Chapter 340: Baiting the Hook

Wang Jizhi, who was sitting not far away, saw the scene between Li Dongling and Duan Yongji. Although there was no dispute between the two sides, Wang Jizhi clearly felt that the atmosphere was wrong, and he sat up straight in an instant.

Wang Jizhi was too familiar with Duan Yongji. He was too familiar with Duan Yongji's style and way of doing things. On the surface, he looked harmless, but when he took action, it was a thunderous means.

Wang Jizhi didn't know what the two sides had discussed, but looking at Duan Yongji's demeanor, he felt that Duan Yongji was already in a state of anger or even fury at this moment.

After Li Dongling refused Duan Yongji's proposal, the two sides didn't dispute, but the scene clearly cooled down.

After Li Dongling hit a few balls, he returned to the parasol and sat down. Wang Jizhi leaned over and whispered a reminder to Li Dongling, "Li Zong, be careful of Duan Yongji's side. Old Duan has always been ruthless in his actions. You must be careful!"

"Thank you, Wang Gong, for the reminder!"

Li Dongling still regarded Wang Jizhi as a technical giant, not some company general manager.

Wang Jizhi was also very satisfied with this "Wang Gong." He said a few more words to Li Dongling about the past events within Sitong back then.

"Back then, Old Duan proposed the goal of Sitong benchmarking against America's IBM company and fully started cooperating with Japanese companies, entering industries like real estate, securities, and medicine. As a result, they all failed, and Sitong's accumulated funds were burned dry."

"At that time, the Sitong board of directors decided to let Old Duan leave and let me serve as Sitong president. But Old Duan's methods were indeed brilliant!"

Wang Jizhi laughed at himself. "To this day, I still can't figure out how I was turned over by Old Duan. At that time, the Sitong board of directors, including me, seven people all demanded to fire Old Duan."

"But in the end, Old Duan kept his position under the mediation of certain people in the development zone and continued to be Sitong's president. On the contrary, the four of us directors were swept out of the house!"

Li Dongling nodded. Wang Jizhi's words were very clear. Duan Yongji was good at being smooth and versatile, acting decisively at critical moments, being able to give up a large amount of benefits to pull in the support of key figures, and winning against opponents by using means outside the rules.

To put it bluntly, it was about using any means necessary. The level of Wang Jizhi, who came from a technical background, was truly far behind that of Duan Yongji.

However, Wang Jizhi's words also made Li Dongling have to be more vigilant. Duan Yongji plus a host of members of the Taishan Industry Research Association still had to be careful.

"Wang Gong, you came to see me today, what is the matter?" Li Dongling glanced at Duan Yongji and the other in the distance, who were whispering to each other, and asked Wang Jizhi.

"There are some things!"

Mentioning this, Wang Jizhi's old face was also a bit embarrassed. As an old cannon in the industry, his debut time was much earlier than Li Dongling's, but now, Wang Jizhi still had fame and Jianghu status.

But how to put it? When others mentioned him, they might respect him a bit, but... it was just verbal respect. Why didn't Duan Yongji care about Wang Jizhi now? Because Wang Jizhi now only had a title but couldn't threaten him and Sitong, so naturally, he didn't need to care.

Looking at Duan Yongji in the distance, thinking of Duan Yongji's contempt for him, Wang Jizhi hardened his heart. What did it matter if he lost his old face? Could it be more embarrassing than being unable to lift his head in front of his rival, Duan Yongji?

"I hope to cooperate with Dongling High-Tech on the printer project!"

"Now the typewriter market is being replaced by printers. Sitong's main business being replaced is already a certainty, but Sitong is still holding onto typewriters and won't let go!"

Wang Jizhi sneered. Anyone with a discerning eye could see that typewriters were already outdated. Especially after computers began to popularize, this typewriter thing was simply a firefly competing with the bright moon compared to printers.

But Sitong was now holding onto the typewriter's credit book and wouldn't let go, still living in the past. Now Sitong's typewriters could still sell, but when computers were popularized on a large scale in the country, that would be the time when typewriters were replaced.

"Now the domestic printer market is mainly occupied by Japanese companies like Canon, Kyocera, and Epson. Lenovo launched the first generation of Chinese laser printers a few years ago."

"But, that printer's patents, technology, and components were almost all taken from the American partner. It was basically working for that American company, and the technology was not as good as Canon's!"

Wang Jizhi looked up at Li Dongling. "Actually, a few years ago, when the joint laboratory was established at Dongling High-Tech, I had thought about cooperating with Dongling High-Tech to develop the printer project, but..."

Wang Jizhi didn't continue. Li Dongling could also guess what happened. At that time, Wang Jizhi had just come out of Sitong and was at his most arrogant, wanting to make a big splash again. Asking him to defect to Dongling High-Tech, which hadn't been established for long, was really hard for him to swallow.

However, who knew that Wang Jizhi hadn't made any name for himself in these years, and his reputation as Sitong's chief engineer had also been consumed. Hearing that Li Dongling was here today, Wang Jizhi finally pulled down his old face and came over, wanting to fight one more time!

"Li Zong, I believe that the printer market has a future. The domestic copier and printer market has just begun, and the future market will be even bigger!"

