Chapter 307: Accelerated Development 3

"Twenty million US dollars in exchange for sixty percent of the equity in Cybertron Technology?"

Not only did Sun Cheng's pupils contract, but even Wang Lu's expression turned ugly.

As the General Manager of Cybertron Technology, since he was a professional manager hired by Sun Cheng, he naturally had to be worthy of his salary.

Without waiting for Sun Cheng to state his position, he stood up first and said with a cold sneer: "President Chen keeps saying that you came to cooperate with us with sincerity, but we haven't seen a shred of sincerity! Have you really investigated our situation carefully? Our Cybertron Technology is not short of money..."

Cybertron was indeed not short of money, at least that was the impression it gave Wang Lu.

From its founding until now, although Sun Cheng had only deposited a little over twenty million in national currency into the company's financial accounts, he had spent lavishly to purchase multiple servers for the company without going through the company's financial accounts. Besides that, he also didn't let the company's finance department pay for many expenses, including publicity; they were all handled as special cases with special approval.

Calculating it this way, Sun Cheng had invested at least nearly fifty million in national currency into Cybertron Technology, which was definitely not a small sum for a startup enterprise.

Moreover, Wang Lu knew the inside story of Cybertron Technology well and knew that the good cards Sun Cheng held in his hand were truly numerous.

The large quantity of mobile hard drives that had recently been put into storage undoubtedly confirmed to him that Sun Cheng possessed a brand-new, epoch-making hard drive technology, and the order he had successfully captured from the supercomputing center undoubtedly confirmed the excellence of Sun Cheng's technology as well as the future potential of Cybertron Technology.

A mere twenty million US dollars—let alone Sun Cheng looking down on it, it was hard to even catch his eye now.

Having been flatly rejected, Chen Li's expression remained unchanged. Business negotiations were nothing more than asking for an exorbitant price and paying back on the spot. He was a veteran of the business world; the Panda Security Protection Company had swallowed up more than just one or two companies in the past, so he was naturally experienced.

Thinking that Wang Lu and the others were dissatisfied with the offer, he didn't rush to raise the price, but shook his head and said directly: "Manager Wang, President Sun, you and I both know that the golden age of cloud drives has long since passed. Nowadays, the domestic cloud drive market has already been carved up by a few giants like One Hundred Cloud Drive and Panda Cloud Drive. Therefore, in our view, your company's cloud drive product has no investment value at all. Under the suppression of the giants, you cannot possibly have a chance to snatch meat from their mouths. So, what we are really interested in is your Cybertron technical team!"

The implication was already self-evident.

Wang Lu gave a light snort, just about to retort.

But unexpectedly, Sun Cheng beside him tapped his fingertips lightly on the conference table, interrupting him.

Wang Lu couldn't help but turn his head to look at Sun Cheng beside him; he was somewhat worried that his boss, who was too young, would fall into the other party's negotiation trap due to a lack of experience.

However, the moment Sun Cheng spoke, he knew he was wrong.

"Cybertron Technology is priceless in my heart. Besides, at the beginning of my venture, I already contacted a venture capital firm with an excellent reputation, and what they offered far exceeds your imagination. So, don't say twenty million US dollars can't buy Cybertron Technology; even two hundred million US dollars would be useless. The investment I obtained is only more, not less, than what President Chen can imagine!"

After finishing this lie—which was not really a lie—in a flat tone, Sun Cheng rested his chin on his hands, looking at the suddenly pale Chen Li with interest, a rich smile on his face.

"I also have a question I would like to ask President Chen. I wonder if President Chen is willing to answer?"

An acquisition that he had thought was a sure thing was now basically confirmed to have failed, and Chen Li's expression couldn't help but turn somewhat ugly.

His judgment was good; he could naturally see the determination beneath Sun Cheng's flat tone and knew that this trip to Nandu would likely result in coming back empty-handed.

However, being an executive who had been in the business world for many years, after Chen Li realized that the matter was not feasible, he quickly adjusted his mood, nodded slightly, and replied: "President Sun, please speak. I will tell you everything I know!"

Sun Cheng smiled slightly. He did not feel timid because the person sitting opposite him was an executive of the number one internet giant in the country—Panda Communications. Instead, he used a playful tone, mimicking the other party's tone from just a moment ago, and asked bluntly: "President Chen, you and I both know the decline of the traditional internet after the arrival of the mobile internet era. Even a behemoth like Microsoft cannot be spared, so why is Panda interested in operating systems at this time?"

"..."

