Chapter 161: Territory

Kawanishi Tsuyoshi spoke with certainty, without any posture of not putting Dongxin Semiconductor in his eyes at all. "We are developing a new generation of phone chips, with more powerful performance and more supported functions. In the future, it will also support functions like video phones."

"As long as Toshiba's new generation of chips is successfully developed, it can directly replace the Sirius chip. Today, how Dongling High-Tech rejected the olive branch we extended, it will have to run over and beg us to cooperate in the future!"

Hearing Kawanishi Tsuyoshi's words, the supervisor who had come from the Toshiba headquarters office nodded with satisfaction. "I will convey these words of yours to President Okamura Tadashi. The semiconductor department must handle Dongling High-Tech's affairs as soon as possible and don't affect Toshiba's stock price!"

Ever since being cleaned up by America, Toshiba had been unable to recover. Now, although it was still a giant company, possessing many industries like home appliances, computers, semiconductors, power generation, nuclear power plants, etc., it was the representative of Japanese manufacturing. The shipment volumes of televisions, notebook computers, etc., were all in the top ten globally.

But compared to ten years ago, Toshiba was somewhat inferior. Back then, Toshiba was world number one in many industries. People weren't afraid of comparing with others, but were afraid of "memory kills," living in the past and unable to extricate themselves. Toshiba belonged to this kind. The past was too brilliant, to the point that even if it was a rich household now, it felt like it was a fallen household.

This time, Toshiba President Okamura Tadashi hurriedly sent someone to ask, also because the rumors of Dongling High-Tech refusing to purchase Toshiba chips affected Toshiba's stock price.

After sending away this headquarters supervisor, Kawanishi Tsuyoshi's face suddenly became ugly. Don't look at him being certain just now; losing Dongling High-Tech's orders seemed to be insignificant.

But last year, Toshiba Semiconductor's revenue was around $6.1 billion, and the orders Dongling High-Tech purchased from Toshiba exceeded $260 million, which could already be considered one of the major clients.

Kawanishi Tsuyoshi saw the hot sales of digital cordless phones, so he constantly raised the price of phone chips. Dongling High-Tech was very dissatisfied with Toshiba chips raising prices, and Kawanishi Tsuyoshi naturally knew it, but he didn't care at all before...

After all, last year, the mainland chip industry had already been wiped out, and there was fundamentally no company developing chips. So Kawanishi Tsuyoshi felt that he had firmly held Dongling High-Tech, so he constantly raised the price of chips and occasionally cut off supply to tell Dongling High-Tech the importance of Toshiba chips!

But Kawanishi Tsuyoshi hadn't expected that Dongling High-Tech would dare to hard-hit Toshiba. The Dongxin Semiconductor it established had actually developed the Sirius chip and no longer purchased chips from Toshiba.

For a company like Dongling High-Tech, Kawanishi Tsuyoshi hadn't seen it for so many years. He originally thought it was a soft persimmon, just like the domestic VCD industry, letting Toshiba knead it, but he hadn't expected it to be a hard nail!

Kawanishi Tsuyoshi was also somewhat worried at this time. He was certain just now, but whether he could regain the advantage in the phone chip industry, Kawanishi Tsuyoshi also had no bottom in his heart. But he couldn't show weakness in front of Toshiba's Okamura Tadashi, otherwise, his position as president of Toshiba Semiconductor would probably not be guaranteed immediately.

While Toshiba Semiconductor was trying every means to target Dongling High-Tech, on the other side, there was a company that was much more headache-prone than Toshiba.

Inside Ximen, the atmosphere these past few days had been very subtle. Su Bile, the CEO who was known for being gentle and elegant—at least on the surface—toward Ximen staff, had a face that was visibly not good-looking these past few days.

Ximen digital cordless phones had suffered a crushing defeat in North America. This was no longer a secret at the Ximen headquarters. After all, quite a few European media outlets had reported it overwhelmingly. Europe wasn't an iron plate; France, Germany, and England were all spraying each other. If one side was in trouble, the other eight sides would like it...

These past few days, all kinds of news were spreading wildly inside Ximen. There were even rumors that the Ximen digital cordless phone department might be cut, which made people even more anxious for a time.

Once again coming out of the conference room, Su Bile was full of exhaustion. Following Su Bile back to the office step by step was Kerlot, the person in charge of the Ximen phone department.

Kerlot was now full of gratitude toward Su Bile. Just now at the board meeting, Su Bile had actually withstood the pressure of a group of Ximen directors and protected him, not letting him roll out of Ximen.

Before, there had always been voices spreading rumors that Kerlot was Su Bile's puppet and mouthpiece in the phone department, and was even a scapegoat. If there was a problem, it was letting him take the blame.

Even Kerlot thought so. When Ximen phones were reversed again and suffered a crushing defeat in America, Kerlot had already prepared his resignation letter. Who knew that Su Bile would actually protect him, which made Kerlot somewhat grateful and tearful for a time.

The position of Ximen department manager, placed in Germany and Europe, was a high-paying position. The annual salary, bonuses, plus dividends, etc., were all over several hundred thousand US dollars. If lucky, the annual salary had a chance to reach over one million US dollars. Such a job wasn't so easy to find. If he could stay, who would be willing to roll out...

