212: Chapter 212 Sony: Is Joint Manufacturing Better Than Buying?

Two days later, at Sony headquarters.

Managing Director Nakamura Koji, who was in charge of the sensor business, stood in the conference room with a livid expression.

On the table in front of him lay a report that had just been sent from China.

It was like this again!

The project had already been launched, and they only just received the news.

"Who can tell me where Transsion's sensors came from?"

No one made a sound; after all, most people in the conference room were still immersed in the joy of Transsion's massive contract worth over one hundred million. Although there were a few more demands, the contract was indeed huge, and payments were made very promptly.

So when Transsion requested to send a group of engineers for joint tuning, they had enthusiastically dispatched them.

Now it seemed...

This wasn't joint tuning at all; it was clearly aimed at their foundation.

...

Nakamura Koji had spent six years in China and was only transferred back to Tokyo, Japan, last year.

He considered himself to have a thorough understanding of the Chinese market. There were countless companies there claiming they could easily crush Sony and step on Samsung, but he knew that not one of them posed a real threat.

After all, China lacked the DNA for this field.

The only ones they should be worried about were those international peers, but even they had a certain gap in terms of fundamentals.

OmniVision's shipment volume was indeed not low, but they only knew how to make low-end products. GalaxyCore's technology was three generations behind. SuperPix? They didn't even have their own wafer fab, let alone anything else.

The only one they really needed to worry about was Samsung.

But now, the report stated clearly: Transsion's Guangzhou sensor factory had mass-produced its first CMOS, and its low-light performance was close to the IMX145.

What was the IMX145?

It was Sony's ace product, the top-tier sensor expected to be used in the iphone 4s.

With 8 million effective pixels, the fact that a 2-megapixel product from Transsion was approaching its performance—where would that leave their reputation?

"Could the data be falsified?"

"There's such a huge difference between 2 megapixels and 8 megapixels. How could it possibly be close in the most difficult night scenes?"

This statement immediately received everyone's agreement, though they didn't feel for a second that their own night scene performance was subpar.

After discussing for a while, everyone brought up a new point of view: plagiarism!

"Is this sensor a modification of one of our other models? Is there an issue? Can we initiate a patent lawsuit?"

Nakamura Koji shook his head: "Unlikely. They really did make it. As for whether the performance can meet the standards, that remains to be seen based on future performance.

But Transsion shouldn't be faking things in this regard."

The entire conference room fell into a state of anxiety.

After the 311 earthquake in Japan, Sony's sensor factories had still not fully recovered their production capacity to this day.

Global orders were piled up and couldn't be delivered, and customers were urging them daily. And just at this time, a new competitor emerged in China.

And it wasn't the kind of low-end product that only knew how to copy. It was a competitor with real technology, production capacity, and the ability to fight.

There was an even more important issue: the global market had already been slaughtered by them once.

Who customers would choose next was truly "hard to guess."

"Where is the person in charge of the China region?"

"Still investigating, so they can only join via an online meeting."

Nakamura Koji returned to his seat and opened the video conferencing system.

A familiar face appeared on the screen: the president of Sony China, Yamada Ichiro.

This had originally been his position, but with the development of the Chinese technology market, Sony's bet on the Chinese market had become larger and larger, and they had specifically established a subsidiary.

He was the first pioneer.

"Yamada-kun, what's the situation on your end?"

Yamada Ichiro's expression was also very ugly; just as he was investigating Transsion, the other side had not been idle.

They had pulled another move to cut the ground from under them.

This time, they didn't just target engineers; they went after field promoters, after-sales engineers, and public relations personnel. Simply put, whatever departments Sony had in China, Transsion was poaching them all...

"Nakamura-san, I just went out to investigate, and I ended up getting some very terrifying news.

Transsion is poaching our people."

Nakamura didn't react for a moment, but soon he said in surprise,

"Which positions are they poaching?"

"Those from the Suzhou factory, and the Shanghai R&D center.

Triple the salary for everyone. If they work for five years, they get an apartment; after ten years, they get ownership of the apartment. They're also solving household registration and children's education issues..."

A collective gasp echoed in the conference room.

Triple salary, free housing, solving all worries.

The annual salary of Sony's engineers in China was about 300,000 to 500,000 RMB. Triple that meant 900,000 to 1.5 million. Plus the house... and they get ownership in just ten years.

And the rest... Some of the senior engineers in the conference room were also tempted by this "savory pancake."

But the HR department asked most surprisingly: "Where are they getting so much money?"

Yamada Ichiro didn't make a sound.

Where else could the money come from? Who knows where they got their sensors and flash memory. They hyped up Transsion and followed behind to eat the meat...

Nakamura Koji also knew the answer.

Transsion had made a fortune in Africa and was starting to make money in Southeast Asia. As for the Chinese market, it was their private reserve; they were holding at least several billion dollars in cash.

Plus that mysterious Huaxin Investment—never mind poaching a few engineers, they could buy the entire Sony sensor department... No, that's not right, as long as Sony was willing to sell, they could afford to buy the entire Sony company.

"Nakamura-san, should we fight back?" Yamada Ichiro asked.

"How do we fight back?"

Nakamura Koji was silent for a long time. Although Transsion had its own sensors, they were still Sony's major client right now.

They were a true sugar daddy.

Should they turn hostile just because they poached a few of their engineers?

How could a few engineers be worth hundreds of millions?

"More money, keep the people." Nakamura Koji finally offered a compromise solution.

In short, the sugar daddy is always right. It was just a few engineers; they could keep training more, right?

But this plan immediately made the finance department anxious.

More money? Everyone knew the situation Sony was in right now.

The losses from the economic crisis hadn't been recovered yet, and then they had gone through the major earthquake. Although Sony's losses weren't the greatest, it was still adding frost to snow. The entire group was laying off employees, and now they wanted to give Chinese employees a raise?

The people at the Tokyo headquarters would be the first to disagree.

Just as he was about to speak up in opposition, Yamada Ichiro raised another question.

"There is one more thing," Yamada said. "I tried contacting the people over at Transsion, wanting to invite them to discuss cooperation.

For instance, let's stop them from doing any technical R&D. We cooperate together; they set the specifications, we do the R&D, and then we hand over the nominal R&D rights to them.

"We just do the manufacturing?"

"What did they say?" Nakamura Koji said anxiously.

After all, this plan was simply genius. Although Sony was abandoning its bottom line, they would successfully get the money.

As for the condemnation... one could just talk to the money they'd get their hands on, right?

Of course, this plan would also, to a certain extent, stifle China's self-research capabilities and preserve their own position...

But the problem was...

"They refused?"

Nakamura Koji, who had been ready to offer praise, immediately shut his mouth.

At any time, Sony's sensors were something global mobile phone manufacturers begged to buy. If Chinese companies wanted goods, they had to place orders half a year in advance and accept all kinds of harsh conditions.

As for joint R&D? That was something they didn't even need to think about.

But now... they were the ones being kicked out instead.