Lin Feng is determined to win this Nortel network patent acquisition.

But he also knows that if he wants to make a successful acquisition, it will be extremely difficult!

On the one hand, there will be sniping by competitors, especially Apple and Microsoft.

Apple is trying to weaken Android, after all, Android currently has more than 30% of the market share in smartphone operating systems, and Apple's IOS is only 18%.

Microsoft is also trying to snipe at Android, not for market share, but to ensure that it can collect enough royalties......

If Cool Wind wins the patent of Nortel Network, it can cross-license the patents of Android mobile phone manufacturers, so that it will be difficult for Microsoft to collect patent fees from Android mobile phone manufacturers, which is a net profit of billions of dollars a year!

So, whether it's Google in the previous life or the current Cool Wind, whoever has Andriod in their hands is their enemy!

Plus other communication vendors, such as Ericsson, mobile phone vendors, such as RIM, and even IT vendors like Intel.

Everyone knows that the new rise of Coolwind is not long and the family background is weak, but if Coolwind acquires these patents of Nortel Network, it will make up for the last shortcoming, and at that time, the rise of Coolwind will be irrepressible!

Again, Google's acquisition of these patents will also make them uneasy.

Therefore, if Lin Feng wants to get these patents from Nortel, he will face many competitors.

On the other hand, Lin Feng is more worried about the protective measures taken by the US and Canadian governments for such acquisitions.

In the previous life, domestic Huawei and ZTE were interested in Nortel Network's patent auction and hoped to join the auction, but they were blocked out......

This is also the main reason why Lin Feng hopes to pull Google and form a group together.

Even, in addition to Google, he hopes to pull in a few more Android companies, so that in the name of the consortium, the regulator will not be too targeted at the Coolwind.

After all, unlike the previous acquisition of Amazon, Nortel Networks, although now in decline, was once a great company that many North Americans could be proud of.

Founded in 1895, Nortel Networks, born out of the mechanical division of Canada's Bell Telephone Company, was once the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in North America and a "century-old store" in the global communications industry.

It is a well-known technology company that has survived two world wars, the Great Depression and numerous economic recessions.

Nortel once had a glorious history, at the end of the 90s of the last century, Nortel launched 10G SDH products, which immediately swept the market and monopolized more than 90% of the share.

Nortel's most glorious moment was in 2000, when Nortel stood at the top of the industry with a revenue of $30.3 billion and a global optical fiber network equipment market share of 43%. At the time, its market share in the field was almost three times that of its main competitor, Lucent Technologies, which ranked second.

At its peak, Nortel's market value was as high as $267 billion, almost 5,000 times the $48 million it filed for bankruptcy and reorganization, driven by the optical network business. Luo Shijie's "optical fiber revolution" is also famous with Cisco's "router revolution" and Ericsson's "mobile phone revolution".

In the same period, Intel's market capitalization was $277.7 billion, Cisco's was $357.3 billion, and IBM's was $195.8 billion. Nortel has become one of the world's tech giants.

Then, short-lived, the dot-com bubble burst and brought the entire telecom industry into winter. Tens of thousands of internet companies have gone bankrupt, leaving Nortel with a $4 billion backlog of inventory. In the second quarter of 2001, it reported a huge loss of $19.2 billion, the highest quarterly loss for a Canadian company. Nortel's share price also began to fall rapidly, from a high of $120 to more than $10.

After encountering the "black swan" of the industry, Nortel began to make continuous decision-making mistakes and scandals.

First, in '04, the financial fraud scandal was exposed, and on December 27, 2006, Nortel Networks and shareholders reached a $2.45 billion settlement agreement, and in 2007, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also fined Nortel Networks $100 million for financial fraud. This move made Nortel's house leak coincided with overnight rain.

Then, when the global 3G finally entered the harvest season after hard work, in September 2006, Nortel announced that it would abandon its mature CDMA business and sell the General Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) business to Alcatel for $320 million, focusing on the controversial and unprofitable iMAX.

When global telecom operators have switched to LTE, and iMAX is still bleak, Nortel announced that it will reduce its investment in iMAX and invest research funds in LTE, which is favored by mainstream operators.

The previous huge investment has been wasted again......

The most important thing is that after going around in a big circle, Nortel doesn't have much space.

Since 2006, Nortel has gradually incurred losses, and in the four quarters of 2007, except for the third quarter, the remaining first, second and fourth quarters were $103 million, $37 million and $844 million respectively. Since 2008, Nortel's losses have continued to increase. Losses in the first and second quarters were $138 million and $113 million, respectively, bringing the total loss to date in 2008 to $3.66 billion.

At the same time, Nortel also has a huge debt problem, totaling up to $6.3 billion!

According to court documents, Nortel has as many as 25,000 creditors, and more than 100 creditors have $100 million to $500 million in claims on Nortel's network.

The largest of these debts is $3.8 billion, and Bank of Ne York Mellon, the largest unsecured creditor of Nortel Networks' more than $3.8 billion bonds.

In January 2009, the insolvent Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection.

In June, after all efforts failed, Nortel announced that all of its business units were available for sale.

