Chapter 14 Products that lag behind the times

Sitting down in a private room of a newly opened hotel in Jiangyin County, Zhang Jianjun came back from ordering food and took out Zhonghua to pass cigarettes to several people. It turned out that no one except him smoked, so he simply put out his cigarette and drank tea with everyone and chatted. .

There were seven people in the private room. Except for Su Yuanshan, Qin Weimin and four others, Zhang Jianjun only invited Wang Chaoxin and Pan Xiaojun, who had just been invited by Su Yuanshan to join Yuanxin.

The food and drinks were served quickly. Zhang Jianjun poured wine for everyone as the host. When he came to Su Yuanshan, Su Yuanshan covered his glass and said with a smile, "Thank you, Director Zhang, I won't drink anymore."

Zhang Jianjun glanced at the bottle: "How about some beer?"

"I have something to do tonight, and my senior brothers will accompany you." Su Yuanshan knew that these senior brothers of his had some capacity for drinking. In fact, he is not a bad drinker, he just needs to stay awake, work overtime at night to complete the preparations, and then rush to Huajing Electronics in Xicheng for tape-out.

Hearing that Su Yuanshan had to work overtime and that he was young, Zhang Jianjun stopped insisting: "Then call the waiter and bring me a bottle of Coke."

"No, no, I'll just drink tea with you all."

…

After the first round of drinks, the topic gradually opened up. After Pan Xiaojun’s explanation, both Wang Chaoxin and Zhang Jianjun admired Yuanxin for being able to develop software that was more powerful than foreigners, especially since this software was closely related to their industry.

"Brother, thank you so much for today." Zhang Jianjun filled Su Yuanshan's tea, stood up and raised his glass and said, "Here, I'll give you a drink, brother."

"It's easy." Su Yuanshan stood up and said with a smile, "I'll just replace the wine with tea, don't mind, Brother Zhang."

After Zhang Jianjun drained his glass and sat down, he sighed: "Brother, I don't know. Our factory has been shut down for too long. If we don't start work, we won't be able to open the pot again."

The word "again" aroused Su Yuanshan's curiosity: "Is Brother Zhang's factory restructured?"

Since the 1980s, attempts have been made to restructure enterprises into shareholding systems, led by the four major special zones, but they have been far less intense than the wave of restructuring after 1992. For example, the Jiangyin factory will be reorganized and renamed next year, with Chaoxin at the helm.

"No, it's not a contract... it should be considered a rental." Zhang Jianjun introduced his situation to Su Yuanshan with a wry smile.

It turns out that Zhang Jianjun's current factory is called Jiangyin Radio Factory, an old state-owned enterprise affiliated to Jiangyin County with a history of 30 years. It has been losing money in recent years. Production has been suspended for nearly a year now, and workers' wages are in arrears for half a year. As a son of a radio factory, Zhang Jianjun has a lot of affection for the factory. So after making money in the South Island, he left and came back, thinking about saving the factory and at least letting his fellow villagers get some wages.

This idea of ​​personal heroism is good, but the reality is cruel. After trying various methods but unable to obtain the management rights of the factory, he suddenly had the idea to build a shell factory, and then hired and rented the workers and machinery in the factory.

In this way, the government can get rid of its burden and still get money, and the workers can get wages and retain their establishment. It can be said to be a win-win-win situation.

Because it is "rented" in nature, starting work one day late on Zhang Jianjun's side means losing money for one day.

After listening to Zhang Jianjun's introduction, Su Yuanshan was a little silent.

He knew that Zhang Jianjun's idea... was a bit wishful thinking. Even if his improved design is adopted, under the general trend, the radio cassette player, which has been around for decades even in China, is really lagging behind the times.

"I didn't expect Director Zhang to be quite chivalrous. Come and let me toast you!"

Seeing Su Yuanshan's silence, Qin Weimin over there smiled slightly, stood up and raised his glass.

Zhang Jianjun also quickly stood up and clinked glasses: "Mr. Qin, you are the ones who are the most powerful. A few years ago, I was just trying to plunder socialism."

