Chapter 157: Having Eyes but Not Recognizing Mount Tai

The news transmitted from Tokyo Finance media in Japan was first reprinted by Hong Kong media, and then reprinted by media in the mainland, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and other places.

And just when mainland media were still in a state of astonishment, a piece of news from Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao directly pushed the heat of public opinion up by several times.

"A laboratory in America dismantled the latest model of Shenzhou digital cordless phones. Some of its machines have already been equipped with new types of phone chips, which are produced by Yanjing Shougang NEC company on their behalf!"

"The architecture of this model of chip is completely different from the phone chips supplied by Toshiba Semiconductor to Shenzhou. No company has ever used it before. Its key performance is already on par with Toshiba and Infineon phone chips, and some performance even exceeds them!"

If the news transmitted from Tokyo Finance only made mainland media astonished, then the news from Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao was like a raging fire, directly igniting domestic public opinion.

The public opinion about Shenzhou Phone using self-developed chips even exceeded the news of Shenzhou, Coolpad, and Simon brands selling wildly in America.

This piece of news shocked countless people even more than Shenzhou Phone reversing the situation against Ximen in America.

"Shenzhou series phones hit over one million in single-day sales in North America!"

"Winning twice—Shenzhou reverses the situation against Ximen again in the face of the wind. Ximen becomes the eternal second in the digital cordless phone market!"

"Pioneering a new marketing model for the telecommunications industry, telecommunications operators in many places around the world are seeking to cooperate with Shenzhou Phone to launch 'top up phone bill and get a phone' activities similar to Atlantic Bell!"

Inside the Yanjing Business Daily, Feng Miaoyu saw that her own newspaper office was also reporting wildly on the news of Shenzhou selling wildly in North America.

When the Yanjing Business Daily held an internal meeting that day, the Yanjing Business Daily reporter who supported Shenzhou shook the newspaper, his expression unable to hide his excitement, "Shenzhou really reversed the situation. I knew Shenzhou could reverse it!"

As for the reporter who tended to report that Ximen had already won in North America, he was blank-faced at the moment. Clearly, Ximen had already occupied such a huge advantage, yet it was still reversed and defeated so cleanly.

Shenzhou Phone's major price cuts, as well as the means of topping up phone bills to get phones as gifts carried out with Atlantic Bell, were simply too amazing. No one could have thought that Shenzhou would dare to lower prices like that!

Now there were voices in the phone industry that Shenzhou's price cut not only hammered Ximen to death, but other companies that were still itching to enter the digital cordless phone industry were also all stuck. Any company, including Panasonic, Philips, General Electric, and even domestic companies shouting that they wanted to enter this trade, couldn't possibly produce digital cordless phones cheaper than Simon.

This price cut, in reality, also hammered the entire digital cordless phone industry to death. From now on, the digital cordless phone industry could only be divided into Shenzhou series brands and other brands of phones...

"This move of cooperation with Atlantic Bell is also truly exquisite. I heard that China Telecom and China Unicom, which were broken off from the Post and Telecommunications Bureau, also want to find Shenzhou Phone to cooperate!"

Inside the Yanjing Business Daily, a host of reporters and editors were also discussing Shenzhou Phone. This battle in America basically established Shenzhou's absolute advantage in the digital cordless phone industry and also meant that the electronic industry had an industry led by domestic companies!

"Is Shenzhou Phone's chip really developed by themselves and produced by Shougang NEC on their behalf?!"

When the group in the newspaper office was discussing, they couldn't help but bring up phone chips. The newspaper office was the place that received news most sensitively. They were clearer about the situation of the domestic chip industry today than the outside world, and they also knew the significance after this chip appeared.

The appearance of this chip from Shenzhou would produce an unpredictable impact not only on the phone industry but also on the domestic chip industry.

"Miaoyu, didn't you interview Dongling High-Tech? Did you find out anything about phone chips?!" In the newspaper office, someone asked Feng Miaoyu.

Shaking her head and smiling bitterly, Feng Miaoyu also helplessly said, "Dongling High-Tech's confidentiality work is done too well. I didn't receive any wind of it at all. However..."

Thinking of the scene during the interview that day, and Li Dongling's expression when he mentioned being able to defeat Ximen, Feng Miaoyu said, "Perhaps, this matter is true. Dongling High-Tech really developed phone chips!"

"Quick!"

"Add an issue today!"

The editor-in-chief of the newspaper office ran in hurriedly and said to Feng Miaoyu and the others, "The Economic Daily interviewed Shougang NEC, and Shougang NEC admitted that it is producing 'Sirius' chips for Dongxin Semiconductor on their behalf!"

For a state-owned enterprise like Yanjing Shougang NEC, producing domestic chips on behalf of others, and it being the first commercial general-purpose chip autonomously developed, autonomously designed, and autonomously produced in the domestic phone industry, this was already a political achievement for Yanjing Shougang and the leaders of Shougang NEC. It was fundamentally impossible to deny it.

In a certain sense, this credit was far more important than how much money the Shougang NEC company earned. After all, for a state-owned enterprise, the money earned couldn't be taken home by the leaders, but if they made political achievements, the leaders in the factory could be promoted. Shougang understood which was lighter and which was heavier very clearly. To put it impolitely, even if Dongxin Semiconductor lowered the price now, Shougang would probably be willing to do it even if it lost money. Other state-owned chip factories were the same.

Overseas media had already reported it, so there was no need to cover it up anymore. Before accepting the interview with the Economic Daily, Shougang NEC manager Meng Zongwei called Dongxin Semiconductor and Li Dongling. Immediately after, when accepting the interview with the Economic Daily, he officially admitted that they were producing Sirius chips on their behalf!