Looking at Kerlot, who was diligently pouring water and making coffee for him, Su Bile sighed in his heart. What kind of ability this goods had, how could he not be clear? His ability was not even as good as his predecessor, Frankl.

But Su Bile had to protect Kerlot. This wasn't about his ability, but if two consecutive phone department managers were swept out of the house, it would make people doubt his vision for picking professional managers, as well as his ability—whether he was truly the big figure in the rumors, on the same level as GE CEO Welch, IBM CEO Gerstner, and Kyocera's Inamori Kazuo.

The key was that losing to Shenzhou twice in a row, falling into the same pit twice, for a giant company like Ximen, was truly unjustifiable, and could even be said to be losing face. If it were said that it was entirely the responsibility of the Ximen phone department manager, then did he, the Ximen CEO, have responsibility?!

Some things couldn't be investigated deeply. Otherwise, pulling the gourd and hanging the ladle, one would find that under the buttocks, none were clean; all were a pile of that stuff!

Keeping Kerlot could serve as a firewall, ensuring that the failure of digital cordless phones wouldn't burn to him. This was office fighting technique. Su Bile didn't want to use these, but sometimes, he had to use them. He had to keep a useful body to lead Ximen and find a way to get back at Dongling High-Tech in the future!

"President Su Bile, Thomas over there wants to come to Germany to report to you and the board of directors. He has prepared a new plan against Shenzhou Phone."

"No need!"

Su Bile said directly upon hearing this, "Let him not come to Germany anymore. The board of directors has decided to send an investigation team from the headquarters to America to handle the follow-up affairs. Just let him cooperate!"

Kerlot knew that this basically decided the fate of Thomas, the person in charge of Ximen Phone America. Once the people sent by the headquarters took over the business in America, it would be the time for Thomas to roll out.

Thinking that Thomas was about to be swept out of the house, Kerlot couldn't help but feel a sense of "rabbit dying and fox grieving." Thomas had ability, but he happened to run into Shenzhou, which didn't play by the rules. The result became a crushing defeat. Not to mention Thomas, facing Shenzhou's fierce attack, the performance of any professional manager was estimated to be about the same as Thomas, and might even be worse.

But this kind of thought was just for a moment. "Dead friend, not dead priest." If Thomas didn't roll out, it would be his, Kerlot's, turn to roll out.

"In the future, what should be done on the side of the digital cordless phone department?!" Kerlot tentatively asked Su Bile.

Hearing this, Su Bile looked at him with dissatisfaction. This goods was truly a mouthpiece and couldn't handle anything at all. Expecting him to clean up the mess and reorganize was fundamentally not worth thinking about.

Su Bile fell into deep thought. Ximen's crushing defeat in the digital cordless phone industry—perhaps it couldn't be counted as a crushing defeat. Ximen was still the second largest brand in this industry, with shipment volumes of several hundred thousand sets every month and revenue of over $10 million. But for Ximen, not becoming the industry number one was already a defeat.

But the wood was already a boat. Shenzhou had already become the leader in digital cordless phones. The rest, whether it was Ximen, Philips, Panasonic, or General Electric, could only fight to be the industry number two and were hard to challenge Shenzhou's status.

The key was that the failure of digital cordless phones also disrupted Su Bile's plan. His original plan was to occupy the digital cordless phone industry. With this market of several billion US dollars and enough funds, he would support Ximen to enter the mobile phone industry with the most potential.

In this way, Ximen could establish a huge telecommunications equipment empire. But now, the start was unfavorable, which disrupted all of Su Bile's subsequent plans.

"Reduce advertising investment, retain the current engineers and R&D team, and don't increase R&D personnel in the future!"

Su Bile said to Kerlot. This decision of his didn't abandon Ximen phones, but he wouldn't increase investment anymore. In the future, sell as many machines as possible. He was no longer prepared to fight Shenzhou in this trade, or was temporarily giving up.

Kerlot breathed a long sigh of relief upon hearing this. For the Ximen phone department, this was already the best choice. As long as the department and personnel weren't stopped or cut, it was enough.

After Kerlot left, Su Bile picked up the phone on the table. After thinking for a moment, he dialed the number, "Accelerate R&D. At the latest by the end of the year or next year, I want to see the first Ximen mobile phone launched and sold!"

"Dongling High-Tech," after putting down the phone, Su Bile muttered to himself. Originally, he only had a few points of vigilance toward Dongling High-Tech. Now, he began to treat Dongling High-Tech as a true opponent. Su Bile felt that there would definitely be opportunities to cross swords with Dongling High-Tech in the future!

Shenzhou reaching the position of the world's largest digital cordless phone brand affected not only Ximen and Toshiba, but other brands that wanted to enter this trade could now only fight for the position of number two.

And for Dongling High-Tech, it finally had a place of its own in the global tech industry since its debut. With this industry of digital cordless phones worth several billion US dollars, Dongling High-Tech had a piece of territory belonging to itself in the tech industry!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 162 =====