Chapter 829： Always remind yourself often

After discussing the naming of the mp3 player, Bill Olsen continued: "The next step is the Yahoo Music Store, or the Yahoo Music Box. Currently we have obtained an online sales license for about 200,000 songs, but with music copyright. The cooperation between the five most prestigious world-class record companies has not made much progress. Therefore, the main music source of irelyer should be d discs. Thanks to the promotion of mp3 audio formats, more than 50% of d discs are currently used. The mp3 format, even in non-mp3 format, we can convert it to mp3 audio by transcoding."

The original contract between Yahoo and Microsoft will expire in two years. Although Microsoft has been suffering from anti-monopoly investigations frequently in recent years, it is foreseeable that once the contract expired in July 1999, once Microsoft gave up the original The 30% equity acquisition program is bound to cause Yahoo! browser to lose its status as the default browser of the indos platform. Eric’s initial proposal was to develop a Yahoo Music Store website, but in order to avoid future smashing of Yahoo’s browsers by Microsoft, Yahoo has been pushing separate software for its various online products in recent years to reduce the use of Yahoo’s browsers. Dependence.

The same is true this time. Yahoo and Firefly Electronics teamed up to refine Eric's rough ideas and developed a separate Yahoo music box software as a sales platform for online music stores. At the same time, Yahoo music boxes can also It is more convenient to develop specialized software modules to specifically identify pirated d-discs and prevent them from being used for audio copying. Seriously, because of the living environment of the past life, Eric did not consider it at first. He also thanked the team of Yahoo and Firefly Electronics for thinking about this. Otherwise, when irelyer is released, Firefly Electronics will definitely face major records. The company’s lawsuit bombing.

Before the projector, Bill Olson said here, once again looking at Eric, "Eric, although Yahoo tried to concentrate a lot of music resources in its own online store, in order to activate more Yahoo platform. Paid users. But I don't think it's a good deal. Just like Sony, although they have alkman, they still don't want all the record companies to give the copyright to them to make music tapes. It's impossible. In my opinion, Irelyer definitely has the potential to replace the alkman Walkman. If we can be more open and authorize each record company to operate its own online music store alone, the influence of irelyer will expand rapidly. The current annual sales of alkman is 15 million, if irelyer It is also possible to achieve this level, with an annual sales of $4.5 billion at a price of $299."

Eric said: "But Bill, irelyer does not have such influence at all, and can cause major record companies to set up a special music store for it. If we insist, the record company will definitely open the lion. On the other hand. If irelyer has enough influence in the future, we will not need to compromise with the record company at all, they will only actively seek cooperation."

"But there should always be a good time, Eric," said Bill Olson. "Although we installed the piracy identification module on the Yahoo music box, we can't stop all piracy, and the risk of litigation still exists. If you can completely cut off the channel of d disc copy and achieve complete digitization, you can avoid this situation as much as possible."

Eric actually knows Bill Olson’s thoughts. He hoped that the Yahoo music box could be stripped from Yahoo and operated by Firefly Electronics alone. It was only rejected by Eric, since Firefly Electronics could not occupy this platform. Regarding the interests of Firefly Electronics itself, Bill Olsen hopes that the music sales platform will be more open.

Stalls, Eric laughed: "Bill, we all know that full digital sales, it is still impossible to cut off piracy problems. However, since Sony's video tape lawsuit wins, the copyright party can no longer stop the technology through litigation. Progress, and, at present, all audio video playback platforms such as alkman, video recorder, d player, md player and dvd player can not completely eliminate the piracy problem, so we only need to do as much as we can, and Don't worry too much about this."

Bill Olsen knew from Eric's smile that he had seen his own thoughts, and he did not hesitate to bypass this topic and continue to discuss irelyer's component procurement system construction, sales network construction and product marketing issues.

In the past two years, Eric has invested about 60 million US dollars in the development of mp3 players and e-book readers, including the cost of entrusting Seagate to develop micro-hard drives and the cost of acquiring ii patents, specifically for mp3. There are not many R&D players on the player. After all, Firefly Electronics has a total of more than 190 R&D teams responsible for the two products. Although the annual salary of Silicon Valley engineers is generally high, the salary expenses for the two years are only 30 million.

However, Bill Olson’s budget plan for irelyer from component procurement to product marketing reached $200 million, giving Eric the feeling that it’s like spending $60 million to make a movie, but It will cost $200 million in publicity and distribution.

Of course, the development prospects of irelyer are definitely worth the budget, as Bill Olson mentioned at the conference. If irelyer can replace alkman, it will bring billions of dollars in revenue every year to Firefly Electronics. Rick knows better than everyone else that irelyer does have the potential to replace alkman and all other portable music players currently available.

The meeting opened at four o'clock in the afternoon to confirm the detailed release and promotion plan of irelyer. Eric and Chris visited the company's R&D department together with the two leaders of Firefly Electronics.

At six o'clock, everyone had dinner together, and Eric flew back to Los Angeles in the night. Chris will continue to stay and lead the integration of Firefly Electronics and the British arm chip company. The related program was confirmed yesterday through a conference call with the arm management. Prior to this, Firefly Electronics had taken samples of e-book readers, but because the current production cost of this machine is close to $400, if you want to ensure sufficient profit, the sales price should be at least 700 dollars, which is normal. The price that consumers are hard to accept. After everyone's discussion, Eric decided to give up this product for the time being, but to use the accumulated technology to jointly develop a more powerful tablet pad with the cooperation of Firefly Electronics, Arm and Yahoo. This is also the original. The second phase of the Eric project, and plans to launch mature products around 2000, by the time, with the further development of the electronics industry, the manufacturing cost of the pad will certainly drop to a more reasonable price.

