Taking the microphone handed over by Bill Olsen, Eric did not sit in the chair, this detail was completely unexpected by him, and he also understood that this should be Bill Olson's hope that he could stay on stage for a little longer. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Like Bill Olson, patting the back of the simple folding back chair, Eric looked down the stage, looking at the first few rows of people who were incomparably shining in their previous lives and in this life, and they all looked up at themselves slightly at this time, thinking of the experiences of rebirth over the years, Eric had an unprecedented sense of hesitation in his heart, and those inexplicable emotions in recent days were suddenly swept away.

When the audience was completely silent, Eric put one hand on the back of the chair and said, "I think the first reaction of everyone when they see a chair is to sit down, especially when you realize that this chair is your place." However, for the next few minutes, I had to restrain myself from the thought of sitting down, and I hope that I will be able to restrain all such thoughts consistently in the days to come. Because once we sit down, we tend to start looking for comfort and lose motivation to move forward. ”

Many people in the audience didn't understand why Eric suddenly said this, and some media reporters even regarded the scene in front of them as a specially arranged show, so Eric's voice fell, and there was only a round of polite applause in the venue that was not too warm.

The smile on Eric's face didn't change in the slightest, and he continued, "A lot of people certainly don't understand why I'm saying this all of a sudden, and I'm not old enough to instill a philosophy in life. Actually, it was just a sudden feeling, and the chair in front of me should not have appeared on this stage, just like the original plan, I shouldn't be standing here now. All of this was changed in a hurry two hours ago, and I think the hundreds of journalists present here will be able to dig out the inside story of everything before the sun goes down today. The fact that you're here today is that you're sure to see the pinnacle of the record industry changed by Fireflyer and the Yahoo Music Store, but it's clear that people who have built their own chairs and started enjoying comfort don't want to see that change, so they're almost instinctively trying to delay or even stop it. ”

As Eric's voice fell, the banquet hall suddenly resounded with a buzz, the crazy spotlights turned on again, and some eager reporters had even begun to dial their mobile phones.

Eric clearly revealed what happened suddenly a few hours ago, except that the media crusade will add some blockages to the other party, it will not have any substantial impact on Sony, but this is just a small insignificant riposte, he quickly continued: "In fact, in this era of technological explosion, all business managers should have a sense that it is better to replace themselves than to be replaced by others." I admit that traditional portable music players are excellent, and they also bring too much fun to our lives. However, this does not become a reason to refuse to change, technological innovation and technological progress are the general trend of the whole era, now I can proudly say that Fireflyer is a disruptive and innovative product, however, I still look forward to the emergence of products that can replace Fireflyer, I hope that the creation of this product is the company within the Firefly system. As for those who hold on to their 'chairs', I will never persuade or even pray for you to make changes, I will tear down all your 'chairs', and by the way, smash all the bottles and cans around you, leaving you with nothing!"

Eric's last bold and ostentatious declaration caused everyone in the audience to fall into a brief moment of shock and silence, and then the banquet hall burst into the warmest applause and cheers of the entire press conference. Westerners generally advocate freedom and publicity, expecting to break authority, Eric's words just hit the excitement of many people, applause and cheers lasted for more than a minute, Eric was able to move on to the next link.

After the FIREFLYER press conference, starting from the evening newspaper of the day, in the following days, the media in North America and around the world appeared in the eye-catching pages of Eric standing next to the folding chair with the backrest, and the declaration about the removal of the 'chair' became the most exciting declaration of the conference.

However, although the media and the public generally have strong expectations for the Fireflyer, it is not without cold water.

The media also dug up the information that Celine Dion was temporarily pressured by Sony Records to cancel her performance at the Fireflyer press conference on the day after the press conference.

Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony's American branch, who was chased and intercepted by reporters, said that Fireflyer's dependence on CD drives and USB interfaces on PC hardware is too high, and although the sales volume of personal computers in North America in 1996 reached an astonishing 26 million units, it even exceeded the annual sales of traditional household appliances such as color TVs. However, because CD drives and USB ports have only been introduced in the last two years, many PCs don't even have these two interfaces, and the number of devices with both CD drives and USB ports is less than 5 million of the 26 million newly sold PCs last year. Even now, more than half of the mainstream PC models on the market do not include CD drives and USB ports, although the Fireflyer's $299 price is very affordable, but most families can't update thousands of dollars worth of PCs for a music player, so FireFlyer can only be regarded as a niche product for a long time, and it is impossible to compare with mainstream players such as Walkman, CD player, and MD Walkman.

Of course, Eric is also aware of what Howard Stringer said about this situation, and Firefly Electronics has calculated detailed information in the preliminary market research.

