Chapter 1051: The settlement agreement that was played by the wicked

Zhang Ke was also quite embarrassed. Chen Feirong stepped on something bad, but she slipped on the "raincoat" - littering was not a good habit. He retracted his bathroom and lay back in the warm water, considering whether to go to the United States in person. It was not only the American Recording Industry Association for withdrawal of the lawsuit, but also the 0.25/0.18 micron wafer process technology caused by Deyi also needed appropriate promotion.

Zhang Ke put on his clothes and came downstairs. Tang Jing and Chen Feirong sat in the restaurant for breakfast. He sat over and grabbed a fried dough stick and dipped it in Tang Jing’s cup to eat it. While chewing the fried dough sticks, Chen Feirong said to Tang Jing: "Don’t keep soy milk, fried dough sticks all day. I heard others say that rich people rinse their mouths with shark fins when they wake up in the morning. When do you think our taste for life can improve?"

"Pu..." Chen Feirong slipped on the condom, and was embarrassed to look at Zhang Ke. She watched Zhang Ke come downstairs and drink soy milk. He heard that he was making jokes and couldn't help laughing. The soy milk in her mouth was sprayed on the dining table, and some of them were sprayed directly into the glass cup. She coughed hard for a while. She quickly took out the napkin to clean the slurry stains on the table. She glared at Zhang Ke with anger and funny look. The butt petals just now were still painful, and the soy milk in the glass could not be drunk. She changed into a glass cup and poured the soy milk that was originally left for Zhang Ke into the cup, and said, "You can rinse your shark fins. You can also look like this soy milk that the young people drink..." She took a beautiful sip, and then stirred the fried dough sticks in the soy milk.

Zhang Ke didn't care. He drank Tang Jing's soy milk anyway, so Tang Jing went to divide some soy milk from Chen Feirong's cup, and the three of them could finish the breakfast together.

When Zhang Ke talked about his plan to go to the United States, Tang Jing said in embarrassment: "I have to go to Kingsoft to accompany my mother for a few days. Anyway, I will go there with Feirong. I don't care whether you have time or not - you can just find someone to accompany you to the United States."

Zhang Ke spread his hands, and he was speechless. It was so desolate. He couldn't say that Xu Si was not free. Although Tang Jing had already suspected that Zhai Danqing was now, Zhai Danqing was far away in Perth and had to go to Australia to take a walk from the United States, but he couldn't take her to accompany her to the United States for a walk. Wanqing had not been exposed yet.

Without anyone to accompany you, this trip to the United States has become a pure business trip, boring and boring.

When they arrived in San Francisco, Meng Le and Xi Ruolin went to Canada and were not in the United States. Zhang Ke stayed in San Francisco for two days to attend the signing ceremony of the settlement agreement with the Recording Industry Association of the United States (RIAA).

According to the settlement agreement, Kumho will upgrade anti-piracy encryption software for the IPlayer sold in North America to meet RIAA's requirements, and RIAA will give up the requirement of continuing prosecution and compensation in North America.

Last month, RIAA sued North America’s largest free mp3 music resource website to win. Although the website claimed to be non-profit, the court ruled that the website ultimately lost, and in addition to closing the website, it also had to pay huge punitive damages.

In North America, not to mention profitable, non-profit pirated music websites have already had a very narrow living space, which provides a larger commercial space for online music stores such as global music online, and market potential has surged.

As the largest online music store with the current user base, Global Music Online has been granted license from major traditional audio-visual and audio copyright owners.

For Global Music Online, Kumho holds 70% of the shares, Toshiba and Scooper hold the remaining 30% of the shares, and the three companies invested nearly 90 million US dollars in total, which itself is an important reflection of Kumho's emphasis on the copyright interests of traditional audio and video audio manufacturers.

RIAA may have long realized that this lawsuit will only allow Kumho to gain greater commercial benefits. They only held a threatening attitude at the beginning. Unexpectedly, as an emerging company that has risen in China in the short term, he would be so tenaciously adapted to the legal environment of the United States and tangled with them. After the entanglement, they would be entangled for half a year.

When signing the settlement agreement, the senior executives who attended Kumho took turns to come forward to give a warm hug to the representatives of RIAA. The representatives of RIAA were extremely embarrassed. They felt that they had been playing tricks on their opponents in the past six months. Many American media also published pictures of the enthusiastic hugs of representatives of both sides in newspapers and magazines.

The settlement agreement should be regarded as the perfect ending of this lawsuit for Kumho. Due to RIAA's fierce pursuit of Internet pirated music websites, the industry is extremely optimistic about the prospects of the Internet paid music market, accounting for 90% of the current online paid music market. In the first half of 1999, the global music online, which had operating income of more than 10 million US dollars in the first half of 1999, the market value of the global music online was naturally extremely high in August 1999 when the wave of new technology was surging.