The Gulfstream business jet landed at Santa Monica Airport in the night, and Eric just got off the plane and received a call from Michael Eisner personally asking if he had a meal at night.

Eric certainly knows what Michael Eisner is saying, and the digital field has stopped cooperating. For a long time, Warner, Paramount, Universal and Sony will have a hard time making excellent g special effects movies. In the days, almost all of the top executives of the major movie companies had personally called to test whether Eric had the possibility of canceling the decision. Michael Eisner’s call was still relatively backward.

Considering that there were no appointments tonight, Eric promised to drive to the Morton Restaurant in Beverly Hills, a well-known restaurant that Hollywood filmmakers often haunt.

When I arrived at the restaurant, the time was approaching nine o'clock. Eric, under the leadership of the waiter, quickly found the location of Michael Eisner.

Michael Eisner, who was sitting at the table reading a newspaper, saw Eric walk over and stood up. The two shook hands and said hello. Eric couldn’t help but ridiculed: "I didn’t expect you to choose this. Home restaurant."

This sentence is not a target, but a past event that most people in Hollywood know.

In the mid-eighties, Michael Eisner, who was also the president of Paramount, was struggling because of the relationship between Martin Davis, the parent of the parent company, and was hoping to switch to Disney as CEO, when he and Disney were in a few words. The matter negotiated the conditions. After the resignation of Paramount, the Disney board of directors had a dispute over the decision to appoint Michael Eisner, which also led to Michael Eisner’s sudden unemployed unemployment. Immediately, Michael Eisner, who had just left the Hollywood Power Center, immediately encountered the embarrassing situation of people walking away from tea. One night, he planned to have dinner with his friend Michael Ovitz and called the Morton restaurant to set a position. The one who was rejected was suddenly told that the guest was full. Michael Owitz, who was present at the time, called again, but easily set the position. This is a Hollywood tycoon. A shame.

Michael Eisner heard Eric's teasing, but his expression was very dull, and said lightly: "Always remind yourself."

"Oh," Eric smiled, and the two sat down. Although they had already had dinner in San Francisco, Eric ordered a food.

Waiting for the waiter to leave, Michael Eisner took the initiative to say: "Eric, I heard that you went to San Francisco these two days?"

"Well, a company that has become there has made a small thing, and it will be on sale soon. I have seen it in the past."

Michael Eisner smiled and said: "Things that can be valued by you are certainly not as simple as small things?"

Eric suddenly realized something, but the expression did not change, but explained in detail: "It is a brand new portable music player, but the sample is in my baggage, or you can send you one, too It’s a very interesting little thing."

Since Michael Eisner already knows about it, he is no longer hiding. Eric even guessed that Michael Eisner probably already knows that Yahoo is in contact with Universal Music for online music sales.

Obviously, Michael Eisner wants to use the copyright of Universal Music as a bargaining chip in exchange for some real benefits, such as the digital field continues to support the global film industry.

However, Michael Eisner clearly miscalculated.

"Actually, I had a meal with Doug Morris of Universal Music at noon today, and I just heard about it," Michael Eisner did not bend around. "I also heard that Yahoo and Universal Music have negotiated cooperation. It seems to be in a stalemate."

"This is an inevitable thing," Eric said. "The big companies always have the arrogance of big companies. They always don't see the situation. When they have the initiative, they are self-sustaining and do not think about it. One day they lose their initiative. And will be the victim."

In the original time and space, several major record companies originally had the advantage over Apple to deploy mp3 players, but either to maintain the market position of the old portable players that were about to be eliminated, or the group management system was inflexible, in short, In the mp3 player, which is a low-threshold electronic product, although many record companies have tried, they all ended in failure. In the end, Apple occupied more than 70% of the music player market, and finally had to go to Apple online music sales. The rules of the platform are led by others. From time to time, it is like a grievance. Apple’s player connives piracy and infringes on its own rights. I don’t know, even without Apple, in the Internet era, because of the sharp reduction in the cost of pirated music, the record It is impossible for the industry to maintain its former glory.

Michael Eisner certainly can't see the future scene, although I feel that Eric's words are somewhat inexplicable, but there is no rebuttal.

Feel free to talk a few words, dinner soon came up, Michael Eisner took a sip of wine, put down the goblet and continued: "Eric, I think you must guess my thoughts. It is like this I can help to convince Mr. Bronfman to support Yahoo's cooperation with Universal Music, but in exchange, I hope that the digital field will continue to open cooperation with Universal Pictures. What do you think?"

Eric shook his head. "Sorry, Michael, I can't promise you."

Michael Eisner groaned. He didn't think Eric would reject it. During the day, he had investigated the Yahoo online music store in detail. Although he has already cooperated with some second- and third-line labels, Yahoo Music Store has only 200,000 titles of songs, and the best-selling songs and albums are limited to the group of young pop singers that Firefly Records has cultivated in recent years. On the global side, Universal Music has more than a quarter of the music copyright resources in the United States. If you can cooperate with the world, the attitude of other record companies will not be so determined. (To be continued.)