Video Game Empire

The decline of AT&T can be described as the most familiar negative teaching material in the entire American technology industry. But in fact, before Li Xuan crossed, the scale of AT&T in another time and space was able to rank in the top 30 of the Fortune 500 list.

Why is such a company that can crush 99.99% of the world's companies still regarded as a typical failure? Because AT&T in the 21st century, while still one of the largest companies in the world, has been completely mediocre.

He just relied on continuous mergers and acquisitions to expand the market size, but he has long lost the innovative ability he was so proud of! In the twentieth century, AT&T not only monopolized the telephone business in the United States. Transistors, lasers, solar cells, communication satellites, audio films, one after another of the great inventions that have played an important role in promoting human civilization, all came from Bell Labs under the company!

At the beginning, because the monopoly of the entire Bell system was too powerful, the Department of Justice directly banned the new AT&T company, which inherited most of the parent company's assets, from continuing to participate in the local telephone business after it completed the split.

But in another time and space, Bell Southwest, one of the seven local telephone companies ("Bell Brothers") that was originally spun off from AT&T's local telephone business, eventually bought AT&T in 2005 for $16 billion. In other words, AT&T has actually completed the business combination again.

The US Department of Justice did not come forward to block the acquisition plan. Because even AT&T, which has re-merged local and long-distance calls, is no longer able to have a monopoly on the U.S. telecommunications industry. As for the Bell Labs that was once known as the US technology business card, it has long been empty.

Later generations commented that AT&T declined for two reasons. On the one hand, it was its own strategic decision-making mistakes, and on the other hand, it was the strong pressure from short-sighted Wall Street capital.

Another American giant, IBM, also faced a huge crisis in the 1990s. But IBM has achieved from focusing on hardware research and development. The successful transition to providing software services has ushered in a new round of brilliant development.

And AT&T actually had two great opportunities to reshape its glory, the Internet wave and the era of mobile communications. It's a pity that AT&T obviously failed to seize, these two opportunities to reclaim the hegemony. The old overlords are often addicted to their past glorious achievements and cannot extricate themselves, thus losing their keen sense of smell.

AT&T was so dominant in the landline era that it ignored the rapid rise of the Internet and cell phones. There are many other examples of the same. For example, Motorola, which is currently in its prime, was too strong in the Big Brother era to adapt to the rapid transformation of wireless communication from analog to digital, thus giving Nokia a chance to rise. And Nokia later failed to grasp the pulse of the 3G era, and the result quickly fell.

One of the reasons why Li Xuan has a huge interest in the company's acquisition is that when he communicated with the company's management, many executives, including Hyde Walker, all agreed with him on the future of the Internet and mobile communications. 's discussion.

This time, in addition to the entire Oriental Satellite Communication Company, Li Xuan also took out $350 million in cash for capital injection. And all of this cash will be invested by the company into the laying of fiber optic cables. Lay a solid foundation for the coming Internet age.

"Mr. Li, your analysis is very incisive. The capitalists on Wall Street are a group of greedy wolves. They will squeeze every profit from every copper plate! As long as the stock price can keep rising, they have no time to consider whether it will give the company money. Long-term development brings damage!

The method you just proposed is very feasible. We can completely replace the products of Western Electric Company with the equipment of European Ericsson and Alcatel! If the Western Electric Company can be forced to be separated from AT&T independently, then the strength of AT&T will be greatly reduced! "Walker is very interested in Li Xuan's previous proposal.

AT&T, like most public companies in the U.S., is extremely fragmented. If the split is led by Wall Street capital. In order to maximize profits, the two companies after the split are likely to actually part ways. It is not like a company with a highly concentrated shareholding such as the Oriental Group. Even if Li Xuan takes out a certain part of the business and splits it for listing, he will still retain the controlling interest in the listed subsidiary.

Therefore, listing is not a harmless thing, especially once the major shareholders lose their absolute control, other shareholders in the capital market will exert strong pressure on the management.

For example, the company's stock price plummeted due to the stock market crash some time ago, and the company Hyde Walker had to find a way to boost the stock price. Because if he has been inactive. The dissatisfaction of the shareholders will become more and more high, and finally he will be forced to leave! Therefore, the company quickly put down its previous high profile after the stock market crash and chose to cooperate with Li Xuan.

And AT&T's future decline is largely the result of Wall Street's capital behind it. A company like AT&T is already a leader in the industry, and it is difficult to make its performance breakthrough. Especially like the landline market. After nearly a hundred years of development in the United States, it is actually very mature, and it is difficult to have huge room for growth.

Therefore, the capital operation gimmick such as splitting the enterprise has become the best choice to blow up the balloon! But when the balloon is inflated, it is filled with air, which can be pierced by just an embroidery needle. And the investment banks on Wall Street have already left when the balloons are blown to the maximum. As for the bitter consequences of the explosion, they will naturally not cause any damage to them.

Capital pursues the maximization of short-term interests, while the operation of enterprises often requires long-term planning, and in many cases even needs to give up part of the immediate interests for the future. For example, CG (Computer Garden), a subsidiary of the Oriental Group, transformed from a computer sales company into a chain of home appliance stores, and quickly staking out the entire American market.

And CG company has not yet completed the comprehensive layout in the North American market, and has started the global development without stopping! To support this expansion, CG not only invested all of its profits, but also raised a lot of money by issuing new shares and bonds. The company's excessive debt also made it in this round of stock market crash. An important reason for becoming the worst listed company under the Oriental Group.

