The Fourth Congress of Chinese Literary and Art Workers will be held on October 30, including literature, drama, music, film and other literary and artistic industries, with a total of more than 800 people participating.

The Film Workers Representative Conference will be held on November 4 after the Cultural Congress ends.

The Cultural Congress has very high standards, and the main national leaders will attend. All the attendees are respected figures. Chen Chong is not qualified to attend, but the film workers' meeting is qualified to attend.

It is absolutely a dream to think that a few speeches and a few reports can affect the formulation of film policies. Therefore, Chen Chong plans to stay in Beijing before the end of the film workers' meeting, while writing a feasibility report on "Hong Kong movie imports from the mainland", while making friends with officials from the Film Bureau. Even if you cannot turn the wheel of history, it is good to keep a good relationship. Anyway, you will have to deal with more in the future.

The focus of his activities everywhere and communicating with people is the distribution and screening system of movies.

In the 1980s, the monopoly of unified purchase and sales of China Film Company set a gap between the studio and the film market. The studio could not make profits from the hot market and could not make money. In this way, the studio had no motivation and no ability to shoot high-quality good movies.

Without good movies, the market will be sluggish if the audience's needs are not met. Moreover, with the rapid development of the mainland economy, TVs have gradually entered thousands of households. In this way, internal and external troubles have caused the film market to fall to the bottom in the early 1990s.

This is like the Cowherd and Weaver Girl. One is full of interest and the other is hungry and thirsty, but is blocked by the Milky Way, watching over each other, drooling each other, but having no choice...

Whether the monopoly of China Film Company can be broken is the key to whether the mainland film market can continue to be active.

The censorship system of movies has a very strong political color. Chen Chong believed that he was incapable of interfering, but he was still somewhat sure about the reform of the film distribution and screening system, because it was not a single person fighting, but a group of people fighting - all studios across the country had ideas, such as Wang Yang, the director of Beijing Film Studio, once wrote a letter to demand the reform of the screening system.

During the Film Workers Congress, the main leaders of major studios across the country will come to Beijing. At that time, exchange and operation will be carried out and some tricks will be made, which will likely have positive results.

Unfortunately, plans are not as fast as changes.

The day after the Film Bureau made a report on "co-producing", Shen Chong received a telegram from Felley.

The content is very simple, just a few words.

Apple intends to acquire VisiCalc.

This surprised Chen Chong.

Historically, before VisiCalc was released, Festra took the initiative to look for Apple, and offered a price of $1 million, but was rejected by gorgeously...

And now, Apple takes the initiative to acquire it?

To be honest, Chen Chong was very moved.

In July, August, and September, VisiCalc sold nearly 130,000 copies, each of which was $99. After deducting production costs and issuing and promotional expenses, the gross profit exceeded $10 million, making it a perfect money-making monster.

If Shen Chong's main business is the computer industry, he would not give up VisiCalc in any case. However, his main business is movies, which greatly reduces the value of VisiCalc and becomes useless.

VisiCalc is indeed very profitable, but it is just a spreadsheet software made by two programmers, not an Office set, and the technical threshold is not high enough. Although the United States has a complete copyright system and there will be no piracy, there is no patent, so there will be a copycat soon...

Office software is one of the most profitable areas in the computer industry. In no time, many companies will flock to the market, and the competition is fierce, no less than the smartphone market in later generations.

Although Shen Chong has learned a lot from computers, he at least understands one truth - software, like movies, cannot be perfectly plagiarized, and it is not something that can be made just by talking.

With the development of computer software and hardware, the development of office software systems will become very complex in a few years. Developers will use "hundreds" as units, the code will use "ten thousand lines" as units, and the development cycle will use "years". At that time, how can Shen Chong have the time and energy to operate and manage?

In history, two or three years later, VisiCalc was replaced by Lotus, and Lotus lasted for a few years and was replaced by Office. Therefore, if you don’t put all your efforts and work hard, VisiCalc will soon decline and will not have long-term money-making ability.

What Shen Chong values ​​VisiCalc the most is its patent for its spreadsheets, because any office software cannot avoid spreadsheets. As long as you get the patent, you only need to sit at home in the future, and the authorization fee will come, which is comfortable and relaxed.

Unfortunately, although he submitted the application materials early and found the top lawyers, there was never a software patent in the world before, so the review process was very slow. After VisiCalc was launched, it made the office efficiency leap, and the huge market that followed, making the patent approval more and more eye-catching. Before Shen Chong came to Beijing, there was an issue of Time magazine that used VisiCalc's floppy disk as the cover. All computer experts in it criticized Shen Chong's patent application.

In this case, Chen Chong felt that VisiCalc's patent would probably not be obtained in 100 cases, because the lawyer in charge of the patent called in September and reminded him that if he could naturalize himself in the United States, it would be very beneficial to obtain the patent.