Goldman Sachs, an American investment bank that successfully pushed Quantum online stocks to the public trading of the Nasdaq market in the United States, naturally would not lose the value of global music online.

When Zhang Ke and Chen Xinsheng arrived in San Francisco, Zeng Zihui, vice president of Goldman Sachs Asia, came from Hong Kong to San Francisco, hoping that Kumho could hand over the listing of global music online to Goldman Sachs.

Zeng Zihui also appeared after Kumho signed a settlement agreement with RIAA to completely resolve the legal issues - it was impossible for Goldman Sachs to stand up in advance to support Kumho.

In the banquet hall of the Argennot Hotel in the center of Fisherman's Wharf, the fishy red carpet and the fishy red wine swayed in the crystal clear glass. Zhang Ke really couldn't imagine why there were not many business secretaries recruited by North American companies, or that his aesthetic standards for Western women were all above Sophie Marceau and Zeta Jones.

"In addition to the traditional Internet website revenue model, Global Music Online has a very good offline hardware platform. With the promotion of IPlayer hardware, the website's music sales business model will become more mature and the scale will become more and more impressive. American commercial institutions have a very high evaluation of Global Music Online. At this time, the preparation for listing will win greater benefits for Kumho than Quanteng Online..." Zeng Zihui was motivating in front of Zhang Ke, Chen Xinsheng and others. Quanteng Online's stock price has risen to $14 per share. Compared with the issue price, the increase is nearly five times. Compared with the venture capital holdings under Goldman Sachs, the increase is even more terrifying. Of course, Goldman Sachs' acquisition is far inferior to Quanteng Online's original investor Oak Garden Venture Capital Fund - Kumho is the giant behind Oak Garden Venture Capital Fund, Zeng Zihui already knows it.

At this time, it should be after next spring. With at least six months of ban, it will be the fall and winter season next year. Zhang Ke does not believe that the new technology bubble in the global capital market can last until tomorrow fall. The bubble bursts and requires at least three to four years of recovery. Since it cannot make a profit from this wave of new technology, Zhang Ke lacks interest in listing. Besides, Global Music Online received a $60 million investment from Toshiba and Scooper at the beginning of the year, which is not enough.

The shortage of funds is Kumho Commercial. Although he holds Global Music Online, he cannot transfer the funds under Global Music Online to Kumho Commercial. Looking at Zeng Zihui's passion, Zhang Ke scratched his forehead and said: "The website is not short of funds, and it seems that it is not very meaningful to inject funds into the market... Even if the stocks we hold can be cashed out in the stock market, we have to wait until after next autumn. I am more eager for utilitarianism and have no interest in things that cannot save the near fire."

Zhang Ke's words sounded like a rejection of his listing lobbying. Zeng Zihui was inevitably a little disappointed. He hasn't heard of any company that would reject Goldman Sachs' invitation to listing, unless it was poached for competitors like Morgan. Could it be that Kumho has found a better listing partner outside Goldman Sachs?

Halfway through the dinner, Zeng Zihui said goodbye and left the Argennott Hotel, preparing to fly to Goldman Sachs' headquarters on Wall Street in New York in the evening. When he stepped on the plane, he suddenly thought that Zhang Ke did not mean completely rejecting it—

Yuanshui cannot save Jinhuo. What he said is that Kumho is still lacking in funds now? If a venture capital fund is willing to take over part of the equity directly from Kumho instead of directly investing in Global Music Online, this plan might work?

Zeng Zihui shook his head and smiled bitterly. He spent his childhood in Hong Kong, and then his family immigrated to the United States. He had long adapted to the business environment and thinking of Europe and the United States. Unexpectedly, there was a bend hidden in Zhang Ke's words that seemed to refuse. Although it was not certain whether the real situation was the same as what he guessed, such a large business was worth it. There was no regret for him to miss the flight.

Zeng Zihui hurriedly got off the plane again and returned to Argenut Hotel from the airport. The banquet in the hotel was not over yet. Seeing Zhang Ke, Chen Xinsheng and others were not particularly surprised by their return. Zeng Zihui knew that the guess was true, but just smiled slightly, and everyone gathered in another room to discuss some feasibility details.

It would not work for Kumho to maintain absolute control over GM Music Online for a long time. In addition to external pressure, Toshiba, which holds 20% of GM Music Online's equity, has always hoped that Kumho can give up its absolute control, so that Toshiba's IPlayer hardware sales can get a fairer opportunity.

Considering the intimate relationship between Scooper and Kumho, as long as Kumho maintains 40% of its equity, it can more stably control Global Music Online, which means that up to 30% of its equity can be transferred.

