The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 247 The Spoiler

"The PC Showcase

Huaguo personal computer ushered in a new spoiler. Just after 2001, TCL used the first Pentium 4 computer brand to gradually change its image in the public mind from a home appliance brand to a personal computer brand. For the first time in the Pentium III era, AMD surpassed Intel in the main frequency of the CPU, which caused Intel to face increasing competitive pressure from AMD.

Intel launched Pentium 2000 at the end of 4. In the third quarter just ended, Pentium 4 became the mainstream of the market, accounting for 34.6% of the PC market. Can the Pentium M chip jointly launched by science and technology be recognized by the market?
In the past, there was a saying in the computer circle, 486 made Compaq, Pentium created Dell, Pentium 3 created Lenovo, can Pentium M make Xiaomi computers?At the press conference that just ended yesterday, Xiaomi used national production and the ultimate price-performance ratio as its selling points.

Purely in terms of configuration, the Xiaomi computer is indeed comparable to Lenovo's 8000 yuan computer, but as a new player in personal computers, whether the Xiaomi computer can combine these better-performing accessories to play a theoretical performance remains to be seen. is an unknown.

But in any case, Xiaomi Computer, which is backed by Zhou Xin, will undoubtedly become a new player in the field of personal computers this winter, and it will be a strong competitor to domestic brands such as Lenovo, Founder, and TCL.From my personal emotional point of view, even if the price is two thousand more expensive, I am willing to pay for this purely domestic computer, not to mention the ultra-low price of 4000 yuan.”

On the second day, almost all technology magazines and newspapers featured Xiaomi Computer on the front page, and everyone's attention was focused on the ultimate cost-effectiveness. As for the difficulty of national production, it will be described on the second page.

"Let's talk about Xiaomi. This will be Lenovo's biggest competitor. How can we resist the impact from Xiaomi in the personal computer market?" Lenovo held an executive meeting overnight. In a meeting with the staff.

Lenovo hopes to brainstorm and come up with some solutions to compete head-on with Xiaomi. The price of 4000 yuan is not only turning the table, it is digging the foundation of Lenovo.

"I think we also have to lower the price. The current price really has no advantage in front of Xiaomi. Lenovo is a computer brand with a history and heritage, but Huaguo consumers don't have much loyalty to products at this price. to speak of.

For a commodity that costs thousands of dollars, the most important thing they always value is the price-performance ratio. The price announced by Xiaomi Computer yesterday, even if their accessories are produced nationwide, I believe their profit will not exceed 200 yuan at most.

Of course, I know that it is impossible for us to lower the price to this point, but we can still reduce the price. Xiaomi with the same configuration sells for [-], and we sell for [-] at most. This wave of shock came.

In addition, it is not necessarily a bad thing for Xiaomi to be a spoiler. Lenovo can resist it, but some domestic brands cannot. We can use Xiaomi to sweep the second-rate computer brands on the market one by one into the garbage dump. "

“降价可以，但是降到什么价位？8000元的电脑可以降价到6000元，4000元的电脑难道可以降到2000元吗？换言之我们4000元这个价位的电脑要怎么办？”

"The price is still reduced to the cost price. Now that Xiaomi has opened a hole, we can reduce the price of 4000 yuan to 3000 yuan, and reduce the price of 3000 yuan to 2500 yuan. This will put pressure on other computer brands and just clear the inventory. A wave."

"Dealers may not agree to such a price cut."

"Forcing them to agree, we were originally a strong party. Since we have become Lenovo's distributors, we must cooperate with Lenovo's overall strategy. If we don't cut prices, our sales will definitely be seriously affected."

"I agree with Mr. Yang's point of view on price reduction, and I also think we should lower prices, but blindly lowering prices will not achieve our goals, we must focus on differentiated competition.

We can focus on LCD monitors, Pentium 4, Windows and LCD monitors, and let these three become Lenovo's standard equipment. There is still a lot of room for price reduction of LCD monitors. "

In July last year, Lenovo and the six major liquid crystal display giants signed the largest single purchase letter of intent in the history of Huaguo's personal computer industry: within the next six months from the signing, more than 60 sets of super A-level products will be purchased from the above-mentioned manufacturers. Tube liquid crystal display, worth more than RMB 18 billion.