However, Shen Chong had no interest in naturalization in the United States...

If he couldn't get the patent, he originally planned to integrate VisiCalc into Microsoft at the right time in exchange for a certain amount of shares. Anyway, Microsoft will be the overlord of office software in the future, and Bill Gates's business ability is extremely strong. He follows behind and can get huge dividends every year without any effort.

But since Apple is interested, selling it is also a good choice.

In June, Apple conducted a round of external private equity financing, including capital companies such as Xerox, Rothschild, and some individual investors, and subscribed to Apple's shares at a price of US$10.5 per share, raising a total of US$7.27 million.

Chen Chong was in the mainland at that time. When he went to the United States, the financing had already ended and he had not obtained anything. He had to hire two stock brokers to buy some leftovers from the outside and masturbate.

In 1979, Apple's annual sales were only 70 to 80 million, and she would definitely not be able to provide enough cash to acquire VisiCalc. She would definitely replace the shares. This is a good opportunity.

Chen Chong is not a fan of Apple. He is interested in Apple's stock because Apple will go public next year. Before going public, the current shares will be split again, and one stock will become ten shares. After listing, the stock price soared to $29 that day, which means that if you invest $10.5 now, you can recover at least $290 next year, with an amazing return rate. (Note 1)

Faced with such a huge business opportunity, after hesitating for a while, Chen Chong decided to go back to Hong Kong.

Because he is very poor and needs money...

After replenishing production funds, Tetris sales soared. By mid-September, more than two months, 400,000 copies were sold. They could have sold more, but unfortunately the production capacity of the cassette company could not keep up and the market was still in a state of hunger.

Each cartridge is priced at US$49.99, and the factory price is around US$18. However, large-scale distribution and marketing cost a lot. After a rough calculation, the gross profit is 8 million. As the production capacity increases, Tetris' money-making ability will be further enhanced. As a game that has been popular all over the world for 30 years, its durability is also worth looking forward to.

But this money is not a salary, you can't spend it as much as you want...

Unlike office software, electronic games and the film industry are closely related to each other, and Shen Chong will not give up on this field. Activision has been expanding and poaching people everywhere. Tetris production and marketing also require a lot of reserves, so although you make a lot of money, it is just the numbers on the books and cannot move.

The situation of the Rubik's Cube is a bit subtle. On the one hand, the sales volume is huge, with more than 800,000 yuan per month. However, under the siege of many copycats and piracy, the sales momentum has dropped significantly and the growth is weak. In the past few months, advertising and competitions were held, which increased a lot of marketing costs, so the profit is no longer as good as before. Shen Chong's monthly dividends were only more than 2 million, and most of them could not be moved. One reason is that after Li Kaiyuan's factory in Shenzhen was completed and put into production, he would need a lot of money to market new products before Christmas, and the other was to save money and do a big thing.

The only thing he can use is VisiCalc's profit and a Rubik's cube patent licensing fee of about $800,000 per month.

There is indeed a lot of money, but there is also a lot of money spent...

With the popularity of VisiCalc and Tetris, the issuance chain led by Festra is also expanding rapidly and blooming everywhere. Even if two strategic investment partners are introduced, millions of funds will still be consumed every month.

Kurosawa's "Shadow Warrior" seems to have a bottomless pit. It invested 2 million US dollars in May. At the end of August, news came from Japan that it needed to raise funds again, so Chen Chong invested another 2 million... (Note 2)

Rolling Stones split the family and Chen Chong invested $400,000 in Wu Chuchu's new company...

The establishment of the Oriental Charming Taiwan branch, Chen Chong allocated Zhang Aijia a $1 million budget in one breath...

Jin Shijie and others founded Lanling Theater. Chen Chong waved his hand and spent more than 500,000 US dollars to buy a cinema in Taipei, preparing to convert it into a theater...

The three magazines under its jurisdiction are all money-lossing goods, and they have to fill in $200,000 to 300,000 a month...

After all the expenses, Shen Chong was very limited, so when he joined Hutchison Whampoa's business at the end of September, he still used all the patents of Rubik's Cube as collateral and got a loan, which only then raised $8 million.

And all of these 8 million have now entered the gold futures market. If VisiCalc can be exchanged for part of cash and Apple's shares, it will be a very good business.

Chen Chong was in Beijing and felt that his influence was not enough and his weight was not enough. Those minds basically regarded him as a promising young expert and spoke to him. Although he listened seriously, he did not put it in his heart...

Chen Chong needs a big move and tell them that I am not a light piaopiao expert, I am a rich man, Jin Shanshan, a heavy man!

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Note 1: See "A Record of the Flood and Flood of Apple Capital"
Chapter completed!