Chapter 310: Welcoming

After Daniel returned to Europe, Logitech immediately announced that it had become the second company in the world capable of producing optical mice, causing a stir in the industry.

Logitech did not announce what agreement had been reached with Silver Mink, but looking at Logitech's actions, everyone knew that they must have paid a hefty price.

But this price was worth it. After announcing that they had secured the optical mouse patent, HP immediately announced that it would continue to cooperate with Logitech and subsequently placed an order for over 500,000 optical mice with Logitech. This order alone was worth nearly 7 million USD!

The securities firm providing assistance to Logitech also announced that it would continue to provide IPO assistance, and the Swiss Stock Exchange subsequently announced that it had formally accepted Logitech's listing application.

Once the IPO was successful, Logitech would instantly become the world's largest computer peripheral company. Regardless of whether it would be surpassed in the future, media outlets had already crowned Logitech as the "King of Peripherals"!

But mice, after all, like keyboards, speakers, headphones, and webcams, were computer accessory products. Their current impact wasn't as great as it would be in later generations, nor did they receive as much attention.

But the Shenzhou USB flash drive was different. From the moment it went on sale, it showed signs of changing the storage industry. The market for USB flash drives was clearly much more popular in America, Canada, Old Europe, Hong Kong, and Singapore than the Silver Mink mouse.

Plus, unlike the mouse industry where users cared about brands, in the current USB flash drive industry, there was only one brand: Shenzhou. Users had no choice, so who cared where the parent company of the Shenzhou USB flash drive was from!

"Hong Kong media reports that Dongling Gao Ke, the inventor of the Shenzhou USB flash drive, may have recently broken through the 64M memory USB flash drive. If the news is true, it will make the already hot USB flash drive market even hotter!"

"Lu Chao, General Manager of Dongling Gao Ke Europe, claimed in an interview with the Financial Times that the next step for the Shenzhou USB flash drive is the development of a plastic-cased version, which will further reduce costs and make it a mass-market consumer electronic product!"

"Japanese storage industry expert and University of Tokyo professor Ishiro Santa harshly criticized Japanese manufacturers like Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic, and NEC for their lack of progress, handing over the USB flash drive market. Professor Ishiro Santa believes that the annual demand for USB flash drives and related products for global computers and other electronic products will reach over 10 million units, with revenue exceeding billions of dollars..."

Inside Toshiba Semiconductor, the TV was playing some Japanese media reports about the Shenzhou USB flash drive. The content wasn't much, but for Toshiba, it wasn't good news.

Murakami Masatsugu, who had visited Hanxi last time to attend the Shenzhou USB flash drive launch, kept stealing glances at his immediate superior, Kawanishi Go, President of Toshiba Semiconductor.

Kawanishi Go's face was somewhat gloomy, and his mood couldn't be read, but based on Murakami Masatsugu's understanding of Kawanishi Go, he should be furious to the extreme right now.

After all, the flash memory technology for the Shenzhou USB flash drive was authorized by Kawanishi Go himself, for which he collected 8-9 million USD in patent fees from Dongling Gao Ke annually, to be collected for five consecutive years.

That meant it would be five years before Toshiba could reclaim the memory patents and technology licensed to Dongling Gao Ke. As for whether Dongling Gao Ke would still need Toshiba's flash memory patents in five years, that was hard to say.

But compared to the annual market for USB flash drives, the 8-9 million in patent fees was no longer a question of whether Toshiba was losing money; it had almost become a joke in the industry.

In the tech industry, technology had to be upgraded once every two years, or even once a year, or multiple times. The current flash memory technology, let alone five years from now, might even be obsolete by next year, and Dongling Gao Ke might not even look at it anymore...

Plus, with the current popularity of USB flash drives, some institutions had begun to predict that the global USB flash drive market would exceed 10 billion USD within a decade. Murakami Masatsugu didn't dare to imagine how many manufacturers would flood into this industry by then.

The more companies that flooded in, the fiercer the competition, and the faster the technological updates. Look at the Shenzhou USB flash drive; how long did it take to upgrade from 32M to 64M memory? It was probably only a matter of a few years before USB flash drive memory soared to 128M, 256M, or even larger. By then, Toshiba's technology would probably be outdated, let alone earning patent fees by licensing it to the Shenzhou USB flash drive.

"American media broke the news that the largest storage manufacturer in America and the second-largest storage giant in the world, PNY, sent its Vice President to the mainland market today, with Hanxi as the first stop.

