Immediately after the interim board of directors ended, Zhang Ran and Wu Ruide left for Washington, D.C., to the famous K Street to meet with the lobby for the acquisition. A large-scale acquisition like this involves a wide range of interests, and it is almost impossible to succeed without the assistance of the lobby.

This time, Zhang Ran and his team hired Cassidy, the largest public relations company in the United States, and its backbone is some former politicians of the US Democratic Party, with a total of more than 100 professional researchers. Among the "Big Four" registered lobbyists in the company are defense officials under President Reagan, China affairs experts at the CIA, and assistant secretary of state for intelligence and intelligence at the US State Department after Bush took office.

In order to ensure the success of the acquisition, Zhang Ran prepared 30 million public relations fees, and Cassidy also allocated the best personnel to Zhang Ran and them, forming a 20-person lobbyist group, which is basically former government officials of the State Department, the White House, and former members of the Senate and House of Representatives, and the head of the lobby group is Christopher Dude, a former Democratic presidential candidate, who just retired from the Senate last year;

After reading the information brought by Zhang Ran, Christopher Dude believes that Zhang Ran and Century Peak's achievements in the United States are obvious to all, providing tens of thousands of job opportunities in the United States. Under normal circumstances, no member of parliament is willing to open up a crime. However, there is a problem with the acquisition of Motorola by Century Peak, that is, Century Summit has state-owned shares.

Dude told Zhang Ran: "CIC and CDB are not a big problem, Chinese state-owned enterprises open factories in the United States, and there are many examples of acquisitions, and this is not a problem." The main reason is that Poly Investment has a military background, which is more sensitive, and once it is involved in the military background, things will be very troublesome. Huawei's acquisition in the United States is difficult, and it is important to note that it is suspected of having a military background. If someone makes a big deal about Poly Investment, then the Foreign Investment Committee is likely to be pressured to veto the acquisition!"

Huawei's experience in the United States, Zhang Ran knows very well that when he acquired Netflix, Huawei was also acquiring 3COM in the United States, but in the end Zhang Ran succeeded and Huawei failed. Last year, Huawei tried to buy Motorola's wireless business, but it also failed. Huawei's acquisition failed, in addition to the fact that the acquired business is wireless communications, which is more sensitive, and Huawei is suspected of having a military background.

At the beginning, letting Poly Investment take shares was a helpless move to fight back against Bona and Wanda, and Poly Investment accounted for a small proportion of shares, Zhang Ran originally thought that it would not have any impact, but now when he heard Christopher Dude say this, he immediately said: "Century Summit will buy back the shares of Poly Investment at twice the price in the shortest possible time." So there's no problem, right?"

Dude laughed: "If this problem is solved, then the chance of success of this acquisition is very high." ”

The next morning, Zhang Ran and Wu Ruide flew to Motorola's headquarters in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago. With the split of Motorola into two companies, Motorola Mobility will soon move its headquarters to Libertyville, and possibly to San Diego, California, or Austin, Texas, although the headquarters are still together.

Zhang Ran stood in front of the Motorola headquarters building, looking at the huge blue M upstairs, and sighed in his heart, Motorola used to be a giant, but now it is in a half-dead state.

Motorola was once one of America's greatest companies, full of creativity. The wireless walkie-talkies and walkie-talkies carried by soldiers in World War II movies were invented by Motorola, and the big brother held by the gang boss in the Xiangjiang movie, and the BB machine on the waist of the younger brother are also Motorola products.

However, in the 90s, Motorola suffered from the aftermath of the 2G era. In 1997, Nokia overtook Motorola to become the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer. At this time, Motorola was engaged in one of the craziest projects in human history, the Iridium project. Motorola plans to launch 11 satellites in each of the seven orbits in the sky to establish a satellite communication system.

From a scientific and technological point of view, the Iridium program has been very successful. But commercially, the Iridium program was a huge failure. Telephones using Iridium's service cost $3,000 per unit and $7 per minute, which was not an acceptable price for ordinary people, so in 1999, Iridium declared bankruptcy.

The Iridium project not only wasted Motorola billions of dollars, but more importantly, it distracted its efforts, not only losing the best opportunity to compete with Nokia, but also losing the market, giving Samsung and other emerging electronics companies an opportunity to take advantage of.

Next, Motorola made another big mistake, which was to reach an agreement with Apple CEO Steve Jobs to jointly develop the Motorola iTunes phone, which is the first mobile phone that can connect to Apple Music. Motorola taught Apple, the most creative and savvy company, how to make mobile phones. Two years later, when Steve Jobs launched his first iPhone, it caused a sensation around the world, while Motorola was mired in continuous losses.

It was also in this year that Carl Icahn, who sold Blockbuster shares to Zhang Ran, set his sights on Motorola and began to buy Motorola shares. In the end, he held more than 6% of Motorola's shares and successfully won a seat on the board. After Carl Icahn became the majority shareholder, he planned to spin off Motorola, which was eventually split into two companies after three years of hard work.

