The appearance of Li Xuan's butterfly can be said to have completely changed Hong Kong's economic structure. Originally, with the relocation of factories to the north in the 80s, Hong Kong's industry gradually fell into hollowing out. The real estate industry has begun to flourish and become a pillar industry driving Hong Kong's economy.

However, due to the unexpected rise of the Eastern Bloc, the electronics industry quickly replaced the original textile, clothing, toys and other industries, prompting Hong Kong's entire industry to complete the upgrading and transformation. The huge industrial clusters formed around computers and games have made Hong Kong's manufacturing industry not only declining, but thriving.

The capital market is undoubtedly the most sensitive to such changes, because the rate of return on investment in the electronics industry is very guaranteed, so commercial banks are willing to provide credit support for the expansion of electronics factories. Securities companies are also willing to provide guidance for the listing and financing of electronic companies, and even venture capital is very generous and willing to pay for all kinds of reliable or unreliable new ideas.

A market analyst like Ding Zeming naturally needs to keep up with hot spots, and he has already shifted his focus from real estate stocks to electronic stocks. In fact, not only him, but the entire Hong Kong capital market will take every move of the leader of the Oriental Group under the microscope for various analysis and evaluation. Therefore, Li Xuan was a little surprised that Ding Zeming continuously guessed the strategic layout of the Eastern Group, but he quickly took it lightly, there are always some smart people in this world.

"It's daylight saving time and Hong Kong is seven hours ahead of London. Even if Aikang Company released the news as soon as it went to work at nine o'clock, it would be four o'clock in the afternoon in Hong Kong, and it would be early now!" Li Xuan shook his head and said to Ding Zeming.

"Well, I know that, but it's just a little unrealistic not to stare at the news on TV. Since the beginning of this month, I have been strongly recommending Akon stock to my clients.

Many of our regular customers have trusted me. I specially set up my account to buy and sell London stocks. If they lose a lot of money because of my misjudgment this time, I will really be to blame!" Ding Zeming smiled self-deprecatingly.

The financial industry is a field that requires a big heart, and heaven and hell are just a thought away. Just like last year's "Black Monday", there were by no means just one or two stockholders and securities brokers in Hong Kong who jumped off buildings to kill themselves because of failed stock speculation.

For example, Ding Zeming's judgment on Aikang Company this time is that if the customer makes a lot of money because of his recommendation to buy stocks, then he can not only get a lot of commissions. It can also improve its reputation in the industry, which can be described as fame and fortune. On the other hand, if a customer loses money because of his misjudgment, then he is bound to lose his reputation, and in serious cases, he may not even have the opportunity to continue to make a living in this industry.

However, Li Xuan knew that the luck of the man in front of him was not bad, and he was right! At seven o'clock this morning, that is, at twelve o'clock in the middle of the night yesterday London time, Aikang's new generation of portable computer NoteBook, after the global sales of the first week of listing were summarized. The first fax was sent to Hong Kong from the headquarters of Aikang in London.

Li Xuan had already read the sales report sent to him by his assistant in the morning, and the sales of NoteBook in the first week after its launch were very gratifying. The naming of the new computer did not follow the previous P4 and P5 naming ideas called P6, and the original "P" stood for the abbreviation of the English word "portable" for "portable".

The original ABC-P4 computer did look like a suitcase. Although the later P5 has been improved in size and weight, it is still too bulky.

The new generation of portable computers launched this time is 28 cm long, 22 cm wide and 4.6 cm thick. The total weight is about 3.2 kg and it is foldable. It comes with a 9-inch LCD screen. Judging from the appearance, this computer finally had the prototype of a laptop in later generations, so Li Xuan simply renamed this series "NoteBook".

The first batch of NoteBook series launched by Aikang is divided into three models: 1000, 1200 and 1500. Among them, the NoteBook-1000 is a low-end model, which is priced at only $2299. The mid-range NoteBook-2000 is Aikang's main model this time, priced at $2,999, while the top-of-the-line NoteBook-3000 costs as much as $4,599.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. The ERM-3M (Mobile) processor of the NoteBook-1000 model has a frequency of only 15MHz, a memory of only 2M, and a hard disk of only 20M. The NoteBook-1500 model has an ERM-3M processor with a frequency of 30MHz, 8M memory, and a 60M hard disk. The displays on the 1000 and 1200 notebooks are monochrome FSTN LCDs. On the 1500 model, there is a color DSTN LCD screen.

Since the acquisition of the LCD project department from RCA in 1981, the Oriental Research Institute has invested as much as 400 million US dollars in just seven years, which can catch up with the R&D progress of Japanese enterprises.

Although RCA was the first company in the world to develop liquid crystal technology, RCA was unable to grasp this revolutionary display technology for one reason or another. On the contrary, Japanese companies began to rise rapidly, driven by the national will of the Japanese government. Since 1979, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has launched a seven-year basic research program in optoelectronics with a total funding of $770 million with 16 companies from all over Japan.