"We should not compare with Xiaomi in terms of performance, but should make a fuss about what they don't have, such as LCD monitors, such as Lenovo's nationwide outlets and maintenance services across the country. We should focus on these."

Not only is Lenovo formulating its own breakthrough strategy, hoping to survive this round of reshuffle brought by Xiaomi, but other computer brands are under even greater pressure.

Compared with the color TV industry, the history of the personal computer industry is shorter, and no one has played like this before.

Xiaomi's offline stores have people queuing up in advance, in order to be the first to grab Xiaomi computers.

No matter what era it is in, the cost-effective thing is a sharp weapon to impress consumers, not to mention the emotional blessing of national production.

Xiaomi Computer supports both offline and online purchases. Since NewPay has been launched in China, and Xiaomi Computer’s offline stores are only opened in first- and second-tier cities, there are even more third- and fourth-tier cities, and even stars. There are no stores in the county towns of Huaguo.

Therefore, on the morning when the purchase was opened, the 10 computers prepared by Xiaomi’s official website were sold out within 10 minutes. In." Then my heart went cold.

Xiaomi, headed by Hu Zhengming, really didn't want to play tricks, but as a new brand, it is true that its production capacity is not enough.Xiaomi Computer itself only prepared 20 units, and the follow-up factories will produce them one after another. Unexpectedly, all 20 units were digested within a week.

So much so that on the day of Xiaomi’s release of goods every week, because of too many visits, Xiaomi’s official website feels overcrowded.

Consumers still don’t know the word monkey-playing, let alone hunger marketing. Some consumers know this concept, but they don’t associate it with Xiaomi.

"It's hard to find a Xiaomi computer, executives are pointing fingers at Lenovo
So far, it has been a month since the official release of Xiaomi computers. During this month, it can be seen from Xiaomi’s official website that Xiaomi’s national sales have reached 30 units. Among these 30 units, except for the first 20 units that were stocked, The other 10 units are all made by the factory and sold one by one. Xiaomi's strong sales ability can make every friend feel envious.

Every week on the day when the Xiaomi computer is released, a large number of consumers wait in front of the computer to grab the product, because they know that even if they don't use it, the price increase of [-] is more than enough to resell.

In the face of Xiaomi's menacing attack, some executives of a personal computer brand said that Xiaomi is maliciously competing, using the advantages of the supply chain to push the price to the extreme, and not giving the peers a way to survive. To run a business, a certain amount of profit is necessary.

In the face of such remarks, the vice president of Xiaomi Computer publicly stated that we can keep the price so low because we have mastered the core technology. The core chips of the computer are all self-produced and sold. The pressure is huge because they have been developing for so many years, but they are only the integrators of the supply chain and have not mastered the real core technology.

Regarding the public remarks made by the vice president of Xiaomi on Weibo, some netizens believe that the spearhead is directed at Lenovo, which has been criticized by Chinese consumers for lack of R&D capabilities and R&D willingness.”

Because Xiaomi is a new player in the personal computer field, executives are happy to make a lot of noise in the media, whether through Weibo or interviews.

When the Xiaomi computer was first launched, a lot of attention was focused on the price-performance ratio. After more and more consumers experienced the Xiaomi computer, more attention was paid to the national production.

In the past, for domestically produced computers, consumers, the media and even the official level expected them to master core technologies, especially Lenovo. In the past, accusations about Lenovo's lack of core technologies were often seen in the media.

The birth of the Xiaomi computer can be said to be almost everyone's expectations for Lenovo before, and it was all realized by Xiaomi.

"I'm curious as to why Xiaomi can develop its own chips and graphics cards and jointly develop them, while the previous domestic brands have all kinds of difficulties when it comes to self-research."

"Large investment in research and development is slow to produce results, and may not be profitable. Xiaomi can do it because Zhou Xin has been deeply involved in the chip field for many years, and Zhou Xin has a good relationship with Intel, Motorola, IBM and other American giants.

