208: Chapter 208 Steve Jobs Steps Down, A New Era Begins

One day later, Texas Instruments officially announced: "We will gradually exit the Smartphone chip market, sell off the chip-related departments, and focus on industrial control and automotive electronics in the future."

After the announcement, the semiconductor industry and Wall Street all reacted.

The Wall Street Journal reported on its front page: "Texas Instruments abandons mobile chip business; the rise of Chinese manufacturers may be the main reason. We should be wary of this risk."

The Nikkei News commented: "Transsion's layout has finally succeeded; United States giants have to retreat."

In China, this news only occupied a small corner.

Interested manufacturers had already pulled up chairs and were waiting at the "factory gate." Meanwhile, Lei Jun of Dami Company held an emergency meeting once again.

Chip manufacturing might become an opportunity to overtake on a curve. On the other side, Lenovo also set its sights on Texas Instruments' assets.

...

When the news landed on Shen Fei's desk, he was stunned for a moment.

Texas Instruments was actually dying now?

He remembered that in his previous life, Texas Instruments had at least lasted until 2012, but now...

However, Shen Fei's eyes lit up. Although Texas Instruments had become weak, the patents they accumulated during the 2G and 3G eras were still useful.

He only wanted the patents, not the people. After all, the useful people had already joined Transsion Semiconductor "with the help of various parties."

...

At the Apple Inc. headquarters, Cook had never felt this conference room was so large.

The layout had not changed at all. Sitting at the rectangular conference table were the same familiar executives.

Industrial Design Chief Jonathan Ive, Global Marketing President Phil Schiller, Hardware Technology Vice President Johny Srouji, and Supply Chain Chief Jeff Williams.

The only change was an empty chair... that was Steve Jobs'.

It was a great pity that he could not attend this crucial meeting.

"Let's begin."

Cook cleared his throat; after all, it was his first time chairing the meeting, and he was still "not quite used to it."

Everyone in the conference room immediately understood that the Steve Jobs era had ended, and the Cook era was next.

"Let's report on the situation of the Motorola S2 first."

The sales manager turned on the projector, showing shocking data.

"As of yesterday, the cumulative sales of the Motorola S2 in the United States market have exceeded 9.2 million. It is expected to exceed 10 million by the end of this month and 11 million by the middle of next month (June)."

A sales curve appeared on the screen; the line was almost vertical and very close to the yellow line above it.

"The one above is our iphone 4; the sales in the same period are 11 million units." The sales manager revealed very straightforward worry.

"With the fermentation of word-of-mouth, their growth rate far exceeds ours. If this growth rate is maintained, they will surpass us by July at the latest."

"Their sales are actually growing this fast?"

"Don't the people of the United States know that this is a Chinese brand? They are aiding the enemy. What is the propaganda department doing?"

The scene immediately turned into a large-scale blame game. Everyone was passing the buck, especially the faction close to Steve Jobs, who became the best scapegoats at this moment.

Cook did not speak; he tacitly approved of this behavior. Power transitions are always accompanied by some problems.

When these problems are solved, the company will enter a new fast lane.

"We have no choice. Who told the design department to design it so ugly? The Motorola S2 feels more like an Apple phone. Whether it's the appearance or the operating logic, isn't it more worth buying?"

The head of the design department stood up and slapped the table: "Do you mean it's the design department's fault?"

There was finger-pointing in the conference room for a long time, and the table was slapped several times. Cook finally coughed and looked at Johny Srouji.

"What about the hardware analysis?"

The conference room immediately quieted down. Cook had already made a decision...

This also made some employees immediately feel cold. Steve Jobs hadn't even stepped down yet.

Was Cook already starting to get rid of the old guard?

Johny Srouji shook his head slightly. In terms of hardware, Apple was indeed not at an advantage; there was even a large gap between the two sides.

"In terms of core performance, our self-developed A5 chip has no comparability with theirs. But that's not the most critical part..."

He pointed to the communication baseband below: "Their chips support seven modes and thirty frequencies, and can be used immediately upon inserting a card with any carrier in any country in the world. Our iphone 4 has no problems in the United States, but in Asia and Europe, signal problems often occur. This has also led to our sales in these countries falling far behind theirs."

The most powerful thing about Taishan 900 is its performance, which makes people subconsciously ignore the network formats it supports.

In order to enable this phone to be launched globally, Professor Li Jiahui directly maxed out the network formats.

Any network format with a certain scale of population usage was included.

Of course, this was the effect brought by multiple communication basebands together.

It wasn't as outrageous as Johny Srouji said; after all, patent fees were a significant amount.

Anyway, it could also be sold externally... developing a bit more was definitely no problem.

...

Phil Schiller stared at the hardware department: "Why can't we do it?"

Johny Srouji gave a bitter smile: "Because of baseband patents. Qualcomm, Nokia, Ericsson... and Transsion, they hold the communication patents firmly in their hands."

"We want to bypass them, but we simply can't. We can only buy Qualcomm's products. But the chips Qualcomm sells to us are more expensive than those sold to others, and the performance is not the best. And we also have to pay them the 'Qualcomm tax.' For every phone we sell, we have to pay a large amount of fees."

Cook frowned; this was truly a huge mess.

"Are there any other alternative solutions?"

"Yes! That is to buy from Transsion... Their quotes are more conscientious than Qualcomm's. It can only be said that they can provide us with the most advanced technology, but the commission is not small either."

Cook pondered for a few seconds and suddenly thought...

"See if we can acquire Texas Instruments' semiconductor business, enter the A-series development group, and develop our own communication baseband."

Johny Srouji nodded but eventually shook his head.

Texas Instruments' semiconductor business once had a certain accumulation in communication basebands, but entering the 3G era, it had already gone downhill.

After 2007, Texas Instruments had already abandoned the development of communication basebands. Purchasing their chips usually required external basebands, which also led to their CPU having little competitiveness.

The capable technical personnel had long been poached, and what remained there now was just an empty shell.

"Mr. Cook, we can try, but I don't think this will have any good effect."

"First, their technical accumulation is really too little. Even if we acquire them, we still need to pay patent fees to other peers, just more or less. Secondly..."

Before he could finish, Phil Schiller reminded him:

"Johny Srouji, don't be so pessimistic. We are Apple. The products Transsion can produce in a year, if we acquire a few more companies, we can definitely do it..."

Everyone else in the conference room had the same idea because they (Apple Inc.) could not be afraid of failure.

"Mr. Cook, what do you think?"

Just as Cook was about to answer, the door of the conference room was pushed open...