer quickly shrank. Other traditional computer manufacturers failed to adapt to the changes in the market and went out of business one after another.

NCR, on the other hand, was lucky to survive due to the massive popularity of ATMs in the banking system. In addition to the production of ATMs, NCR also adapted to the changes of the times and became one of the many manufacturers of ABC-compatible machines and began to produce personal computers.

In addition, NCR Corporation was involved in enterprise-class UNIX server system architecture as early as the early eighties. It can be said that although NCR is not the most well-known computer manufacturer under the new revolution, it is an enterprise that has successfully survived the rapid changes in the computer industry.

Ironically, the UNIX system was actually developed by AT&&T as early as the 70s, when it recognized the value of the UNIX operating system and began to raise the patent stick.

But now in the enterprise-level UNIX system, the largest market share is Aikang and Sun, followed by IBM and HP. However, AT&T was unable to share this fat cake because most of the UNIX systems were bought out in the early days.

You must know that compared with the domination of the field of personal computer operating systems by Oriental System Software Company, the enterprise-level server operating system is a Warring States hegemony. In this multi-party scuffle, at least 70% of the market share is divided between various versions of UNIX. Originally, AT&T also had the opportunity to dominate the world like Oriental System Software!

Now, AT&T's management is clearly starting to reflect on the mistakes they have made. While they missed the start of this personal computer wave, there was still a chance to rejoin the game through the acquisition of NCR!

Just when AT&T held an interim board meeting, Li Xuan was strolling around the campus of the University of Texas at Austin very leisurely, and he didn't know that the Eastern Group had another competitor.

Of course, even if Li Xuan now knew that AT&T was going to join the competition in the computer market, he wouldn't care at all. Because Aikang has always opened up the industry standard of personal computers, the competition in the personal computer industry is very fierce.

AT&T and IBM have the same problems, that is, they are dull, inefficient management, and the shortcomings of established companies are revealed.

In recent years, IBM, not to mention catching up with the leading Aikang company, has begun to become more and more difficult to maintain its original personal brain market share.

AT&T wants to fight its way through this wolf-ridden industry, and it's not an easy task!