Looking back on Motorola's past, Zhang Ran said with emotion: "In the 90s, Motorola was the world's leader in the three fields of mobile communications, digital signal processing and computer processors. This is a lesson for those of us who come after us, and if we are greedy for everything, we will die a miserable death! Do you think we are making such mistakes now?"

Wu Ruide said with a smile: "Greed for all is the most common phenomenon, many companies do whatever they make money, do everything, but nothing is strong, there is no core of their own, and they are gradually eliminated in the competition." We are not like this, we have our own core, and if it is a business that poses a threat to our core, we will not do it even if it makes money. "Time and Space Warrior", "Providence", and "Zhu Xian" can all be made into games, and if they are made into games, they can bring us hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year, but we insisted on not doing it. ”

Zhang Ran nodded slightly, many film and television works of Century Summit have been adapted into games, but none of them are done by Century Summit itself, but authorized to other companies. If the peak of the century makes games on a large scale, it may face a question: what is the core of the company? Since the most profitable thing for the company is games, and there is great potential for development, why not let games be the core? If the game department is too profitable, it will inevitably have a great right to speak, and the conflicts between departments will inevitably intensify.

Of course, Zhang Ran can rely on his influence to suppress the opinions of the game department and devote more energy to movies. But once the game department is suppressed, it will inevitably be dissatisfied, Lao Tzu makes so much money for the company, and is still suppressed everywhere, why? As long as other companies are recruited, the whole team will inevitably leave. In the gaming industry, it's not uncommon for game teams to leave en masse.

The strategy of Century Summit is Internet + movies, which is the core of the company, any business that will threaten this core, no matter how profitable it is, Century Summit will resolutely not do it, the game is the same, and so are others.

Zhang Ran looked at the Motorola headquarters building and said softly: "When we push the system, we may have to get involved in the game!"

Wu Ruide said confidently: "Now that the industrial chain of the peak of the century has been formed, and the company's strategic framework has been built, even if the game is added at this time, it can only become a part of the industrial chain and will not affect the company's overall strategy." ”

At this moment, a voice suddenly came: "Eh, Zhang Ran, Wu Ruide, why are you here?"

Zhang Ran and Wu Ruide looked back, it turned out to be Lenovo's CEO Yang Yuanqing and CFO Huang Weiming, the two of them were a little surprised, why are the two of them here?

At this time, Zhang Ran suddenly remembered that after Lenovo bought Motorola from Google, Yang Yuanqing once said that when Motorola was spin off, they had the idea of Motorola and even went to Motorola's headquarters. However, Yang Yuanqing found the wrong person, and he found Gray Brown, the co-CEO of Motorola. But after the Motorola spin-off, it wasn't Gray Brown who was in charge of the cell phone business. After meeting and chatting, Yang Yuanqing did not receive the following, and a few months later, Motorola was acquired by Google.

Zhang Ran laughed twice and said: "Century Summit is doing streaming media, and we are very interested in Motorola's set-top box to see if there is any possibility of cooperation." I heard that a lot of companies have recently started to talk about Motorola's mobile phone business, so you wouldn't be here for this, would you?"

Yang Yuanqing and Huang Weiming's expressions changed when they heard this, and they laughed twice and said: "Mr. Zhang is joking, the market value of Motorola mobile phones is 9 billion US dollars, and we have the ability to acquire them, and we are here this time in the hope of obtaining some Motorola patent authorization." Without authorization, Lenovo's mobile phone can't go to sea!"

Zhang Ran looked at Yang Yuanqing and said with a smile: "Mobile Internet is the trend of the times, the brand of Motorola is still very good, if Lenovo can win Motorola, it will be very beneficial to expand overseas markets!"

Yang Yuanqing smiled dryly: "Motorola is too huge, how can we take it if we want to, let's just buy some patents!"

Zhang Ran said in his heart, okay, after we win Motorola, we will sell you a few patents!

After greeting each other, Yang Yuanqing and Huang Weiming nodded at Zhang Ran and walked towards the Motorola headquarters building.

Wu Ruide looked at Yang Yuanqing's back, his brows furrowed slightly, judging from Yang Yuanqing's reaction, it should be for Motorola's mobile phone business. Even Lenovo is playing Motorola's idea, I don't know how many giants have the same idea, this acquisition may not be easy. He lowered his voice and said, "I'm afraid this acquisition will be a tough battle!"

Zhang Ran chuckled and said: "There must be a lot of opponents, but Lenovo has already discharged!"

Wu Ruide was slightly stunned: "Why is this?"

Zhang Ran lowered his voice and said: "Both of us are coming for the Motorola mobile phone business, and we arrived at the same time; now the person in charge of the mobile phone department is Sanjie Jia, and we have made an appointment with Sanjie Jia to meet and talk, so who will Lenovo talk to?"

Wu Ruide suddenly understood, now that Motorola has just been split, the company's management has become very large, Lenovo is likely to find the wrong person, he almost laughed out loud: "Lenovo has done too badly in its homework, it can make such a mistake!"

Zhang Ran shook his head lightly and said, "If they do their homework well, probably the development of Lenovo will not be like today! Don't worry about others, let's go!" After speaking, Zhang Ran and Wu Ruide walked towards the Motorola building together.