Extraordinary Genius

Feng Yu notified those companies’ representative that hewill make an important announcement in Wind and Rain Electronics headquartersand will meet them there. It will be held 3 days later.

After receiving the notification, the higher management ofthe various companies immediately reacted. All of them heard that Panasonic hadsent their vice president to meet Wind and Rain Electronics and they knew thatshould also send someone of similar status. They sent either their DeputyChairman or Vice President. Some of them even sent their directors.

Thomas naturally was invited. But he did not know what FengYu was going to do. Feng Yu only told him that this meeting will be somethinggood.

When Thomas met Feng Yu the first time, they formed a.n.a.lliance, and because of this, Thomas’s status in Philips immediately rise.Now, he has more say in the company. Although he owns some shares of Philips,he was not a member of the board.

If Thomas could perform well this time to show hiscapabilities to the shareholders, then he might get the chance to enter thecore management level of the company.

Even if he did not enter the higher management, he mightalso get more authority and get more company shares.

Feng Yu looked at the list of companies which he will bemeeting. Sony, Toshiba, HP, and Pioneer were not invited as they were the firstones who set their DVD standards to rival Wind and Rain Electronics. The restof the companies were all invited and had shown up.

……

“I am glad to see all of you here to attend this DVD exchangeorganized by Wind and Rain Electronics. This is a discussion about thedevelopment of DVD. I am sure everyone here knows that VCD is only a pa.s.singphase. The product that will rule the home video players in the future will bethe DVD players. Everyone here should be trying to develop your own DVDtechnologies, right? But the core technology on the video and audio encodingpatent are still in our hands. Also, we are working together with Philips tointroduce the industry standards for the DVD format.”

“I know everyone is here for the developments of the VCDplayers. But a moment of failure does not represent a lifetime of failure. Allthe companies here should be researching on DVD technologies in a bid toreplace us, right?”

Feng Yu had a sly smile on his face when he saw thedifferent expressions on the companies’ representatives faces. Want to replaceus? Maybe in your next life!

“Everyone should know that the current CD encodingtechnology is very mature. The VCD encoding technology was also evolved from CDencoding technology. But the DVD encoding technology is totally different. Now,the DVD standards and format is still not uniform, and this will affect thedevelopment of DVD technologies. This is what I want to do today. I want to seta uniform standard to let this industry grow faster.”

All the companies’ representative had an ‘I knew it’ look ontheir faces. They knew that Wind and Rain Electronics had invited them over toset a uniform standard. Wind and Rain Electronics wanted the industry to usetheir standard format, Wind and Rain Philips industry standards.

This was not a problem for the companies, but Wind and RainElectronics had to give them some benefits. If not, they would instead supportthe other two encoding formats. With all these companies creating problems,Wind and Rain Electronics and Philips will not be able to develop fast.

“For the DVD industry’s growth and our future, we should setup an international organization. I call this organization DVD Forum. Wind andRain Electronics, Philips, AIWA and Aiwa are the core founding members of thisforum. I invite all of you to be a member of this forum, and in the future,every new DVD format will be scrutinized and approve by DVD Forum. We will worktogether for a better future!”

After Feng Yu finished, there was no applause, and hefrowned.

Jiang Wanmeng knew Feng Yu was not pleased with the responseand he immediately starts to clap. The rest of the people there soon followed.These representatives did not want to applaud. Setting up an organization tointroduce industry standards? What standards do we have? You all are the onesholding on to the standards. This organization was obviously trying to recruitthem and introduce your standards.

Feng Yu waited for a while, and no one said a word. He grewimpatient and asked: “What’s wrong? All of you are unhappy with my suggestion?”

Taiwan’s BenQ representative raised his hand and stood up:“Mr. Feng, can I know what is the approval process and who will the ones whogrant the approvals? The ones that grant the approval will be fixed, or themembers will be rotated?”

Feng Yu took a glanced at him: “It will be fixed androtated. The 4 founding companies will have fixed places in the approvalcommittee. The other 5 members in the committee will be rotated every yearamong the other members. There will be 9 people in the committee, and if 5committee members agree, the standard will be approved, and all the companiesin the forum have to abide by the committee’s decision.”

In Feng Yu’s previous life, there was also such an organization.It was also an international organization, and they were the ones who collectedpatent authorization fees from China’s DVD manufacturers. But in Feng Yu’sprevious life, joining this organization was not compulsory, and this was whythere was a race to set the standards for DVD formats. But now, Feng Yu wantsto make it mandatory. You are not happy? You can choose not to join thisorganization!

4 founding companies? d.a.m.n! All of them knew that AIWA, Aiwa,and Wind and Rain Electronics were Feng Yu’s companies. Feng Yu was tooshameless. He wants to hold 3 permanent places in the approval committee!

With Philips, they will be holding on to 4 out of 9 spots inthe committee. They could just recruit one more company, and they would be ableto implement whatever industry standards they want. This was not fair!

Feng Yu had a deep impression on this BenQ company. It wasbecause this company had invented a technology called Book Type Management.This technology was able to change DVD+R/RW disc to DVD-ROM format. It was ableto read all the different disc formats.

But now, this technology will belong to Wind and RainElectronics. Feng Yu had already instructed Jiang Wanmeng to research anddevelop this technology. Although Feng Yu did not know how it works, he wasable to tell Jiang Wanmeng what he wants and invested a large amount of R&Dfund, Wind and Rain Electronics was already one step ahead of BenQ and Wind,and Rain Electronics R&D capabilities were better than BenQ. The technologyWind and Rain Electronics developed might even let their DVD players read allsorts of DVD discs. This way, it will stop the industry standard race!

Of course, Feng Yu will not tell anyone about this now. Hewants to let Toshiba and Sony thinks that they would be able to set theindustry standards and replace Wind and Rain Philips standard.

After Feng Yu said the approval process, all therepresentatives were looking at each other. All of them do not want to agree,but they know that if they did not join this organization, they would have nochance left. They will be left out of the circle, and there will be no chancefor them to get a slice of the DVD cake.

But even if these companies were to agree, they did not wantto be the first to voice out. The first person would be seen as a coward. Ifthis organization did not work out and all the companies did not make anymoney, all the companies will blame the first company.

Seeing no representative wanting to say a word, Feng Yu alsokept quiet. He sat on the rostrum and look at all the companies’representatives calmly.

Translator’s notes:

DVD Forum is also known as DVDConsortium

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