Chen Li was silent for a moment before he gave a dumbfounded laugh, shook his head, and replied: "President Sun is overthinking. An operating system for the PC side is extremely complex; we at Panda gave up research in this area years ago!"

A few years ago, there were indeed media reports in the country that exposed news of Panda testing the waters with operating systems, but Panda had never responded to such gossip-filled news, which instead made people unsure of its truth.

Sun Cheng had not expected that he would hear such a piece of covered-up history from Chen Li.

He carefully savored Chen Li's words and looked at him with a half-smile, "Panda Communications is not interested in operating systems? That is truly a pity! I do have an operating system for the mobile side with a very high degree of completion in my hands. I was originally thinking of discussing the possibility of cooperation with you at Panda?"

"What?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Li was jolted, and the words "This is impossible" almost escaped his lips.

It wasn't that he lacked composure, but Sun Cheng's sudden sentence really gave him a fright.

Yet, just as his inner doubts emerged, he inexplicably thought of the 【Pure Version XP】 that his technical team believed had simply had all its code rewritten, and the doubt that had reached his lips was immediately swallowed back down.

Quickly calming his mood, Chen Li looked at Sun Cheng with burning eyes and asked cautiously: "President Sun, did I hear you correctly? You have another mobile operating system with a high degree of completion in your hands?"

That fiery, expectant gaze made Sun Cheng's skin twitch slightly.

As if pondering and organizing his words, he then nodded heavily and affirmatively: "The completion rate is close to 95%. Although I haven't done hardware compatibility testing yet, I believe it won't be a big problem. Like 【Pure Version XP】, this is also a work of our 【Cybertron Studio】. We don't mind sharing it for cooperation, as long as you can solve a small problem and agree to one request of mine..."

Chen Li was so excited that his body began to tremble, and he hurriedly asked: "What small problem?"

Upon hearing that it was indeed a work of 【Cybertron Studio】, Chen Li immediately believed it for the most part.

Panda Security Protection Company itself was one of the largest internet information security providers in the country. Under their banner, they not only possessed a team of hundreds of Senior Engineers in Computer Science, but also a large number of internet hackers unknown to the outside world.

The 【Pure Version XP】 produced by 【Cybertron Studio】 was discovered by a Senior Engineer at Panda Security Protection Company previously. After simple testing revealed its extraordinary nature, he immediately reported it to the company's top management. Subsequently, Chen Li mobilized almost most of the company's top technical experts to conduct various compatibility and vulnerability tests on it, all of which ended in failure.

It could only be said that 【Pure Version XP】 was truly too outstanding; otherwise, Chen Li would not have been so attentive to it, even going so far as to convene a group senior management meeting in an attempt to spend a huge sum to acquire Cybertron Technology.

Sun Cheng's posture of supporting his chin with both hands remained unchanged, his voice low and magnetic: "This mobile operating system, which I have named uimi, is based on Marshmallow with deep optimization and code rewriting. In terms of performance, it has already comprehensively surpassed the Marshmallow released last year, and it is also more in line with the usage habits of us Chinese people. However, Android authorization is not something an ordinary person can get..."

"..."

Chen Li was also silent. Marshmallow was the codename for the latest Android 6.0 operating system released by Android last May. Upon hearing "Marshmallow," he already understood what Sun Cheng meant.

The other party was willing to use a brand-new operating system that had been deeply optimized on the basis of the Android 6.0 operating system, and which they were confident absolutely surpassed Marshmallow, to make a deal with them. What they were after was nothing more than two things that the other party absolutely could not accomplish on their own.

"Android authorization?"

Chen Li thought silently in his heart. Android Studio was actually not difficult to deal with because, since its inception, its performance had a clear gap compared to Apple's iOS, so the official side had always tacitly allowed the outside world to conduct various optimization attempts on its foundation.

It is no exaggeration to say that many of the new features and improvements in Android's upgrades to date were the result of absorbing the wisdom of others.

However, tacit permission did not mean that the other party could easily obtain their authorization.

Chen Li went through his mind to recall the developers who had obtained Android authorization to date and were allowed to conduct deep optimization on its foundation, only to find that those few were either big players in non-mainstream mobile platforms, such as the fields of televisions, game consoles, and digital cameras, or they simply came from the 'Open Handset Alliance'. Even though the scale of Panda Communications was not much worse than Google, which stood behind Android, the other party might not necessarily give them face.

After pondering for a moment, he asked again: "What is your other request?"

"Panda Cloud Drive... I want that half-dead cloud drive business under your Panda Communications..."