However, considering that there will be at least 10 million Fireflyer-enabled PCs in North America last year and this year's PC sales, Eric is still very optimistic about FireFlyer sales, and Bill Olson also predicts that Firefly Electronics should be able to achieve 1 million FireFlyer sales in the remaining nine months of the year.

In history, MP3 players first appeared in Japan and South Korea, and used flash storage media with very low capacity at that time, which was not only expensive, but also stored as many songs as a traditional cassette tape, and was far from being comparable to microhard drives, so it was not popular for a long time. Apple's use of microhard disk to make the iPod due to the initial Jobs platform closed strategy, also did not become popular, until 2005, under the persuasion of all the top management of Apple, Jobs promised that the iPod compatible with the Windows system, MP3 players completely realized the counterattack on the traditional player, and in that year it obtained more than 22 million sales, this number is more than twice the sales of all Apple's closed platform before the iPod.

In Eric's view, when the iPod platform was opened in 2005, it had actually missed the golden age of MP3 players, and as more and more mobile devices began to support music playback, MP3 players were quickly eliminated. At this time, Fireflyer can be said to be a one-step process, it uses a large capacity of microhard disk storage media, and supports the Windows platform from the beginning, even if the capacity and functions and PC support are not as rich and convenient as later, Eric is still very optimistic about the future of Fireflyer.

However, it turns out that the management of Eric and Firefly Electronics is still far from optimistic about the sales of 1 million units of Fireflyer this year.

After the press conference on April 2, Fireflyer officially began to sell on North American Best Buy chain stores and Amazon and other platforms on April 5, and achieved sales of a full 25,000 units on the day of sale, not because this number is a coincidence, but because the major sales platforms only have a stock of 25,000 units, and before four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, retail outlets across the United States have been announced to be sold out, and 5,000 units of Fireflyer in the Amazon online store were also swept away before the evening of the same day.

Fortunately, considering the pre-sales boom that Fireflyer may usher in after more than a month of publicity, Firefly Electronics stockpiled 100,000 players in advance, and that night, quickly replenished from the major warehouses located on the east and west coasts of the United States to the major chain stores, Firefly Electronics' assembly plant in San Francisco Fireflyer also began to release all production capacity, increasing the monthly output to the limit of 150,000 units.

Although many media outlets regarded the first day of Fireflyer sales as a temporary phenomenon due to advertising and topic effects, when the cumulative sales of Fireflyer exceeded 100,000 units on the fourth day of sales, and the single-day sales did not decrease in the slightest, everyone changed their opinions and was impressed with Fireflyer, and some retailers even began to increase the sales price of Fireflyer.

In four days, 100,000 units were sold, and the sales volume reached 25,000 units in a single day. According to this trend, even if consumers have cooled down after a period of time, the total sales of Fireflyer in 1997 will definitely not be only 1 million units.

After all, even the best-selling Walkman, the current annual sales volume is only 15 million units, and the average daily sales volume is less than 50,000 units, and this number is the total sales volume of the world's major consumer markets, if you only count the North American market, the single-day sales of the Walkman face the terrifying sales momentum of Fireflyer in recent days, there is no advantage at all.

Therefore, on April 8, the day that the sales of Fireflyer exceeded 100,000 units, Sony Records could not wait to announce that it would file a lawsuit in the federal court of San Francisco, demanding a ban on the production and sale of Fireflyer players on the grounds that Fireflyer would promote the spread of pirated music on the Internet.

The next day, April 9, a Gulfstream V-type landed at a small private airport outside East Hampton on Long Island, where Firefly CEO Victor McNairy and President Bill Olson stepped off the plane and boarded a black Bentley to greet them.

In just a few days, the two of them can be described as crazy, but the success came too fast and too violent, and the two of them were also in a strong sense of excitement, Fireflyer achieved sales of $30 million in four days, even if in the future, with the cooling of consumer enthusiasm, the data is halved, and the sales of Fireflyer this year will not be less than 3 million units, which means annual sales of $1 billion.

$1 billion is a miracle for a start-up company, and the two of them will also get very generous bonuses and option awards for it. Of course, the basis of all this is that Firefly Electronics must achieve capacity expansion as soon as possible, after all, Firefly Electronics' current San Francisco factory has a monthly output of only 150,000 units, which cannot meet the needs of the market at all.

In order to discuss new cooperation agreements with parts suppliers around the world, Victor McNelly and Bill Olsen had already packed their schedules for the coming week. However, Eric suddenly called them in the morning and asked the two to fly to New York to meet him, and even sent a plane under Firefly to pick them up. Victor McNelly and Bill Olsen hoped that something could be resolved by teleconference, but Eric was so adamant that they boarded the plane and rushed over.

