Eric didn't expect the Firefly management to do things so neatly, and as soon as the morning meeting was proposed, he made a move to JIVE Records in the afternoon. However, he is not too surprised, JIVE records were brilliant around 2000, and now Teen-Pop has not yet risen, and JIVE's market value is only less than 10 million US dollars, which is not worth mentioning compared to the entire Firefly group.

Hearing Howard Stringer use JIVE Records as a bargaining chip, Eric just smiled and said, "Howard, Katzenberg does plan to expand the strength of Firefly Records by acquiring some record companies with good potential in the near future, and since you say so, it must be true." However, unless Firefly is planning to buy the whole of Sony Records, I won't meddle in these small things, and if you have any doubts, you can call Katzenberg them. ”

Howard Stringer certainly couldn't have known that Eric had personally ordered this, and his heart was a little shaken when he heard him say this.

After receiving the news from JIVE, Howard Stringer hurriedly asked people to find the information of this inconspicuous subsidiary, and found that JIVE Records has been focusing on black hip-hop music, except for the opportunity to sign Will Smith but regretfully missed this industry gossip, JIVE Records has never cultivated any heavyweight black singers over the years, perhaps it is because of the long-term inaction in hip-hop that the management of JIVE Records is trying to transform recently。

After researching the company several times, Howard Stringer couldn't find anything about JIVE that attracted fireflies. Although he didn't find the key to it for a while, Howard Stringer didn't think it would be as simple as Eric said. looked at Eric, who was sitting opposite with an indifferent attitude. Howard Stringer ultimately decided on a showdown. "Eric, do you think this will work, Flower Pictures' distribution contract with Columbia remains unchanged, and in return, I can call the shots and sell JIVE Records to Firefly." ”

Compared to a mediocre sub-label, without "Night at the Museum" and "Forrest Gump," Colombia simply won't be able to find two more films that can fill the summer slot. Colombia's lining is frighteningly rotten. If even the superficial performance cannot be maintained, Sony will undoubtedly be under greater pressure from investors in the film business.

However, Eric still shook his head lightly, and said: "Howard, I said it, I don't care about the small thing you said about the acquisition of JIVE records, and you don't have to use this matter as a bargaining chip to talk about, I still said just now, this matter was provoked by Colombia first." Since you don't want to cooperate well, then everyone will go their separate ways. ”

Eric's lack of oil and salt made Howard Stringer feel a little angry in his heart. "Eric, Columbia's contract with Flower Pictures has not been terminated, and if Flower Pictures wants to forcibly terminate the distribution contract, Columbia does not rule out the opportunity to use litigation to protect its own interests." ”

Eric's body suddenly leaned forward a little, with a dangerous aura in his eyes, and said, "Howard, listen to me, don't do this, otherwise you will find that Columbia will face much more trouble than Flower Pictures." ”

Howard Stringer replied, "Eric, Colombia has enough trouble, and we don't mind having more trouble if we have no choice." ”

"And then?" said Eric, following Howard Stringer's words, and without waiting for the other man to speak, continued, "and then, you will find that business in Colombia is going to be even worse. You came from a media background, and Nobuyuki Idei hired you to revitalize Sony's entertainment industry in the United States, and if you can't do that, you won't have much value to Sony, and when the business in Colombia gets worse, Sony will of course have to find another scapegoat, and that person can only be you. And now, you have another choice, endure this, Colombia will only lose a summer file, but the situation will not continue to deteriorate, and the responsibility for the loss of summer file will only be blamed on the Sony executives at the level of Nobuyuki Idei. So, Howard, what are you going to do?"

Howard Stringer leaned back in his chair, his eyes flickering continuously, and he didn't say anything more for a few moments.

Eric no longer paid attention to the other party, felt the sunset on his body, stretched out his hand and beckoned the waiter not far away to come to the menu, discussed a few words with Elizabeth in a low voice, ordered dinner, and then handed the menu to the waiter, and said to Howard Stringer: "So, Howard, do you plan to stay for dinner together?"

Howard Stringer seemed to be awakened suddenly, shook his head slightly, said nothing, got up and left.

Eric just nodded, not getting up to say goodbye. Elizabeth looked at Howard Stringer and said, "Eric, aren't you afraid of pushing him into a hurry?"

Now that he has been able to climb to the position of CEO of Sony America, it is unlikely that he will do anything hot-headed. It's just that he will definitely find that the position of CEO of Sony USA will not be as good as he imagined, and it is certain that he will be depressed for a while. ”

Although Peter Cooper was kicked out of Colombia, because of projects such as "Men in Black", Colombia will definitely continue to survive in the shadow of fireflies for a few years. Unless Howard Stringer breaks his wrist from now on and abandons his dependence on fireflies to develop his own film business on his own. But the reality is that, judging from Howard Stringer's performance at Columbia Pictures after Howard Stringer took control of Sony's American subsidiary, it is clear that he does not have this talent, and there is not even a good manager in Columbia now.