One stone stirred up a thousand waves. When the Economic Daily took the lead in releasing the news that Shougang NEC was indeed producing "Sirius" chips for Dongxin Semiconductor on their behalf, a host of large domestic media outlets like the Yanjing Daily, the Industrial and Commercial Daily, the China Youth Daily, and the Guangzhou Daily all began to reprint and report it.

"The Sirius chip was developed by the R&D team led by Academician Ni Guangnan of Dongxin Semiconductor. This is the first domestic phone chip autonomously designed, developed, and produced in our country, solving the history of our country's phone chips relying on imports for the past ten years!"

"The person in charge of Dongxin Semiconductor claims that starting from June this year, Dongxin Semiconductor will launch 'Sirius' chips of different models and officially supply them to domestic phone manufacturers!"

"Experts predict that starting next year, the demand for various domestic landline chips will exceed 60 million pieces. In the next ten years, the total global demand for phone chips will exceed one billion..."

In the evening, the CCTV-2 Finance Channel reported the news of the Sirius chip during prime time, and at the end of the news, it released a phone interview with Ni Guangnan!

This was the first time Ni Guangnan appeared in front of the public after leaving Lenovo. No one expected that it would be in this way.

Back then, after Ni Guangnan left Lenovo, media outlets that had close relationships with Lenovo and Boss Liu had asserted that Ni Guangnan's technology was not bad, but it was Lenovo that achieved him. Without the platform given by Lenovo, Ni Guangnan would be just as unknown as the countless technical personnel. After leaving Lenovo, he would disappear among the crowd.

But no one expected that after leaving Lenovo, Ni Guangnan would appear in front of the media again so quickly, and he was even carrying "Sirius" to come out of the mountains!

Back then, Lenovo didn't support Ni Guangnan in doing chips, but now Ni Guangnan had done it himself. Although the difficulty of phone chips and computer chips couldn't be mentioned in the same breath, a chip was a chip. The first commercial chip in the country was done by Dongxin Semiconductor and Ni Guangnan. This point would be recorded in the domestic history of science and technology!

The successive reports from the Economic Daily and the CCTV Finance Channel had already confirmed the existence of Sirius and were also like nailing the final coffin nail for Ximen digital cordless phones. Shenzhou dared to fight a price war not because it was losing money to earn a shout, but because it had truly developed its own chips, and the cost had already dropped significantly.

Now, the only key components left for Shenzhou Phone were the backlit screens, which were still purchased from Sharp. The rest of the key components, including chips and batteries, could all be produced in-house or supplied by domestic component manufacturers. The cost had dropped by more than several times compared to before!

"Academician Ni Guangnan is the number one person in the domestic chip field. Semiconductor practitioners claim that Academician Ni Guangnan has made the domestic chip industry advance by more than ten years!"

"Chip experts claim that the appearance of the Sirius chip and the hot sales of digital cordless phones represented by Shenzhou will bring new opportunities to the domestic chip industry. Multiple chip manufacturers, including Shougang NEC, Huajing, and Shanghai Factory 14, have all received new orders from Dongxin Semiconductor!"

In the past, the reason why domestic chip factories were unwilling to develop technology and introduce new production lines was that after working hard to develop technology and buying or building production lines, the result was that there were no orders at all. Whoever did it lost money, so naturally, no one was willing to do it.

Now that they could receive orders from Dongxin Semiconductor, no matter how much they earned, at least there were orders. With orders, there was a chance to survive, rather than being like Shougang before, relying entirely on Japan's NEC for orders. Once NEC withdrew the orders, Shougang Semiconductor would be finished. Now with Dongxin Semiconductor's orders, at least there was one more way to survive!

On the television in an office at Lenovo, news reports about the Sirius chip and Ni Guangnan were playing.

Looking at the touting of Dongxin Semiconductor and Ni Guangnan on the television, in every word, it was saying that Ni Guangnan choosing the chip industry was an absolutely correct choice and was the good fortune of the domestic chip industry. The implication was that Ni Guangnan leaving Lenovo to join Dongxin Semiconductor was Lenovo having eyes but not recognizing Mount Tai...

Guo Wei, Yang Yuanqing, and a host of Boss Liu's confidants all unconsciously looked toward Boss Liu. Visibly, they could see Boss Liu's face turning black. Seeing that the atmosphere was wrong, Guo Wei stood up and turned off the television.

A moment later, Boss Liu smiled and said to his confidants, "Domestic media just likes to exaggerate. Those who don't know would think that Dongxin Semiconductor is about to become the savior of the domestic semiconductor industry. It's just a phone chip!"

"Don't judge a hero by temporary success or failure. Everyone doesn't need to care about the news in the media. Facts will prove that the path Lenovo is taking is the most correct one!"

"Believe it or not, it won't be long before you hear the news of Dongxin Semiconductor's losses. For the domestic tech industry, what's most important now is to survive, rather than doing these fancy and impractical things."

Guo Wei and the others nodded repeatedly to Boss Liu's words. Now the Lenovo newspaper and many media outlets were building momentum, pushing Boss Liu to the position of domestic business godfather. Guo Wei and these confidants naturally didn't dare to violate Boss Liu's words.

But no matter what Boss Liu and Lenovo thought, Shenzhou's crushing defeat of Ximen in America and the appearance of the Sirius chip still caused a huge uproar domestically. Apart from the media, Dongling High-Tech's component supply chain suppliers were even starting a carnival!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 158 =====