The Bentley car drove into the East Hampton city, and Victor McNairy was still not satisfied with Eric's arrangement, and muttered in a low voice: "Eric may want to discuss with us the upcoming lawsuit filed by Sony Records, I think this concern is completely unnecessary, after all, according to the similar lawsuit cases that Sony received on video recorders back then, the federal court is likely to directly reject Sony Records' litigation claims, and will not file a case at all." ”

There is a system of case law in American law, that is, the basis for the judgment of similar cases in later cases based on the judgments of previous courts.

Sony's VCRs were sued by Disney and Universal for possible film and television rights for a decade, and finally Sony won. This time, Fireflyer's possible lawsuit is almost exactly the same as the Sony Video Recorder case back then, and according to the principles of case law, the federal court will basically directly dismiss Sony Records' claim this time. I just don't know how Sony's top management will feel when they realize that the lawsuit was dismissed on the basis of the power that their company had spent a long decade 'fighting' for.

Bill Olson looked at the driver in the front seat, he was too skilled in terms of human affairs or technology research and development, so he didn't complain with the other party, just smiled in agreement, looked at the block outside the car window, suddenly remembered something, and said to the driver: "Mr. Moen, are there any good gift shops nearby?"

Carter Moen looked at Bill Olsen in the rearview mirror and said, "Of course, it's not far ahead." ”

Bill Olsen said, "Then stop the trouble." ”

"No problem," Carter Morn smiled and nodded.

Victor McNelly asked, confused, "What are we doing in the gift shop?"

Bill Olsen was a little frustrated by this straightforward but slightly less emotionally intelligent partner, so he had to raise his foot and kick him in the leg, making a look in his eyes and motioning him to shut up. When Eric was in San Francisco a few days ago, he happened to mention that he was going to East Hampton to celebrate the birthdays of his two children, and Eric did not shy away from the fact that he already had children with either of them, which shows that he is still very close to the two children. Although I don't know if the birthdays of the two children have passed, since they are coming, it is always unruly to be empty-handed.

Carter Moen quickly parked his car outside a boutique in downtown East Hampton, and Bill Olson pulled Victor McNairy out of the car to pick out two nice birthday presents before driving to Eric's waterfront estate in East Hampton.

As the car pulls into the manor, Victor McNelly and Bill Olson enter the villa with Virginia, who greet them, and the two soon discover that the manor has two hostesses, as it is Joanna Pakula, who once played the heroine in "Tornado", who serves them coffee.

Eric is wearing a homely light-colored sweater and casual trousers, and takes two children about four years old to play with Lego bricks in the corner of the living room, with a bit of inexplicable harmony in the weird painting style. Seeing the two walk in, Eric hugged the actual little boy and greeted him together, Victor McNelly and Bill Olsen pretended to be unaware of this and gave gifts, Eric thanked them, and introduced them with a smile: "This is my son, Kevin, this is Xia Xia, my daughter." ”

Eric didn't introduce the two women too formally, Victor McNelley and Bill Olsen felt a little more relaxed, and then smiled and greeted the two little ones like two strange uncles, the little boy turned his head to his father's shoulder with some fear, but the little girl with beautiful big eyes looked at the two of them curiously, and also did not respond to the greetings of the two, which made Victor McNelly and Bill Olson somewhat embarrassed.

After a few casual pleasantries, Eric got up and took the two of them to the study to talk about things.

Virginia walked over and tried to pick Kevin over, but Eric just shook his head and said to her, "I'll come, besides, Jeff Bezos will come over later, you tell him to wait a minute." ”

After speaking, Eric walked towards the stairs with Kevin in his arms, and saw a small figure behind him also following them, Eric smiled and said, "Baby, you can't come along." ”

Hawaii looked at Kevin, who was still held in his father's arms, blinked, and said, "Dad is eccentric." ”

Although this sentence is complaining, Victor McNairy and Bill Olson always feel that the tone of the little girl is a little strange, if it is described in literary terms, it seems that the feelings are not full enough, and there are too many emotions that a daughter should have when she is spoiled by her father.

But they didn't dare to dig deeper, looked at each other, and quietly followed Eric.

Eric didn't seem to hear his daughter's complaints, but smiled and said, "Stay in the living room obediently, don't make trouble." ”

Amid the chuckle of Joanna and Virginia, the little girl, seeing that her words had no effect, obediently stopped and watched her father take the two guests up the stairs. (To be continued.) )