During one consecutive weekend, while accompanying a group of women and touring various giants, Simon also paid special attention to the operating conditions of one company.
Scooper.
At present, DVD has shown the momentum of rapid rise. In the Western market, DVD is basically replacing video recorders. In the Asian market, VCD seems to be still prosperous, but this year has also reached the highest point of the industry. It will inevitably decline in the future, and the speed will very fast.
As the largest supplier of technologies such as VCD video decoding chips and complete machine solutions, Scoop has enjoyed great success due to the explosion of the Asian market in the past few years, but it has also had to face very severe transformation problems.
The first is the video decoding chip.
DVD video decoding chips, due to insufficient patent accumulation, had only one way to go out.
However, with the intervention of the Westeros system, Daenerys' content advantage was used to exchange interests with major manufacturers that have mastered various DVD patents. In addition, Chinese OEM manufacturers and Broadcom In the market, Scoop still has a place in the market.
But he only managed to gain a firm foothold.
The biggest beneficiaries this time will only be Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba and other DVD patent alliance manufacturers.
However, regarding transformation, Scober has actually achieved certain success.
Just before 1996, at the peak of the first wave of the technology stock bull market, which was also the most prosperous stage of Scoop with the explosion of VCD sales in the Asian market, the company began to deploy transformation. Not only did it transform under the arrangement of Simon, It has entered into the research and development of chip products for the two major wireless transmission technologies, WIFI and Bluetooth, and has also quietly acquired some wireless communication technology companies.
One of them is named Botong.
Later, more people only knew about Qualcomm, but in fact, they are also wireless communication technology product suppliers. Broadcom and Qualcomm are completely comparable in size in related fields. Later, Qualcomm once hoped to acquire Broadcom in order to further monopolize wireless communication technology. .
This is something.
All in all, Scoop's transformation was very successful.
At present, Scoop has not only become the world's top WIFI and Bluetooth chip manufacturer, supplying chips to manufacturers such as Tinker Bayer, IBM, HP, etc., it has also become a wireless communication or cable TV-related supplier of technology giants such as Nokia and AOL. Supplier of chip products.
Because of this successful transformation, coupled with the fact that the original VCD and emerging DVD video decoding chip-related businesses are still stable, Scoop's stock price has also recovered rapidly and climbed steadily in the past two years. As of the past few trading days, this company The market value of companies that also belong to the new technology ranks has reached US$38.7 billion.
In comparison, Qualcomm, another wireless communications technology company that Simon has been paying close attention to, had a market value of only US$27.6 billion last Friday.
This is also why Simon pays attention to Scoop.
Since Qualcomm once tried to acquire Broadcom, and now Broadcom is part of Scoop, and Scoop's market value is higher than Qualcomm, can we take advantage of the trend and conduct a reverse takeover
This is actually an issue that Simon has considered very early on.
Should we take over Qualcomm entirely, or which company will take over Qualcomm to digest it
Simon has already invested in Qualcomm very early, and has since bought into it many times. According to recent data, Westeros alone holds 32.7% of Qualcomm's shares, not counting Black Rock Asset Management, a subsidiary of Cersei Capital. and other related capital holdings.
Therefore, in the new technology market, Qualcomm has always been among the ranks of Westeros concept stocks.
Furthermore, standing in Simon's current position, he is actually very dissatisfied with both the current Qualcomm and the Qualcomm he remembers.
Another company on the other side of the ocean can start from scratch to make switches, routers, chips, mobile phones and finally become a leader in 5G technology. If the other company goes public, it will definitely become a giant in the technology market.
However, Qualcomm is still Qualcomm after decades.
To put it nicely, Qualcomm's business model is patent licensing, which adheres to Western open business ideas. At most, it only produces mobile phone chips.
Not really.
Qualcomm also tried to make communication equipment and mobile phone terminals, but they all failed.
Failed.
So we can only rely on the patents accumulated in advance to collect tolls under the guise of openness.
This kind of company has no shortage of capital and technology because its country is strong enough and no competitor dares to sanction it in the name of national security. If it reaches this point, it can only think about further monopoly through further mergers and acquisitions. How can people be satisfied with market share
Actually, the other one is Cisco.
And Nokia.
Moreover, Simon also discovered the crux of it.
