Chapter 836: Time Is Running Out (Two in One)

Fang Zhuo's communication with Legere has changed from the past, no, it was the difficulty of the past years, and has become particularly smooth.

He talked about the prospects of 3G mobile phones, and Lai Tu talked about the support provided by 3G equipment deployment.

He talked about the human-computer interaction of touch-screen mobile phones, and Lai Tu talked about the stagnation of mainstream products.

He talked about the shortcomings of tea bags, and Lai Tu and Lai Tu made a cup of tea for Mr. Fang again, and poured a cup carefully first.

After such a chat, I found that the tough and severe Legere could also be so gentle and elegant.

Fang Zhuo was very happy to meet another side of Lai Tu today.

However, although he began to feel the strong position of operators in negotiations since last year, and gradually felt pain in the repeated tugs and pulls, he did not become arrogant today because of a pre-sale in Europe.

Everyone just talked about cooperation, development, and how to make this thing more beautiful, that's all.

Although the cooperation with T-Mobile has lost some of its initiative due to the intervention of Deutsche Telekom headquarters, Fang Zhuo agreed in principle to give him exclusive contract rights for a certain period of time.

For example, the mobile phone is exclusive to T-Mobile within six months of its release. During this period, even if the operator Verizon is willing to cooperate, the sales time will have to be postponed.

At the same time, Fang Zhuo also believes that T-Mobile's purchase price should be given a fair position.

It is also a cooperation. Look at the $325 that AT&T gave Apple, and how T-Mobile can't give more than 300.

Lai Tu, you have to think about it again!

Leger's attitude in the communication did reveal a new willingness to consider.

He even wanted to wait for the senior management of the headquarters tonight to continue to discuss the cooperation conditions with Yi Ke, so as not to wait and wait for a new price.

At noon, Fang Zhuo had a meal here at T-Mobile, and halfway through the meal, he received a call from Europe, and it was Obermann, the CEO of Deutsche Telekom who just took office last year.

Last November, Deutsche Telekom changed its leader. Obermann replaced the original CEO Rick and became the head of the largest telecom operator in Europe.

It is worth mentioning that Obermann was the immediate superior of Lai Tu before he became the head.

Lai Tu is the CEO of T-Mobile USA, responsible for the US market, and Obermann is the global head of T-Mobile's mobile communications services. The level between the two has increased as the latter took over as the head.

Fang Zhuo was somewhat surprised to receive the call from this person.

It seems empty to just say that Deutsche Telekom is the largest operator in Europe. Only talking about revenue can show its scale. Last year's annual revenue exceeded US$90 billion, which is almost more than the combined revenue of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom.

Such a giant head asked about the new mobile phone manufacturer that the US subsidiary planned to cooperate with. This made Fang Zhuo re-evaluate the impact of his own mobile phone Mars and also put a small question mark in his heart.

Obermann congratulated Yike on the success of the press conference during the call, and believed that Mars was an innovative and creative product, and he looked forward to further cooperation between the two sides.

He also talked about the 100,000 units pre-sale that Deutsche Telekom tried to do alone, and said that Lai Tu didn't know more specific information.

The 100,000 units pre-sale test conducted by Deutsche Telekom was indeed aimed at Finland, Nokia's base, but because they were in the Nordic market, the 100,000 units order was actually divided into three directions, and Finland and its two neighboring countries, Norway and Sweden, jointly digested the pre-sale.

Even so, the simple survey conducted by Deutsche Telekom during the pre-sale, including the pre-order users' current operators and whether they were willing to change operators, also showed an optimistic tendency.

Oberman showed a strong ambition in the short call time.

There are 68 million 3G users in the European market, which only account for 10% of mobile users, and there are up to 90% of the silent market waiting to be leveraged.

Unlike the United States, which has just started the development of the 3G market, Europe is relatively mature and has complete conditions in all aspects, except for star products that can attract users.

Yike, which can combine the Internet trend ecology such as YouTube and Facebook, and cooperate with dozens of manufacturers such as Google, is considered to have such potential after testing.

All this will be further evaluated by the Deutsche Telekom team that is flying to Silicon Valley at this moment.

If Yike Mars is really as good as it was at the press conference, Obermann will not be as hesitant as Lai Tu, and will directly express his willingness to cooperate at a deeper level on the phone.

When the call ended, Fang Zhuo looked at Lai Tu with an inquiring look on his face and suddenly realized a problem.

The fake iron triangle is fake, and Lai Tu is not a person who can take a selfie with himself and Schmidt at all.

The real iron triangle is Google Schmidt, Yike Fang Zhuo, and Deutsche Telekom Obermann!

Fang Zhuo set the time to meet with Deutsche Telekom executives tomorrow.

He is not worried about Yike Mars' performance. Lai Tu also knows that half a year is used for optimization. The prospects of 3G, the interaction of touch screens, the ecological development of mobile Internet, and the unique global pre-positioning are the competitiveness of Mars that cannot be ignored.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Fang Zhuo shook hands with Lai Tu and said goodbye.