In the days that followed, Columbia finally accepted the reality of terminating its distribution contract with Flower Pictures. Between insisting on fighting for Sony's interests and protecting his job, Howard Stringer clearly chose the latter.

However, Firefly also ran into trouble with the process of acquiring JIVE Records, and Sony Records simply rejected the Firefly takeover offer.

But. Eric is not interested in a contracted artist or the music rights owned by JIVE Records. Instead, in his previous life, he built the JIVE management team at the peak of the Teen-pop era.

The acquisition of JIVE Records was fruitless. Firefly waved a 'hoe' to the entire JIVE management team, and promised JIVE's CEO Barry Weiss the high position of president of Firefly Records, although Sony Records realized this and also increased the importance of JIVE Records, but between the president of Firefly Records and the subsidiaries of Sony Records, Barry Weiss had no place to hesitate at all, and soon led the entire JIVE management team to leave Sony Records to join Firefly.

Los Angeles International Airport.

The turbulence of the plane as it landed woke Owen Jacob from his dream, after more than twenty hours of flying. He was exhausted.

After more than three years of operation, and even sold a large part of the technology rights, Qualcomm was able to obtain the support of the South Korean government in CDMA, but because of the strong rise of GSM and its widespread popularity in Asia, the South Korean side began to waver, and Owen Jacob had to rush to South Korea to deal with the crisis in person.

Thinking of the current situation of Qualcomm in North America, Owen Jacob is also a little confused, the largest telecom operator in the United States AT-T has determined the GSM standard as a mobile communication standard, which directly caused a group of slightly inferior telecom operators to follow the footsteps of AT-T, and now Qualcomm is almost on the verge of survival. If it can't win over CDMA supporters in the United States as soon as possible, Qualcomm even has more advanced technology. It is inevitable that it will go bankrupt.

Now, the meeting with the young man has become a crucial opportunity for Qualcomm.

Walking out of the airport with his assistant and standing in the bright eyes of Los Angeles, Owen Jacob's mood relaxed a little, and after looking around in the crowd, he soon saw Alan Salmasi, one of Qualcomm's partners, greet him.

The two embraced, and Aaron Salmasi took Owen Jacob and the two into a black car, and instructed Owen Jacob's assistant to drive, and Aaron Salmasi took Owen Jacob to sit in the back seat.

As soon as he sat down in the car, Owen Jacob couldn't wait to ask, "Aaron, have you been in touch with Eric Williams?"

"Of course," Alan Salmasi nodded, "Tomorrow at noon, at the Cape Manor in Malibu, Eric Williams invites us to lunch. ”

Owen Jacob was a little anxious: "Tomorrow at noon, it's only ten o'clock in the morning, why don't you make an appointment today?"

Aaron Salmasi patted the old fellow on the shoulder: "Hey, Owen, relax, you've been flying for more than twenty hours, you always need to take a break, you don't want to go down to see Eric Williams in this state, besides, we always have to discuss that plan again, this is probably our last chance, if we miss it, our ten years of hard work will probably be in vain." ”

Hearing his friend say this, Owen Jacob also calmed down and nodded.

Driving all the way to a hotel in Santa Monica, Alan Salmasi had already arranged a hotel room with Owen Jacob and his assistant, and after a brief wash, Owen Jacob came to Aaron Salmasi's room.

Aaron Salmasi asked Owen Jacob to sit down on the couch and turned to make coffee.

As soon as Owen Jacob sat down, he was caught by a copy of Fortune magazine on the coffee table, because the cover of the magazine was a photo of Eric on the set of a movie. Picking up the magazine, Owen Jacob found a bookmark in the magazine, and curiously flipped through the page, but it was an article about the Firefly Group.

Owen Jacob glanced at it casually, and was quickly drawn to the content.

Aaron Salmasi walked over, noticing Owen Jacob's attentive look, carefully placed the filled coffee next to him, and sat down quietly on the couch on the other side.

At the beginning of the new year, countless media are looking back on the past and looking forward to the future.

For financial media, every new year is a dense time for them to statistically rank the economic data of the previous year. The Firefly Group, which frequently staged various big moves last year, is undoubtedly the focus of attention of the vast number of financial media in the United States. Although Firefly has not yet released its fourth-quarter earnings report and full-year financial results for the whole year, Fortune magazine predicts that Firefly Group's annual revenue in 1994 is likely to reach $18 billion. The annual net profit from operations will also be around $1.5 billion. Meantime. Firefly also had two significant non-operating revenues last year, $1.5 billion in divestments of print assets and $2.5 billion in the auction of Disney's animation division. With this strong profitability, Firefly has left Hollywood's second-ranked Time Warner Group behind to become a veritable media behemoth.