At the beginning of the year, Toshiba and Scooper paid a total of 60 million US dollars in cash in order to acquire 30% of the equity of Global Music Online. Zhang Ke made this move at this time: Kumho can directly transfer up to 30% of the equity, and the key is to see what price the venture capital under the name of Goldman Sachs or Goldman Sachs is willing to offer.

Zeng Zihui still flew to New York that night, and Wall Street is where venture capitalists gather.

Rather than saying that Zeng Zihui is very efficient, it is better to say that Goldman Sachs has an amazing influence in the United States on Wall Street. On the third day of Zhang Ke's in San Francisco, Zeng Zihui sent back news that Amazon is very interested in the transfer of equity of Global Music Online, and even hopes to fully accept 70% of the shares in Kumho and offer a tentative offer of $200 million.

In the wave of new technology, Amazon is probably one of the new technology companies that benefit the most. Compared with Amazon's business miracle, Kumho at this time seems to be slightly inferior on the surface.

In mid-July 1995, Bezos built an online bookstore called Amazon in his residence rented in his suburbs of Seattle based on the $300,000 lent to him by his parents. It was launched in 1997. Today, four years later, Amazon has grown into the largest Internet retailer in the United States, providing books, audio and video, software, toys and gifts to more than 11 million users on the Internet, with a market value of more than 10 billion US dollars. One year after Amazon went public, in order to maintain its status as an online retailer in North America, it began large-scale mergers and acquisitions of other e-commerce websites.

Online paid music download sales, as an important branch of e-commerce, are increasingly recognized by the market. Moreover, the market potential of the business model that combines the Internet resources and hardware platforms created by Kumho cannot be underestimated, and the model is difficult to imitate. It is normal for Amazon to maintain its position as the largest online retailer in North America, and it is a normal thing to covet global music online.

Zhang Ke, Chen Xinsheng and others heard Amazon's acquisition intention conveyed by Zeng Zihui, but they did not consider it and directly refused to leave it, without any intention to further contact Amazon.

Although the profits that Global Music Online can generate in the next ten years are extremely limited, its huge role in promoting the sales of IPlayer hardware in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea where copyright protection is strictly protected. Kumho will never give up substantial control. If Kumho is willing to give up control, Toshiba will never be stingy with the 200 million US dollars.

In addition to Amazon, it was the first to join Quantum Online. At this time, the Warden venture capital fund, which made huge profits on the books, also had a strong interest in the equity of Global Music Online. These venture capital investors simply wanted to make a profit, and would not seek to control the risks. They would not even hold too many shares, nor did they pass Zeng Zihui. After the rumors of Goldman Sachs, they directly sent representatives to San Francisco to contact here. Their actions were quick and they also offered 40 million US dollars for 10% equity. Their actions were so fast that they were always staring at Global Music Online.

Compared with Toshiba before the year, Scooper's capital investment and holding stock price code, the venture capital offer of Walden's company doubled: But compared with last year, the Nasq-Da Index also doubled in less than a year, and the stock price of e-commerce websites like Amazon has increased far more than doubled. Quantum's online trading has been listed for less than three months, and its market value has exceeded US$1 billion.

The venture capital under Goldman Sachs was able to calm down this time. Even if Zeng Zihui was behind the scenes, the venture capital under Goldman Sachs was not in a hurry to come forward.

Zhang Ke has no confidence that the new technology wave will last until tomorrow and fall, but he is confident that he can persist until next year. He still has plenty of time to negotiate equity transfers and entrust all related matters to North American companies. He and Chen Xinsheng, Liu Zhicheng and others flew to Dallas to negotiate with Deyi for the final stage of the transfer of 0.25/0.18 micron wafer process technology.

Deyi's old friend Del Fassi came forward to receive the reception, and Deyi China President Zhou Changqing naturally had to fly back to Dallas from Beijing to participate in the final stage of negotiations.

The weather in Dallas in late August is much warmer than in Jianye, but the business trip is a little boring.

Delfassi really is an old friend of Kumho. When Chen Xinsheng worked at Delfassi, he was a capable subordinate of Delfassi for a long time and had a strong personal friendship. Unfortunately, no matter how deep his personal relationship is, he cannot make Delfassi "sacrifice" Delfassi's interests a little, which is really regrettable.

If anyone outside of Kumho is watching Kumho's miraculous rise, Del Fassi is one. When Kumho first started his DVD player business, Deyi was the most important partner. Over the years, Kumho and Deyi have had close cooperation in many fields, joint ventures, joint research institutions, and Deyi even hold 10% of Zhongjing Microchip's shares - especially in the DVD player decoding chip and the IPlayer hardware architecture, which has enabled both companies to gain rich benefits.

Due to the weakness of the global electronics market, Deyi's full-year profit fell to less than US$800 million in 1998, of which more than US$200 million were generated from Kumho-related businesses.