The PNY President's trip to Hanxi is likely to negotiate USB flash drive patent licensing with the parent company of the Shenzhou USB flash drive. Since the launch of the USB flash drive, PNY has repeatedly expressed its willingness to cooperate with Dongling Gao Ke on the USB flash drive project!"

Just as Murakami Masatsugu was still guessing Kawanishi Go's thoughts, another piece of news appeared, causing Kawanishi Go, who was already gloomy, to finally lose control. He stood up, grabbed a glass from the table, and smashed it directly at the Toshiba TV.

The loud noise startled Murakami Masatsugu. Kawanishi Go roared like an angry bull, "Thieves! The flash memory patent belongs to Toshiba, and the USB flash drive should also belong to Toshiba!"

"Flash memory technology was invented by Toshiba! Why cooperate with Dongling Gao Ke on USB flash drives!"

Facing Kawanishi Go's fury, Murakami Masatsugu and the others didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

After venting, Kawanishi Go slumped into his chair. Toshiba Semiconductor had lost to Dongling Gao Ke for the second time, and he had personally assisted them.

Kawanishi Go had originally just wanted to use Toshiba's flash memory technology to test Dongling Gao Ke and see what tricks they were playing.

As a result, this test ended in a loss of both the lady and the soldiers; not only did he give away the flash memory technology, but he also let Dongling Gao Ke create the USB flash drive!

Even if the USB flash drive market wasn't as exaggerated as the media reported, it was entirely possible for it to expand to a market of around 1 billion USD within three years!

And now, the key to this 1-billion-USD gold mine within three years, and a 10-billion-USD gold mine within a decade, was held in the hands of Dongling Gao Ke!

Toshiba Semiconductor's revenue last year was less than 6 billion USD. Kawanishi Go could say he didn't feel the pain of losing 300-500 million USD in the landline chip market, but he didn't know if he could handle losing this gold mine, which was equivalent to one-sixth of Toshiba Semiconductor's annual revenue. But the Toshiba President probably couldn't explain it to the board of directors.

"President Kawanishi Go, there are rumors that PNY from America, Jin Shidun, Samsung from Korea, and even... Sony are all interested in joining the USB Alliance, paying patent fees to Dongling, and launching their own brands of USB flash drive products!"

Murakami Masatsugu looked at Kawanishi Go and said cautiously.

Giants like Jin Shidun, Samsung, and Sony, after observing for a long time, finally couldn't resist the massive amount of dollars brought by USB flash drives. What was wrong with paying patent fees to a mainland company? The same question remained: was face more important, or were dollars more important? Did this question need more than three seconds of consideration?!

"What should we do now, Toshiba? If we don't act now, the overseas USB flash drive market will be snatched away!"

Murakami Masatsugu said. Because of Japan's unique mindset, USB flash drives were truly difficult to become popular in Japan, so Japanese manufacturers had to sell them to overseas markets to enter the industry. This required entering the market early; once the market was carved up, they wouldn't even get the leftovers.

Kawanishi Go glared at Murakami Masatsugu. Since the launch of the Shenzhou USB flash drive, the Toshiba President had been calling him several times a day, urging Toshiba Semiconductor to enter the USB flash drive market. What could Kawanishi Go do!

"You fly to Hanxi again, find Dongling Gao Ke, and no matter what, you must get the USB flash drive patent license for Toshiba. Toshiba Semiconductor needs to enter the USB flash drive industry!"

Toshiba had previously licensed flash memory technology to Dongling Gao Ke, and now they were begging the other party to license the USB flash drive patent to Toshiba. Murakami Masatsugu felt that Kawanishi Go had dug a hole and buried Toshiba Semiconductor in it...

"But if we want to get the USB flash drive patent license from Dongling Gao Ke, I'm afraid we'll have to pay a hefty price!"

Murakami Masatsugu still remembered that when Dongling Gao Ke sent people to get flash memory technology from Toshiba last time, Kawanishi Go didn't hold back on various conditions. Now that it was his turn to go, Murakami Masatsugu didn't know what kind of treatment he would receive.

"I said it, no matter what method you use, you must get the USB flash drive patent license. Otherwise, don't come back!"

Kawanishi Go said with a cold face, leaving Murakami Masatsugu with a bitter heart.

"You've gotten much darker. Was everything smooth in Brazil this time?!"

Inside the Pingyang Yuhe Leisure Resort, Zhang Ao personally came out to welcome Zhu Zhao Jiang, who had just returned from Brazil, and brought him into the resort.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 311 =====