On the way back, the secretary sorted out some more noteworthy situations about Deutsche Telekom for Fang Zhuo to sort out the cooperation between the two sides.

Obermann, the head of Deutsche Telekom, has only been in office for seven months. He was originally responsible for mobile communications, which was related to 2G and 3G. It is precisely because of this that he gained the high expectations of the board of directors.

Therefore, Obermann is relatively willing to focus on an area he is familiar with - 3G mobile devices.

The reason why the original head Rick stepped down was precisely because Deutsche Telekom had poor profits in the past two years, its fixed-line business was sluggish, its 3G business was slow to develop, and it failed to maintain its advantage in the fierce market competition in Europe.

Although Deutsche Telekom is the largest operator in Europe, no matter whether it is Vodafone in the UK, Telefonica, KLM or smaller operators in various European countries, they all maintain greater or lesser competitive pressure.

Due to various reasons, Deutsche Telekom announced in January this year that it had lowered its profit forecast for 2007, causing the stock price to plummet.

"Mr. Fang, Deutsche Telekom's profits in 2006 dropped by 43% compared to 2005. It's no wonder that Rick stepped down." Secretary Liu Zonghong paid attention to a key data.

For a telecom operator of this size, the annual profit dropped by 43%. This number is quite astonishing, and the trend can already be called bleak.

"No matter how much Deutsche Telekom declines, it will still be a giant, but it must be eager to find a breakthrough. Obermann, who comes from mobile communications, obviously regards 3G as a key direction." Fang Zhuo opened a new email and said thoughtfully. , "He chose the right direction."

He continued to read the information collected in the email.

The new head of Obermann proposed a development strategy, which requires maintaining competitiveness, achieving market growth through mobile communications, and focusing on mobile Internet and Web2.0...

Fang Zhuo felt that there was a broad basis for cooperation between this person’s idea and Yike. In addition to the purchase price, Mars could also have a more targeted discussion on the sharing between Mars and new users.

After a long time, the car arrived at the R&D center. Fang Zhuo closed his laptop and finished browsing the information that he had added in time. He had a clearer understanding of Deutsche Telekom's situation of testing alone before expressing concern.

"It's going to be a win-win."

Fang Zhuo greeted Xu Keden who hurried downstairs and commented on his secretary Liu Zonghong with a smile.

When Liu Zonghong saw Director Xu approaching, he just nodded and said nothing.

"Mr. Fang, Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, is waiting for you to come back in the conference room." Xu Keden was not very satisfied with Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, who came over temporarily. He didn't make an appointment and ignored him. Squatting in the conference room is indeed a bit ungraceful.

"Oh, Duoxi, didn't I tell him about tomorrow on the way back?" Fang Zhuo casually replied with a text message and asked, "Are you here to invest?"

Xu Keden shook his head: "I don't know."

Twitter, which was almost disintegrated, received an investment from Fang Zhuo and moved its office from the basement to a sunny place, but its development was limited to that, and there always seemed to be problems with the company's operations.

Fang Zhuo once considered whether to send a team to help develop Twitter, just like how he helped Xiaonei.com.

It was only two months ago that Twitter ushered in a turning point in development that made him give up the idea.

It exploded at the SXSW conference, and user tweets tripled during the event.

Fang Zhuo didn't quite understand the relationship between the SXSW conference, which was based on music and art, and Internet projects. He had never heard of such an event before. After looking at the information, he found that many previous conferences were about bands, rock, and movies. .

However, Twitter suddenly gained a lot of users, which is still not satisfactory.

As far as Fang Zhuo knew, the founder Dorsey should be very busy now, and he didn't know why he suddenly came to him.

Soon, he saw Dorsey in the conference room, typing on his laptop keyboard.

"Mr. Fang, Mr. Fang." Dorsey complained dissatisfiedly as soon as he saw Mr. Fang, "Aren't we at Twitter also involved in software development? Why didn't we introduce Twitter at the press conference? I was the first to go to YouTube. Look for it!"

Fang Zhuo smiled and said, "Is this why you came?"

Dorsey said confidently: "What if? Like YouTube, Facebook, and Yahoo, Twitter should be launched on Mars as soon as possible! I have had enough of the web for a long time. Mobile software applications are simply born for Twitter!"

He said firmly: "Mr. Fang, as long as your Android system can develop, Twitter will definitely develop rapidly with the convenience of software!"

Fang Zhuo asked rhetorically: "As long as Android develops and Twitter is not allowed to be used, wouldn't it be possible for others to develop as well?"

Dorsey was stunned and blinked: "Mr. Fang, you are an investor in Twitter! If you don't strongly support our development, do we still need to optimize Facebook more?"

"It's the same for me. Time is very tight at this press conference. It's enough to show the two software applications in that session." Fang Zhuo poured himself a glass of water, "Compared with YouTube and Facebookd The reputation is still a little small, I want to impress the audience.”

