Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 265 My Will is Your Freedom

An hour later, Ethan met Norio Ohga in the company's reception room.

In Ethan's previous life, Norio Ohga was one of the three pillars of Sony, alongside Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. Known as the father of CD, he was the soul of Sony's entertainment field. He sold the world's first CD for Sony, led the acquisition of Columbia Records and Columbia Pictures, and led Sony to actively embrace video games, which enabled Sony to have the capital to turn around even when it was losing money and had to sell buildings.

But at this moment, this young man who was not yet fifty and had not yet reached the peak of his life was a little reserved in front of Ethan. Even though he had managed Columbia Sony Records, a joint venture between Sony and Columbia Music, into the largest music company in Japan in the past ten years, compared with the fact that the Fate Game made hundreds of millions of profits that year, his personal qualifications were still not good enough.

ah no...

To be precise, the size of the Destiny game is already comparable to the entire Sony.

After all, Sony's comprehensive net profit for the whole of last year was only 130 million US dollars.

To be honest, when Norio Ohga learned that a company of comparable size to Sony was also making optical discs, he felt a sudden shock before his eyes. When he found out that this guy, who had completed Sony's 30-year development journey in just four years, actually held the patent for digital optical discs in advance, he could no longer express the shock in words as he had been promoting the development of optical discs in the past few years.

He doesn't understand!

Why would a guy who makes video games cross over to develop CDs?
He just couldn't figure it out!

Why is it that a guy who was targeted by his peers when he debuted, was targeted by two Fortune 500 companies in the first year of his company establishment, fell out with his overseas partners in the second year, confronted the largest arms contractor and a long-established trading company in North America in the third year, and was at odds with most of the North American entertainment industry in the fourth year, still has time to secretly invest in a technology that has nothing to do with video games?

More importantly, in addition to CDs, he also made computers? Chips? Movies? And it is said that he also invested in the hottest micro-software company at the moment?

no--

Where do you get so much energy for a 23-year-old boy?

When countless questions filled Ohga Norio's body, the look he gave Ethan suddenly became extremely complicated. Ethan, who was sitting opposite him, also noticed the unnaturalness in Ohga Norio after examining him.

So, Ethan took the initiative to speak, "Mr. Dahe, although this is the first time we meet, I have heard of your name a long time ago. Sony is a very large group, and your Trinitron TVs can be seen everywhere here. For example, the one I use in my office is your TV."

"Oh, Mr. Jones, thank you for your choice." Ethan's words brought Norio Ohga back to his senses.

Knowing that he was being rude, he quickly said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Jones. Although I've heard your name in the business world over the past few years and know your age, I was still shocked when we first met."

"Because your age makes your deeds seem so legendary."

"So, I may have been distracted just now, please forgive me."

"It's okay." Ethan waved his hand to show that he didn't care.

At the same time, he also said: "Then let's get straight to the point?"

"Okay." Ohga Norio nodded quickly at his decisive attitude and said, "Mr. Jones, I have only one purpose for visiting your company today, and that is to negotiate cooperation with your company on behalf of Sony."

“And this cooperation…”

"It has something to do with the DVD."

Norio Ohga's purpose is very simple, that is, Sony wants to set up a digital disc research and development team and hopes that Destiny Game can join. In addition to them, Philips will also be a member.

In the words of Norio Ohga, Sony is definitely a world leader in the field of optical disc recording and reading correction, while Philips has done a very good job in the miniaturization of optical discs.

Although Destiny Game has not disclosed its technological progress so far, the patent authorizations they hold alone are enough to make them a member of the cooperation team, not to mention that the client of Destiny Game's optical storage project is a big name in the field of optics.

Norio Ohga believed that with the concerted efforts of the three companies, the epoch-making product of digital optical discs would definitely be introduced to the world in the shortest possible time. By then, they would be the pioneers of a new generation of storage.

This will allow them to go down in history.

When Ethan heard Norio Ohga's plan, the corners of his mouth twitched.

Although he had felt before that Ohga Norio's visit might be intended to get something for free, he never expected that this guy could be so whimsical.

He thinks Sony's correction technology is the world leader?
Fart your horse!

Robert Hall solved this problem long ago!

He said Philips did a great job in miniaturizing optical discs?
I'm going to grandma's legs!

The disc that Robert Hall showed him before was the size of a palm! It was just because the player carried too many transcoding devices and reading devices, so it needed to find a way to reduce the size!

more importantly--

Are you stupid?