To put it bluntly, when Zhou Xin comes out, American's technology giants will give him face, and the other party will buy into his cooperation request. They don't buy into domestic brands, they just want to sell products to you. "

"Lenovo has been around for so many years, but it still doesn't have any core technologies. I don't talk about high-end gadgets such as CPUs and graphics cards. Does Lenovo have any innovations in other fields?"

Discussions about Xiaomi's self-developed technology in general online forums will be slanted to why the previous domestic brands can't do it, and further to why Lenovo can't do it.

Although there are many domestic computer brands besides Lenovo, Lenovo is undoubtedly a symbol, and if it is connected with independent research and development, Lenovo is a typical case.

In December 2002, Lenovo held a technical conference called Legend World in Lenovo Building, claiming to transform into technology.

At this meeting, Lenovo invited experts from foreign companies such as Intel, Texas Instruments, Oracle, and Microsoft to sit and discuss.

President Yang Yuanqing announced this year's technology answer sheet, because Lenovo's technology conference was held for four days. After the announcement on the first day, some experts immediately voiced their voices on the Internet: "Is Lenovo's technology called technology?"

At this so-called "world-class technology event initiated by Huaguo Enterprises for the first time", Lenovo first proposed the concept of "associated applications".At the opening ceremony, the founder of Lenovo summed up Lenovo's technological innovation path with "theory of continuous revolution" and "theory of staged revolution".

The most attractive part of this technology conference is the "E-home" laboratory, where a series of forward-looking products developed by Lenovo based on "associated technology" are displayed.

After passing the verification, the glass door of the "E-home" opens automatically, the electronic parrot in the foyer sends out pleasant greetings, the lighting in the living room is automatically adjusted to the appropriate brightness by the system, the curtains of the "balcony" are automatically opened, and light music is automatically played in the bedroom .

Screens can be seen everywhere in the entire E-home, and video and audio files stored in digital cameras, handheld computers, PCs and even the Internet can be played on any display terminal.The seemingly ordinary electronic scale in the foyer is also embedded in the association protocol. Standing on the scale, relevant health data will be collected and displayed.

"Sensing devices like this can be hidden in every corner of the home, even in the toilet. They can collect various health data of the human body at any time and act as a reliable family doctor."

"It is not difficult to see that in the three levels of personal information terminals, enterprise information applications and social information services, the biggest problem is the separation of applications. 'Association' is the solution proposed by Lenovo."

This can be regarded as the embryonic form of the Internet of Things. Of course, Lenovo is not the first to propose this concept. This concept was proposed by IBM a long time ago, and IBM also elaborated on it at the previous Comdex conference.

To put it bluntly, this thing is to make a model room for the concept proposed by others, so that the reporters at the world conference discussed Lenovo's display technology: these technologies are too scrappy.

During the interview at the meeting, the reporters were also merciless:

"Mr. Yang, the technology displayed at Lenovo Legend World today is very innovative, but in my opinion, Lenovo is just an integrator of technology, and we don't actually feel that many technologies are truly original from Lenovo.

The concept of associated applications proposed by Lenovo this time, does Lenovo's R&D team have any more specific core technologies for the implementation of this concept? "

"I don't deny that Lenovo currently lacks background, and the technology displayed today is more about integrating the technologies of mature manufacturers.

However, Lenovo will not give up its exploration in technology. According to the strategy set by Mr. Liu, we should have reached the stage of technology from trade, industry and technology.

Lenovo's strategy has always been to clear the periphery first and then approach the core technology. I originally wanted to wait for the phased results before announcing, but it is not impossible to announce in advance today. Lenovo will also establish a chip research and development department, and Intel Join hands to create a CPU that is more suitable for Huaguo consumers.

This CPU will become the core technology for the implementation of Lenovo's related applications, supporting the realization of home-based applications. "

Yes, the benefits of Xiaomi's self-developed CPU have been fully verified in the past, and some people have already found a way. It makes no sense for Lenovo not to follow, even if it is just a gimmick, it is enough.

(End of this chapter)