Dorsey actually understands that he came here just to ensure that when Mars is released, he will not leave Twitter behind.

He felt that he had to come in person and hear Mr. Fang's promise with his own ears.

"No problem, the Android system now needs an excellent application ecosystem, and Twitter is no problem." Fang Zhuo gave a clear answer. He was just about to talk about the development of Twitter when he suddenly felt that the person in front of him had good feedback, so he asked He said, "You came here so unexpectedly, do you think our Mars is good?"

Dorsey said naturally: "Of course it's good, I'm waiting to buy it for Christmas."

Fang Zhuo asked with interest: "How is it good?"

Dorsey thought about the display at the press conference, this and that, and just briefly stated the reason: "It's cool."

For him, this is enough.

Fang Zhuo has also heard some reasons from yesterday to today. Suddenly hearing these two words, his already good mood suddenly became better.

A cool mobile phone, I believe this will be the reason for many consumers to buy it, and it may also be the reason why the 100,000 units pre-sale in Northern Europe are sold out.

He gave Dorsey a sentence that made both parties happy: "Twitter calls me directly when you need financing."

Dorsey rode his bicycle back with Mr. Fang's promise.

Fang Zhuo calmed down a little, and continued to think about the important cooperation with Deutsche Telekom in his mind. Then he dealt with the work arrangements of suppliers, European market, and Chinese market in the afternoon, evening, and night.

Because there is a relatively certain procurement cooperation, Yike now needs to have more demanding requirements for suppliers.

Originally, considering reducing costs, the supply chain tried to add domestic suppliers, such as the rear cover glass.

But after the subsequent comparison, the German technology is indeed better for glass alone. Although domestic products can also be used, the situation is different, so the decision has changed.

Fang Zhuo is not going to kick out domestic products directly. Instead, he is willing to invest more money in domestic manufacturers so that they can increase research and development, improve standards, and purchase related equipment according to Yike's requirements.

The problem in some links is that domestic manufacturers are reluctant to spend money. Yike is willing to provide special interest-free loans in this regard, just to create a supply chain with voice and competitiveness.

Fang Zhuo has not forgotten one thing, that is, the Android system is open source.

As long as Mars sells well, there will inevitably be mobile phone manufacturers following up. Although they may not get the best subsidy price, they will definitely have an impact.

Yike now has to rely on this period of first launch and the relative honeymoon relationship to build a supply chain, optimize user experience, increase technology research and development, and establish brand advantages.

On June 27, Yike's stock price rose 9% throughout the day from morning to night.

On June 28, Fang Zhuo met with the executive team of Deutsche Telekom at the R&D center, and replicated the operations he performed at the press conference one by one. He also spoke frankly about the optimization time of the mobile phone.

Because of Lai Tu, it was impossible to hide this.

The Deutsche Telekom team did not blame this issue, as they already had a report from T-Mobile USA.

With the pre-sale of 100,000 units as a foundation, both Lai Tu and Deutsche Telekom were negotiating very quickly.

As the person in charge of the US market, Lai Tu praised Yi Ke and Mars, and seemed to be patting his chest to guarantee its sales.

In just one day, after many communications between Deutsche Telekom and the headquarters, Yi Ke and Deutsche Telekom first established a cooperation framework, determined the exclusive cooperation with Deutsche Telekom in the European market, and determined the priority cooperation with T-Mobile in the US market.

In addition, in terms of purchase price, the two parties initially discussed different purchase prices for sales tiers based on US$310.

The previous problems are no longer problems.

Deutsche Telekom urgently needs to activate its own 3G dead water, and Yike is also in urgent need of an operator that can provide perfect conditions to make efforts in procurement and channels.

That night, Fang Zhuo hosted a banquet for the executives of Deutsche Telekom.

Everyone enjoyed themselves.

At the last moment, Fang Zhuo remembered the pre-sale and asked: "100,000 machines have been pre-sold in Northern Europe. Does Nokia have any reaction? After all, most of them are in Finland."

A group of people smiled at each other.

Lai Tu was still very familiar. He expressed his expectations and answered the question: "For a mobile phone manufacturer with a global mobile phone market share of more than 35%, 100,000 mobile phones may not arouse its interest."

Vice President Wagner from the headquarters smiled and said: "But I believe that Mars will give Nokia a surprise, and Yike still needs time."

Fang Zhuo nodded, he also believed this.

However, the next day, June 29, when everyone was more or less paying attention to the official release of the iPhone, a news headline from Europe caught Fang Zhuo's eye. Nokia, which was considered by everyone to not pay attention to Yike's situation, actually had a senior executive come out to give a fresh evaluation.

——"Nokia executives: Time is running out for Yike!"

When Fang Zhuo saw the news forwarded by his secretary, he slowly typed a question mark in his mind.

This, how did they learn to steal words.