Wang Jizhi said to Li Dongling with a bit of excitement. Wang Jizhi was still better at R&D technology. From the previous typewriter to the current printer, he wanted to fight one more time.

Li Dongling looked at Wang Jizhi before him. Like Academician Ni, Li Dongling didn't doubt Wang Jizhi's technology.

The printer market appeared in the 1980s. With the arrival of the computer era, printers ushered in an explosion. HP had created the first color printer a few years ago.

There was no need to doubt the future market for printers and copiers. Open the map, and there would definitely be copy shops with copiers and printers every few streets. Even home printers began to enter thousands of households. The global printer market reached over 50 billion US dollars every year.

However, in his previous life, the domestic printer market was basically divided by HP, Canon, and Epson. The shipment volume of printers of the three brands combined occupied over 70% of the domestic market.

In this industry, the domestic printer with some influence in the first few years was the Lenovo printer, which was assembled with patents, technology, and components of overseas brands. But it only had some influence, and compared to HP, it certainly couldn't compare.

On the contrary, the Chrysanthemum Factory entered the market later and performed quite aggressively, directly impacting the top three domestic printer sales. The Chrysanthemum Factory was called the foreign brand crusher. This title really didn't come for nothing...

Looking at the silent Li Dongling, Wang Jizhi was a bit uneasy, not knowing whether Li Dongling would support him in developing printers.

Before this, Wang Jizhi had of course looked for other investors, but those companies had an unclear attitude toward Wang Jizhi. Large companies, hindered by the existence of Sitong and Duan Yongji, had some doubts about whether to support him or not, because offending Sitong for his sake made many large companies feel that the loss outweighed the gain.

As for small investors, they were very enthusiastic about Wang Jizhi's name, but they were also divided into two types. One type wanted to use his name to circle money.

The other type, regarding his typewriter work, welcomed it with both hands. As for developing printers, they avoided it like a snake or scorpion.

The R&D difficulty of printers was high, and the money invested might be thrown into the water. It was unknown when results would be achieved. The most critical thing was that the global printer industry patents and technology were completely monopolized by American and Japanese companies, forming a huge patent barrier.

Xerox was once the hegemon of the copier industry, relying on over 500 copier patents to monopolize the entire industry for over ten years.

In the printer era, companies like HP, IBM, Xerox, Canon, Epson, and Korea's Samsung combined held over tens of thousands of printer and printing consumable patents, forming a huge patent barrier.

Now, what was the attitude of domestic companies toward foreign brands? Except for companies like Dongling High-Tech, Chrysanthemum Factory, Haier, Gree, and Changhong, which dared to hit foreign brands head-on, other companies hid when facing foreign brands and didn't dare to fight at all.

Under such circumstances, asking those small and medium-sized investors to support Wang Jizhi was simply making things difficult for them, so there had been no progress. Dongling High-Tech was already one of the few companies that Wang Jizhi still held hope for.

The most critical thing was that, like Academician Ni, Wang Jizhi's age was also reaching the threshold. At 55, he was at the end of the peak period for scientific researchers. His R&D ability, experience, energy, and management ability had all reached perfection. In a few years, even if he was asked to do it again, he wouldn't have that energy, or rather, his heart had already scattered.

Although time never defeats beauty, the twilight of heroes and the white hair of beauties were things that had to be acknowledged.

"Dongling High-Tech and Yan University have just reached a cooperation. Dongling High-Tech and the joint laboratory will establish a new R&D center in Yanjing."

"Dongling High-Tech originally had computer peripheral product projects like Silver Mink. If Wang Gong is willing, you can jointly develop printer products with the Yan University center here and join Dongling High-Tech's computer peripheral product project!"

Wang Jizhi's spirit was lifted when he heard this. Li Dongling continued, "Dongling High-Tech can support Wang Gong in developing printers, but in this industry, we cannot be too hasty!"

"HP, Canon, Xerox, etc., have built too many patent walls in this industry. We cannot be hasty. In the future, the printer project can focus on the digital copier, laser printer, inkjet printer, dot matrix printer, and home small printer markets."

"There is one more point," Li Dongling looked at Wang Jizhi and said something that made him shocked. "Not only do we need to develop copiers and printers, but we also need to enter the offline market, open our own brand of copy shops, and have enough graphic printing shops!"

Entering the printer industry, compared to old brands like Canon and HP in terms of technology and sales, we certainly couldn't compare. If we only developed printers, then we would certainly lose money in the short term, and might even lose money for many years.

This was also the reason why domestic printer brands couldn't compete with HP and Canon. The other party made money while you lost money. How could this be played?

What if printers don't make money? Then earn it back from other places. Open copy shops in schools, government units, office buildings, and other places.

Domestic demand for printing will explode in the future. As long as these copy shops don't have outrageous prices and occupy good locations, living for ten or twenty years won't be a problem at all. And basically, they won't lose money. Besides earning money from printing, they can also engage in advertising design, sell printing consumables, stationery, and provide printer after-sales maintenance and other services.

Of course, turning it into a chain store, opening a few stores in every city, with three to five employees in one store, and large stores might have dozens of employees. How many jobs can over a thousand stores provide? And how many families are behind them? If government units don't purchase this brand of printers, who else can they purchase? "The livelihood of a million boat workers" is not an empty phrase!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 341 =====