In the first half of 1999, although the new technology economy was extremely fanatical, it was mostly a matter of the capital market. The global electronic components market was still weak. However, with the rapid growth of China's consumer electronics market and the increasing global sales of IPlayers, Deyi expects to increase its net profit from its related business industry with Kumho in 1999 to exceed US$300 million.

Kumho, a strategic partner, is increasingly unnecessarily overlooked by senior Deyi officials.

The American media and the public are not familiar with the inside story. In the first half of this year, the lawsuit between Kumho and the American Recording Industry Association, which spans a half-year span, has greatly increased Kumho's reputation in North America, and has also caused a small group of American media and the public to question the rapid improvement of Kumho electronic technology behind the rapid improvement of Kumho electronic technology is the technology transfer. Some media even proposed to re-examine the transaction between Kumho and Kumho, which has put Deumho under considerable pressure.

Pressure should be pressure, but in the face of huge commercial interests, this pressure cannot be counted - at this time, no one can ignore China's rapidly growing consumer electronics market, and no one can ignore Kumho's position in China's consumer electronics market.

On the night when Zhang Ke, Chen Xinsheng, Liu Zhicheng and others arrived in Dallas, Deyi CEO Angelber still welcomed Zhang Ke in his private residence.

While guests and friends were having fun, Angelber and Delfassi should also appreciate the rapid development of Kumho.

Although Zhongjing Microchip received investment from Deyi in the middle of last year, it actually did not receive support from Deyi in process technology. Zhongjing Microchip has increased its yield rate from less than 30% at the beginning of its completion and production to 80%, and its performance is even better than other wafer factories with mature process processes. After nearly a year of running-in, the actual production capacity of Zhongjing Microchip Xinpu factory has increased to 60,000 pieces per month.

In the first half of 1999, the domestic production of SVCD discs reached 10 million units, and the global production of SVCD discs was about 12 million units. The market share of SVCD decoding chips was 90%, and the control chips was more than 50% controlled by the joint ventures of Aida, Deyi and Scobo. After the process conditions of the Xinpu factory met the conditions, almost half of the orders of the joint venture were transferred to Zhongjing Microchip.

Domestic digital mobile phone and other electronic component manufacturers that grew up relying on the digital mobile phone technology promotion association, Zhongjing Microchip accounts for almost half of the chip foundry business market formed by these electronic manufacturers. In addition, the orders for mid- and low-end chips with ** intellectual property rights of Kumho are almost handed over to Xinpu factory for OEM, including the most profitable flash chip business.

When the global electronics industry is relatively low, Zhongjing Microchip Xinpu Factory relies on these businesses to achieve profitability less than a year after the factory is completed. This is already a very outstanding achievement. Of course, the success of Zhongjing Microchip Xinpu Factory mainly relies on the vertical production system of Kumho. The orders obtained by the Xinpu Factory at this time have a great relationship with Kumho.

The production scale of Kumho is constantly expanding, especially the digital mobile phone industry clusters that have been bred based on the Digital Mobile Phone Technology Promotion Association have gradually gained a foundation. In addition to the relatively low manufacturing costs in China, Zhongjing Microchip will also have a place in the international chip business market. It is less than a year since the Xinpu factory was built, so it is necessary to consider capacity expansion and technology upgrades.

For Deyi, the 0.25-micron wafer process technology that Zhongjing Microchip is pursuing is a technology it is being eliminated. Some of Deyi's chip products produced using 0.18-micron process technology are also handed over to foundries for wafer factories such as TSMC and HG Annan, and transferred 0.25/0.18-micron wafer process technology, which has a very little impact on Deyi's natural wafer production business.

On the one hand, due to high production and management costs, Deyi needs to withdraw from the production of medium and low-end wafers. On the other hand, as more and more electronic companies gradually master the design technology of medium and low-end chips, once Deyi withdraws from the production of medium and low-end wafers, it will be completely unable to share the profits of the mid- and low-end chip market.

Although the profit margin of the mid- and low-end chip market is relatively low, the market capacity is huge and the total profit scale is still considerable.

Holding shares in mid- and low-end wafer factories and sharing the profits of the mid- and low-end chip market has undoubtedly become the best choice for Deyi. This is also an important basis for Deyi to make a strategic decision to invest in Zhongjing Microchip a year ago. At this time, the eliminated 0.25-micron wafer process process is transferred to Zhongjing Microchip. Deyi's internal understanding is consistent. As an additional condition for the transfer of technology, Deyi will continue to invest in Zhongjing Microchip; however, the 0.18-micron wafer process process is the current mainstream technology. Although it can be transferred to Zhongjing Microchip by the edge of national supervision, Deyi has to withstand huge public pressure from the US media and the public for this, which makes people hesitate.
Chapter completed!