Philips is my enemy!

Let's work together?
what--

Whimsical!

Thinking of this, Ethan took a deep breath and said, "Mr. Dahe, I am meeting you out of curiosity and sincerity, so please be honest and sincere, okay?"

"The conflict between Philips and I may not be known to the whole world, but at least for companies that want to discuss cooperation, this should be public information that can be collected, right?"

"You want us to work together in this situation?"

"Is this - is there something wrong?"

Ethan looked at Ohga Norio with a smile.

He felt that his words and actions had been restrained enough.

If the guy sitting opposite at this moment was Yamauchi Hiroshi, he would definitely chuckle and ask, "Do you think you are qualified to mediate the war between me and Philips?"

Yamauchi Hiroshi doesn't deserve it!
and so--

Norio Ohga is even less worthy!
But even though Ethan had restrained his words and actions, Ohga Norio still smelled the dissatisfaction in the air, so, wanting to promote cooperation, he hurriedly said:

"Mr. Jones, I do come here with sincerity."

"To be honest, I only found out in the last few days that your company is also researching digital optical discs."

“So, before coming here, I went to Philips and communicated with them.”

"Even though we had conflicts over the TV and tape businesses for many years, we still reached a consensus on cooperation. We all felt that joint research and development might be a shortcut to success."

"But what does this have to do with me?"

Ethan leaned back and said with a smile: "Mr. Ohga, I know you are an artist. You artists may have an idealism that you can communicate with others if you have the same ideas, but I am not."

"I, Ethan Jones, only follow one principle when doing business - the enemy is always the enemy, so when facing the enemy, fists are the best way to communicate!"

Ohga Norio was stunned by the murderous words.

The next second, he came to his senses with an embarrassed look on his face.

His mouth slightly opened, wanting to retort.

But Ethan Jones's tyrannical deeds left him at a loss as to how to begin.

At the same time, he also recalled what he saw and heard in Eindhoven, the Netherlands a few days ago.

When he reached a consensus with the top executives of Philips, he was very happy because it meant that Sony's digital optical disc project could be advanced at a high speed. But when he said that the two sides could sign a memorandum of cooperation and that the subsequent negotiations and cooperation could be carried out according to the agreement in the memorandum, the top executives of Philips in the Netherlands told him not to get too excited too early because there were still people in the world who were researching optical discs, and that person was Ethan Jones in North America.

"Although he has not disclosed his research and development progress so far, this does not mean that he has no idea about the research of optical disks. Because according to his habit, he will only bring his own shock to the world when the product is perfect and can be mass-produced, so--"

"Whether our alliance will be effective remains to be seen."

This news surprised Ohga Norio, but after he calmed down, he felt that there was no problem.

Because he was willing to step up and bring Game of Destiny into the collaboration.

However, his initiative did not win praise from Philips executives, but instead he received helpless sighs.

"You want to work with Ethan Jones?"

"Impossible." "Why?" Ohga Norio was puzzled, "Doesn't he have many allies in North America?"

"He has also collaborated with others!"

"If you mean that you and he had conflicts and struggles, that can be resolved!"

"After all, I still know about Nintendo. Hiroshi Yamauchi betrayed you and Ethan Jones, but Nintendo is still the agent of Destiny Game."

This remark made the senior executives of Philips laugh and said, "Oh Dahe, you may not know Ethan Jones. The word reconciliation does not exist in his dictionary."

"Since we have become enemies, there are only two possibilities."

"Either the enemy dies."

"Or he wins big."

“?” Ohga Norio was stunned.

At that time, he did not understand the difference between the two possibilities that Philips mentioned.

Perhaps because they could see his skepticism, Philips executives told him about the patents that might be involved in digital optical discs in North America and asked him to inquire first.

If Ethan Jones holds all of them, then he will definitely reject all forms of outside cooperation.

If Ohga Norio doesn't believe it, he can go and try it.

Norio Ohga really didn't believe it, so he ran a lap himself according to what Philips said.

And now...

He truly felt that the person who understood him best in this world was his enemy.

Ethan lost his patience with Ohga Norio's daze. He forced out a polite smile and asked, "Mr. Ohga, do you have anything else to say?"

"If not, I'll get busy first."

Seeing that Ethan wanted to send him away, Ohga Norio quickly said, "Mr. Jones, please give me a few more minutes. I want to tell you the true meaning of cooperation!"