But compared to Hyde Walker, CG's management team is obviously much happier. The number of shares held by the largest shareholder, Dongfang Holding Company, is far ahead of other shareholders, so it firmly controls the board of directors and management of CG Company, and can completely eliminate external interference.

"Mr. Walker, Dongfang Group - the stationed directors will fully support the management. The next strategy is to fully enter the Internet! In fact, Dongfang Group has a company that provides dial-up networking services called America Online!" Li Xuan pointed with a smile. Pointing to the person coming this way, a curly-haired man with a high nose bridge said.

"Mr. Walker, it's an honor to meet you! Our company hopes to reach a closer cooperative relationship with the company!" The abbreviation of America Online is that Derek Owen is a junior company of this Oriental Group.

As early as 1984, Li Xuan invested in the establishment of this company that provides online networking services. In line with the principle of taking other people's paths and leaving others with nowhere to go, Li Xuan simply occupied the name ( ) first!

Users only need to pay $29.90 per month for the service, which can be used every night from 7:00 pm to 9:00 am the next day. Enjoy the dial-up networking service provided by the company. In the era before the browser came out, it was not easy to surf the Internet, at least a certain computer foundation was required.

The company provides a set of simple and easy-to-use fool-like networking services for ordinary users. Paying users only need to log in and install the "AOL" client on their computer, and they can enjoy the latest news, games, soap operas, and online chat services provided by the company.

"Mr. Owen, I am very willing to provide priority services for network access!" Walker smiled and shook hands with the other party under the introduction of Li Xuan.

The company does not have its own communication network now, but relies on the fixed-line telephone network of AT&T, , and other telecom operators. To provide users with dial-up network services!

And the company under the Oriental Group is not the first online service company in the United States. Back in 1979. There is a company called Computer Services, which has pioneered a similar business.

But the company has developed very rapidly after its establishment, because the Oriental Group standing behind it can provide strong support. For example, the company provides a large number of news information, TV series, and entertainment programs. Oriental Game Company provides a variety of games for the company.

And Aikang is pre-installed with the "AOL" client pre-installed in all series of computers sold in the North American market. This undoubtedly greatly promoted the company's expansion in the US market share.

The Oriental Group invested in the company this time. It is also bound to let the company be called the company's priority partner. The company now has the third largest market share in the US telecommunications field, and its support can greatly expand its network access capabilities.

"Mr. Walker, I think you are still too conservative. I don't think 10 years are needed at all. In just 5 years, the emerging Internet will bring huge surprises to everyone and open up a whole new era for us!" During the heated discussion between Owen and Walker, Hawke, the chairman of Ikon, also stepped forward to join the discussion.

Hawke specially flew to the United States from London this time. In addition to witnessing the actions of the Oriental Group to take a stake in the company, the more important purpose was to prepare to negotiate a purchase agreement with the company for data exchange equipment of up to 70 million US dollars. With the acceleration of the development of the global Internet, the demand for data exchange equipment begins to increase.

If it is said that in the field of voice switching equipment, there is still a lot of gap between Aikang and AT&T, Ericsson and other century-old stores. In the emerging field of data exchange, Aikang has become a leader with its large-scale R&D investment in the past five years.

And Aikang is also preparing to take the opportunity of the Internet wave to fully cut into the field of communication equipment. Because the series of standards vigorously promoted by Aikang has almost become a unified standard in the personal computer industry, this field has become highly open, and new companies are constantly joining the competition.

The fierce competition has directly led to the decline of the overall profits of the industry. Even companies like Aikang, which basically gave up the low-end market and mainly focused on the mid-to-high-end market, began to feel a lot of pressure.

However, this was as early as Ikon's expectation. In fact, the company has already begun its development and transformation. With the company's great strides in the field of enterprise-level servers and networking equipment, the proportion of PC business in total revenue is rapidly declining. .

"Mr Walker, have you ever heard of a graphical browser called Navigator? If you have used this browser, you will find that surfing the Internet has become a very simple thing! If Congress can quickly With the Information Superhighway Act, I even think that in just 3 years, the Internet will be part of every one of us!" Irving also laughed, though his prediction was more radical.

Because compared with the other two people, he is at the front line of the Internet industry and can understand the changes in this field more intuitively. Just judging from the growth curve of the company's number of users over the past six months or so, he feels that his judgment is not expanding at all.

From the beginning of the year to the present ~www.readwn.com~ the company's Internet users have increased by 350,000, and the annual increase will definitely exceed 400,000. You must know that at the end of last year, the company's total number of users was only 400,000, which means that this year's performance growth will exceed 100%.

"In my opinion, London's Internet atmosphere has taken the lead in the United States, and 'surfing the Internet' is becoming a very fashionable thing! And the needs of the public determine the development of the industry. I am very much looking forward to Mr. Li Xuan's language in the book, which can It will soon become a reality!" Hawke smiled at Li Xuan next to him.

Li Xuan just smiled and listened to the debate of several people, but did not interrupt. The term "surfing the Internet" comes from his new book "The Road to the Future", which was just released three months ago. In the book, Li Xuan comprehensively predicted what life would be like in the Internet age.

"The Road to the Future" has also been translated into Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and other languages ​​and listed globally. Less than a month after the book was listed, it was listed on the bestseller lists of the British "Sunday Times" and the "New York Times" of the United States, and caused great repercussions around the world.

Li Xuan is not only the richest man in the world, but his subsidiary Dongfang Group dominates the entire computer industry. His prediction of computer networking can even affect the development of an industry! (To be continued.)