Patiently waiting for Owen Jacob to finish the article, Aaron Salmasi said, "Isn't it very surprised?"

Owen Jacob nodded and said, "More than $10 billion in cash reserves, $2.5 billion in discretionary cash flow, it's hard to imagine. Hollywood can produce such a profitable business, Eric Williams is only 25 years old this year, right?"

"Yes, but this young man simply appeared in this world to create miracles. Just like the Victoria's Secret annual show that was hyped by the media at the end of last year, Eric Williams spent $20 million in the luxury show in half a year in order to operate the Victoria's Secret brand, and many people originally thought that the $20 million expenditure could only be earned back from the Victoria's Secret brand value-added and product sales profits, but after the Victoria's Secret show released the videotape, it suddenly exploded in sales, and the $29.9 videotape per box is expected to sell 20 million boxes, which alone can bring Eric Williams $300 million in revenue. Subsequently, Eric Williams returned the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show to LTD. Got more than 200 million worth of shares," said Aaron Salmasi, who had clearly done a lot of preparation and learned a lot about Eric.

Owen Jacob is also a little embarrassed, but he is sixty-two years old this year, and although he has experienced the world, although he feels shocked, his heart is not too agitated.

The two finished a cup of coffee and chatted about business.

Aaron Salmasi handed the prepared materials to Owen Jacob and said, "This is a detailed plan, you can read it first." ”

Owen Jacob flipped through the information in his hand, the FCC had just held an auction of spectrum licenses for veteran telecom companies, for these veteran telecom companies that have obtained a section A and B licenses, Qualcomm's influence is very weak, and it is impossible to influence which mobile communication technology these old telecom companies use, so Qualcomm has focused on the C section license from the beginning.

Compared with the A and B section licenses are simply supplied to a limited number of companies, the C section license auction with countless bidders will undoubtedly be very fierce, and in the future, those small and medium-sized telecommunications companies that have paid a high price to win the spectrum license will definitely pursue more affordable mobile communication technology in the actual development. Compared with GSM technology, CDMA has great advantages in terms of network construction cost and spectrum utilization efficiency.

Qualcomm's worst-case plan at the beginning was that once the CDMA technology was abandoned by all established telecom operators, Qualcomm would try to get commercial opportunities from C-segment licensees.

However, after Eric expressed interest in Qualcomm, one of Qualcomm's partners, Alan Salmasi, soon had a very bold idea. They plan to get enough financial support from Eric, and then eat all the C-segment licenses in one go, and then bundle these spectrum licenses to small and medium-sized telecom operators at a relatively low price by bundling CDMA technology, so that even if CDMA technology fails in the mainstream telecom operators, with the promotion of C-segment licenses, CDMA technology can still occupy one-third of the mobile communications market.

"I've registered a company called Nextwave, and as long as I can get money from Eric Williams, I'm going to let go of Qualcomm's side and concentrate on running NextWave in preparation for grabbing all the C-B licenses," said Aaron Salmasi. ”

Owen Jacob put down the plan in his hand, although Aaron Salmasi's tone was full of anticipation, he knew very well that this old fellow, like himself, actually had no confidence in this matter.

Because of the private tacit understanding, the competition for section A and B licenses was not fierce, but the FCC still auctioned a total of $3.75 billion. If you want to buy all the spectrum licenses in the auction of segment C licenses, which has a large number of competitors, you need to be prepared for at least twice the premium of the A and B licenses, which is conservatively estimated to be US$4 billion.

After a moment's hesitation, Owen Jacob asked, "Aaron, how likely do you think Eric Williams is likely to provide us with $4 billion in support? Don't forget, Qualcomm is not even worth $400 million right now." ”

Supporting a company with a market capitalization of less than $400 million to execute a massive $4 billion plan is, in most people's view, something that only a madman would do.

Although a set of wording that has been repeatedly discussed has been prepared, in fact, neither Owen Jacob nor Aaron Salmasi has any confidence in their hearts, and the reason why they are forcing such an unrealistic plan is entirely because Qualcomm has no way out.

"Since Eric Williams reached out to us, we will definitely be able to get some support from him this time, and maybe Eric Williams can help us lobby a major telecom operator to adopt CDMA technology. As for this plan," Aaron Salmasi comforted Owen Jacob, and at the same time comforted himself, and then, looking at the prepared plan, a faint bitter smile appeared on his face: "As for this, if you try it, you may have a 1% chance of success, but if you don't try, there is nothing." (To be continued.) )