In the six months that followed, Nortel embarked on a tear-up sale-style dismemberment sale: $1.13 billion in CDMA/LTE wireless assets to Ericsson, $915 million in enterprise network assets to Avaya, and $769 million in optical and metro Ethernet business assets to Ciena.

Now, Nortel has basically sold all of its core business, and what is left in its hands is thousands of patents......

Of course, these patents are still very valuable to companies like Coolwind, Google, and Apple that do not have much technology accumulation in the traditional communication field and need to complete their "patent pool".

In fact, Nortel itself knows this, so since the end of 2009, it has been in frequent contact with many companies to try to sell these patents.

In fact, there are not many players who can buy so many patents at once for a large amount of money.

And many companies have a large number of patents of their own, and are only interested in a certain part of Nortel's patents. Moreover, because Nortel is in a desperate situation, most of the buyers are taking advantage of the fire, and the offer given is difficult to satisfy Nortel, so it has been delayed until now, and Nortel has not found a suitable buyer for this part of the asset.

However, even so, when the Cool Wind wants to get in, the competitors will never sit idly by.

Acquisition and sniping, on the verge of breaking out.

…………

Google gave Lin Feng and his entourage a high courtesy for this visit.

Larry Page personally accompanied Lin Feng and visited the Google campus.

Of course, the secret laboratory "Google X", which Lin Feng had always been curious about in his previous life, was not among the visitors.

This is an innovative R&D organization called Google's "Moonshot Program", which covers everything from space elevators, balloon access, seawater to refine fuel, smart glasses, and autonomous driving...... These seemingly whimsical ideas are the brainchild of Google X Labs.

I have to admit that from this point of view, Google deserves to be a great technology innovation company.

Lin Feng is also preparing to set up such a department in the Silicon Valley Research Institute of Fengxing and Kufeng in the future, to create and research new things with imagination, maybe a genius engineer's flash of innovation is enough to change the world...... Who knows?

It's this unknown that is the most fascinating.

Of course, he didn't come today to visit.

Back at Larry Page's office, Lin Feng talked to him straight to the point about the acquisition of Nortel Networks.

"Larry, I hope to join forces with you to bid for Nortel Networks' patent assets. ”

Larry Page didn't answer directly, but sat down in his chair, picked up a little green man (Android logo) doll on the table and fiddled with it, with a thoughtful look on his face.

From this small detail, it can be seen that Larry Page must be very sorry that Android is not included in the company......

"Xmobile needs these patents, and so does Google, but Apple and Microsoft won't let us get them easily. Lin Feng said relaxedly.

He took out the document that Andy Rubin had given him earlier, and said with a smile: "Look, Jobs is starting to shoot now." ”

Larry Page picked it up and looked at it, nodded and said, "I've heard the news, Rich, this kind of patent litigation is troublesome......"

Lin Feng shook his head: "Our patent application is earlier than Apple's, and Apple's iPhone also infringes a lot of our patents, I have arranged for a team of lawyers to file a counterclaim, this is just a small problem." ”

He looked at Larry Page and said, "The key question is, whether it's Apple, or we Xmobile, or Google, we're all newcomers and disruptors in the communications industry, and Apple doesn't stand with us!

Larry Page's face changed, and he wondered: "Probably not, Steve's most hated company is Microsoft." ”

Lin Feng shook his head and smiled, and said meaningfully: "This is not necessarily ......."

His confidence lies in the fact that Larry Page would never have thought that Apple would join forces with Microsoft, and Google would need Cool Wind if it didn't want to lose these Nortel patents.

"What do you think Nortel's patents are worth?" Lin Feng asked again.

He knew that Larry Page's previous idea was that Google had bought all the patents by itself and had no intention of joining forces with Coolwind, after all, in a sense, Google and Cool Wind were also competitors.

It's just that because of the relationship between the Android Alliance, the relationship between the two is cooperation and competition in parallel.

On this point, Larry Page did not hide it: "It should not exceed $1 billion."

His reasons are very good, and there is no reason why the auction price of each of Nortel's core assets, optical networks, wireless assets, and enterprise networks, is less than $1 billion, and there is no reason why just some patents are more expensive.

Lin Feng shook his head.

Larry Page was right, but this was when there were no strong competitors!

These patents of Nortel Networks are involved in the changes in the pattern of the global smartphone industry......

When Apple, Microsoft and other companies make a move to snipe Android, the price will be raised to an outrageous price, $4.5 billion!

Google now has more than $30 billion in cash reserves, but is it willing, or worthwhile, paying that much for some of Nortel's network patents?

After all, Google is a public company, and it has to account to shareholders.

Coolwind, on the other hand, is not a publicly traded company and now has more than $16 billion in cash reserves.

If the two companies join forces, they can pay a more reasonable cost and jointly enjoy the rights and interests of these patents.

"As far as I know, Apple is definitely going to participate in the auction, and Microsoft will join RIM, Ericsson, Sony, EMC to form a consortium to participate in the auction, I suspect that at the critical moment, Apple will choose to join forces with Microsoft in order to weaken the Andriod camp, in that case, whether it is you or me, it will be weak and difficult to compete. ”

Lin Feng looked at Larry and said seriously: "Larry, it is the best choice for the two of us to join forces!"