“You may feel that you are the one who suffers the loss in our cooperation, so you are unwilling to cooperate with us, but I want to say that our cooperation is not only about technical interoperability, but also about the interoperability of R&D directions, or in other words, the formulation of certain standards!”

Ohga Norio raised his voice and said, "Digital discs are a product that has never appeared before, so there is no standard for everything related to it. How many bits are in its encoding? How many channels are there? What is the audio sampling rate? I believe that each of us has researched these things differently!"

"So, I personally think that before the product is launched on the market, the companies that develop optical discs should sit down and discuss all of this clearly, because this will help the development of optical discs better!"

"If we don't discuss these things now, then when the products are launched, the discs with different specifications will definitely cause great trouble to the public!"

"For example, the optical disc that Philips is researching is 11.5 centimeters, which is about 4.53 inches, and the optical disc that Sony is researching is 12 centimeters, which is about 4.725 inches. When optical discs of different sizes appear on the market, how do people choose?"

"They can't buy CD players from several companies at the same time, right? They won't accept the fact that after buying a CD player, they can only listen to and watch a part of the music and movies that the company has negotiated for, right?"

“And merchants don’t know how to choose!”

"Because they can't possibly reach a cooperation agreement with every company and release every disc, right?"

"When this problem occurs, the promotion of the CD will come to a standstill!"

"so--"

"Mr. Jones, I sincerely invite you to work with us to develop standards for digital optical discs."

"Even if..."

"If you don't want to show your skills, that's fine!"

Norio Ohga gritted his teeth and made an offer that ordinary people would find difficult to refuse.

His words also made Ethan a little dazed, because the standard this guy was talking about was actually the root cause of the war in his previous life when various companies fought to promote their own technologies.

All companies hope that their competitors will adapt to their formats.

Because this involves some patents.

And that means money.

If Philips and Sony were allowed to sell their products freely, Ethan Jones would definitely accept Norio Ohga's invitation to join the group that develops the digital optical disc standards.

But now——

Ethan Jones has the advantage!

So, why should he care about the feelings of these students who are lagging behind?

"Mr. Ohga, I understand what you mean."

Ethan smiled and said, "But what does all this have to do with me?"

"If you just want to know our data format for optical discs, I can let Professor Robert Hall tell you the capacity and the wavelength of the laser used to read it."

"Then you just need to modify your product according to our format."

“Pa——” Ethan clapped his hands and said, “Problem solved.”

Ohga Norio was stunned by such casual words, and the crisp sound of high-fives made him frown and said, "Mr. Jones! The standards of any industry are not set like this!"

"If I remember correctly, your country is a country that values ​​freedom, right?"

“Everyone has the right to speak up, right?”

"so--"

"Shall we sit down and talk?"

“Tell me about the advantages of your product?”

“Absorbing the advantages of other technologies?”

“That way we can make the best product possible.”

Ohga Norio looked pleading.

Ethan Jones sighed softly and slowly stood up.

"Mr. Dahe, you seem to have misunderstood something."

“Freedom is something that is never spoken with the mouth, but earned with the fist.”

Ethan looked at the other person with a smile and asked, "So - what is freedom?"

"Now, my will is your freedom."

"uh-huh?"

Ethan raised his eyebrows at Norio Ohga.

He smiled, shook his head, and left with regret.

To be honest, when Ballmer told him that Ohga Norio wanted to meet him, he really thought Ohga Norio would bring him some surprises! The result - that's it?
Your technology is not perfect and you don't have any patents, and yet you want me to sit down and discuss standards with you?

Why?
I don’t tolerate any of the old capitalists in North America!

You, a foreign monk, want me to chant sutras with you?

What a big face!
Note: ①Sony's net profit in 1978 comes from the historical financial report of Sony's official website. A net profit of million yuan a year was already a very impressive company in that era. I really didn't suppress the protagonist in my career, but it just didn't seem to make much money because of the times. ②The initial CD standard formulation actually discussed some of the most basic things such as bands, CD size, channels, etc., and this involved patent issues. For example, Sony's digital audio signal correction technology, although Philips and Sony reached a cooperation in , the two parties exchanged all CD patents, but after the standard was established, everything else was another matter. To put it simply, standards are actually money, which can be referred to Qualcomm's CDMA.

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(End of this chapter)