If Japanese companies conduct basic research in the optoelectronics industry on their own, the government can provide 30% of the R&D funding. It is precisely because of such a good environment that Japanese companies have built strong technical barriers in the LCD industry from TN, STN, FSTN, DSTN all the way.

In another time and space, the LCD industry was monopolized by Japanese companies throughout the nineties. Later, South Korean and Taiwan-Gulf companies rose rapidly after the new century, and their related technologies actually originated from Japan.

Japanese companies are very strong in the field of liquid crystal, but Li Xuan also has his own advantages, that is, he knows the future direction of industrial development. Therefore, when the Oriental Research Institute was catching up with technology, it directly skipped the FSTN and DSTN, which were destined to be eliminated soon, and made a desperate effort to tackle TFT liquid crystal technology.

TFT liquid crystal and TN liquid crystal have a completely different difference. Simply put, it is a semiconductor switching device for each pixel. Therefore, the substrate manufacturing technology of TFT-LCD actually has many things in common with the production of semiconductor wafers.

Relying on Li Xuan's unstingy capital investment and semi-cheating direction guidance, the Oriental Research Institute finally reached a tie with Japanese companies on TFT-LCD. Because in the face of the nearly 20 years of technology accumulation of Japanese companies, even the Oriental Research Institute cannot split all the technical barriers they have set up before.

So the only thing that the Oriental Research Institute can do is to use some of its own patents on TFT. To exchange the unavoidable basic patents in the hands of Japanese companies. Among all Japanese companies, the three giants that have the most say in the field of LCD are undoubtedly Sharp, Toshiba and Sony, in addition to companies such as Casio and Epson.

Among them, Sharp is known as the "father of liquid crystal", and the partner of the Oriental Research Institute is Sharp. Every business has its own internal character, and character often determines fate.

And Sharp, the "father of LCD", the future development of the road is very bumpy, before Li Xuan's rebirth, its proud LCD business has fallen into huge losses, is seeking restructuring, and the most likely to acquire Sharp is Foxconn's boss Guo Tai-Ming.

What is Sharp's corporate character? too much respect for the powerful and too disdain for the weak. Too conceited in the period of superiority. In difficult times, sometimes "when you are sick, you go to the doctor". Tactically they show extremely shrewd strategies, but they often lose the initiative in the market strategically.

For example, Sharp has always proudly claimed that it produces the best LCD screens in the world, but its competitors are producing the best-selling LCD screens.

Another example is that the partners selected by Sharp are always Samsung and Hon Hai (Foxconn's parent company), which are competitors who pose a direct threat to themselves, rather than partners like domestic Xinke and LeTV, which can only be slaughtered by him in terms of technology.

In the past, when Li Xuan's Oriental Group selected partners in the computer industry, it gave priority to supporting Lu's Electronics in Hong Kong, Hongji Company in Taiwan, and Lianxiang Company in China. These junior companies are not a threat to themselves at this stage.

And international giants such as IBM and Deyi, the reason why the Oriental Group cooperates with it. In order to consolidate the absolute authority of ABC technical standards in the global computer industry. But behind the cooperation, Li Xuan will always be on guard.

Sharp, on the other hand, respected the strong as the character of the Japanese nation. As long as you subdue it, he will respect you. Therefore, the Oriental Research Institute relied on its own technical advantages in advance to tackle the technical advantages of TFT-LCD and successfully reached a cooperation with Sharp.

Although the Oriental Research Institute has also opened up a lot of key technologies to Sharp, the technology it has obtained through Sharp can help it completely unshackle. It has truly become one of the main players in the LCD industry.

On the NoteBook laptop that has just been launched, Aikang still uses FSTN and DSTN LCD screens. But in fact, the Oriental Research Institute has gradually matured in TFT liquid crystal technology.

At the beginning of this year, the Oriental Research Institute invested NT$1 billion to build the world's first TFT-LCD production line in Hsinchu, Taiwan. This first-generation production line can produce 10,000 300mmx400mm substrates per month.

It's just that the TFT-LCD has just been put into production. The yield rate is still relatively low, so neither Aikang nor Oriental Research Institute has considered using TFT LCD displays on the first models of NoteBook series laptops. The first practical product of TFT LCD screen is actually the handheld TV that Ding Zeming is holding in his hand now.

A 300mmx400mm substrate can only divide up to two 9-inch screens. As long as there are some slight flaws on the substrate, it is likely that even a qualified 9-inch display will not be able to be separated.

However, if it is a 2-inch screen, one substrate can be divided into 100 screens. So even if there are more flaws, there will always be a lot of usable screens left. So for the LCD screen, the larger the size means the lower the yield rate and the more expensive the price.

If NoteBook now directly uses TFT LCD screen, in addition to the production is likely to become a bottleneck, the cost will definitely be much higher than the basic mature technology of FSTN and DSTN LCD, and the price is often one of the important factors that determine the success or failure of a product. (To be continued.) )