Hearing the words "Great Hero", Su Yuanshan was silent for a moment and smiled slightly, staring at Zhang Jianjun and asked: "Brother Zhang, I wonder if you did any market research before deciding to make a radio cassette player?"

Zhang Jianjun nodded: "I have done it. I observed it all the way back from South Island and found that there is still a market for radio cassette players in rural areas. Especially in rural areas in remote mountainous areas, there is still considerable potential to be tapped."

Su Yuanshan pursed his lips and said: "I don't know much about the market, especially the traditional market. But there is one thing that may require Brother Zhang to change his thinking."

Zhang Jianjun was startled: "Oh? What's the idea?"

Wang Chaoxin, who was chatting with Tian Yaoming at this time, also turned to look at Su Yuanshan.

Su Yuanshan slowly twirled the tea cup: "Today's market is no longer the same as in the past where products were driven solely by the demand market. To put it simply, in the past, people wanted to eat vegetables and meat, so we would grow vegetables and raise pigs. They all say If you can’t buy meat, then raise more pigs.”

"With the advancement of science and technology, many markets will be born that we have never touched. If you create a thing and people think it is acceptable, usable, and easy to use, this is a product that dominates the market. For example, mobile phones, pagers, and even the previous Televisions and cassette players are actually products of technology - would the ancients have these needs?"

"I am engaged in technology, and I am deeply aware of how fast technology is developing now. In the computer industry, there is Moore's Law, which says that computer performance will double in at most two years. This law has been in the past ten years. It has been realized. And not only computer performance, but also the performance and architecture of the entire computer-related semiconductor industry will be improved accordingly."

"Brother Wang may have a deep understanding of this. The Jiangyin factory is also an old factory. How many times do you think it has doubled from the single transistors we made before to the integrated chips we make today?"

Wang Chaoxin took a deep look at Su Yuanshan, then looked back at Zhang Jianjun. After a moment of silence, he sighed and said in a deep voice: "Old Zhang, I haven't had much contact with you before, and you are also enthusiastic, so it's hard for me to hit you. You. In fact, Xiao Su and I have similar views. The tape recorder has no future."

Zhang Jianjun was stunned. When he saw everyone present nodding in unison, he suddenly panicked.

The lowest person on this table is also a technical secondary school student, and he is the only one who is a junior high school student. Although he made a lot of money, it was money earned from house speculation. All he had to do was be brave and lucky. Isn't it because I am scared of the real estate bubble in South Island and want to find a stable way to make money? And when it comes to making something with a "technological" content, who here doesn't know better than me?

Zhang Jianjun forced Su Yuanshan to sit beside him. He looked around and finally stopped at Su Yuanshan: "Then... what should we do?"

Pan Xiaojun on the side finally interjected leisurely: "There is nothing better than making a cassette player. Walkman portable player is a good direction."

Su Yuanshan was a little surprised by this guy's look again. He nodded: "Yes, if you insist on doing something related to playing music, then just make a walkman. Of course, if you are willing... you can also cooperate with us, Build pagers with us."

For Yuanxin's pagers, Su Yuanshan plans to find someone to set up a joint venture factory in SZ or SH - as long as he comes up with a Chinese prototype, he won't have to worry about no one cooperating.

But today I took a look around Jiangyin, and after getting a general understanding, I felt that Jiangyin is not a bad place.

In later generations, electronic cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan were developed later, while Jiangyin and even Wuxi have always been the center of the integrated circuit industry.

Zhang Jianjun was a little confused: "Pageer?"

"To be precise, it's a pager that can accept Chinese messages. The screen display chip I designed for you is one of the several small chips we are tapeouting this time."

As he spoke, Su Yuanshan looked at Chaoxin: "From the decoding chip of the pager to the encoding chip of the transmitter, they are all patented products independently designed by Yuanxin. Sorry, Brother Wang. I was planning to tell you tomorrow."

Snapped! The chopsticks in the Dynasty novice's hands fell to the ground.