These companies all took advantage of the opportunities of the times because of a certain outstanding professional manager. Cisco is John Chambers, Nokia is Jorma Olia, and Qualcomm is simply a descendant of the Jacobs family. Father's business.
However, the agents who created brilliance eventually became old kings who held on to power and were not aggressive enough. As a result, each one stagnated again, or even collapsed like Nokia.
Simon first reflected on himself.
Of course Simon knows that people are lazy and hard work goes against human nature.
However, he happens to have higher power than those professional managers, and he has not lost his ambition to make progress. Therefore, when the time is right, Simon will let certain people step down when it is time to do so, even if it causes criticism.
If they are unwilling to step down with dignity, then force them to step down with dignity.
In short, since Scoob's team has done well, Simon wants Scoob to eat Qualcomm.
This past weekend, after communicating with the Scobo team, Simon, who had been hesitant, also made the final decision.
After all, this is also the last chance.
One of the reasons why Qualcomm's current market value is not as good as Scoop's is that the commercial potential contained in the third-generation communication technology patents owned by this company has not yet been fully realized.
However, it will soon come into play.
Because Simon is about to push Verizon to update and upgrade its mobile communication network as soon as possible and move towards 3G.
In the past, the update and iteration of communication technology in the United States was very slow. The reason was actually that it was too expensive. The older generation technology can still be used and generate good profits, so why spend huge sums of money on the next generation update? Isn’t that thankless
This is actually a common phenomenon in the West after entering the new century.
As a result, when China entered the 4G era and the fiber optic era, some Western countries were still using 3G and dial-up Internet access.
It’s either that there is no technology or that capital is profit-seeking.
Is the choice made by capital based on its nature the right one
Simon cannot give a complete argument.
However, Simon knows that taking the United States as an example, a big reason why the United States was able to get out of the Great Depression of the 1930s was because of its extensive infrastructure. After World War II, the U.S. economy once again developed rapidly, relying on large infrastructure such as the U.S. national highway network.
Going further and more broadly, the large infrastructure of railway networks that connects every continent in the world is definitely one of the fundamental reasons why human beings can move from an agricultural society to an industrial society.
Even further back, a certain Grand Canal can be regarded as a major infrastructure project.
If there was no water palace dragon boat incident, Gong Yu would not have much merit.
What is the most fundamental theory that infrastructure construction drives social progress? It is very simple: improve production efficiency and productivity.
productive forces!
In the information age, in addition to traditional infrastructure, high-speed broadband, wireless communications, large data centers, etc. are also infrastructure.
Infrastructure construction for the new era.
Having recognized this, Simon will not allow companies such as Verizon and AOL to refuse to update their technology out of short-term capital interests in the Westeros system, no matter what other capital chooses. Replacement.
Therefore, Simon’s requirement is that Verizon must complete the technology iteration from 2G to 3G within the next two years.
As for 2.5G and so on, forget it.
This means that once technology upgrades begin, it is inevitable that other communications manufacturers will be forced to follow suit in technology upgrades. By then, the value of the 3G technology patents held by Qualcomm will increase rapidly.
By winning this company in advance, Simon can not only avoid more variables, but also change Qualcomm's previous development trajectory.
After all, the worst thing is that you can basically block roads and collect money by relying on patent barriers. It is slightly better. If you can't just make another mobile phone chip, or, at least, a communication base station, then such a deep barrier-level technology accumulation will be wasted. In addition, future 4G and 5G can also be laid out in more depth.
In short, now that the necessary foundation has been laid, Simon feels that at least it cannot be worse in the future.
When the matter was finalized and Simon left the Bay Area on Monday morning of the new week, Scoob had already begun to organize a dedicated team, and at the same time contacted Westeros Corporation and Cersei Capital for assistance in launching a plan to annex Qualcomm.
Simon didn't think it would be too difficult.
According to the proportion of shares held by Westeros Company, it is already the largest shareholder of Qualcomm, far exceeding the original co-founders. Next, when Scooper launches an acquisition of Qualcomm, Westeros will naturally use its voting rights to cooperate.
Even if Qualcomm doesn't agree, it will be nothing more than a forced hostile takeover.
As for the possible separation of the original founding team once this happens, Simon really hopes that the current team can stay temporarily. However, if he really couldn't keep it, Simon wouldn't force it. After all, it is just a matter of moving forward some things in the plan a few years.