"Mr. Bell, as an old friend, I advise you not to be stubborn. This Jiangnan Group is clearly disruptive to the entire market. Instead of working for their 00 Game Center, why not join our own mobile game platform? Here, mobile manufacturers can get a 50% revenue share, which is 1.5 times more than the 20% you receive from 00 Game Center. Don't be a fool working for these Chinese people!" Grant said with a smile. He was the president of Nokia's mobile business in the US market.
Because the US market was Nokia's largest market, Grant held a high position in Nokia, second only to the President of Nokia.
Bell Telephone was one of the US-based mobile companies that had joined the 00 Game platform, hence his earlier statement.
"..." To be honest, Bell was swayed. He had also heard about the news of this new platform jointly created by other mobile manufacturers. He actually regretted his decision at the time.
A 50% revenue share looked much better than 20%. Moreover, it held 90% of the market share. From this perspective, this platform would eventually defeat the 00 Game platform with its massive scale. He had agreed to Jiangnan Group too hastily.
In addition, Bell Telephone's current situation was getting worse. The sales of landline phones were already declining under the impact of mobile phones. After all, who would buy a landline phone if they already had a mobile phone?
However, the mobile phone market was also very bad. As history showed that this brand was never heard of, it was evident how unsatisfactory the Bell mobile phone brand was.
"Perhaps I should abandon the cooperation with the 00 Game platform. Anyway, this cooperation does not restrict game platforms. I can still contact this side. At worst, a mobile phone can operate two platforms at the same time!" Thus, Bell's president, Bannon, nodded with interest and asked, "What are the joining conditions for this new platform?"
"It's very simple, with no other additional conditions, but we need to ensure our platform has exclusive status. Once you cooperate with our platform, you absolutely cannot cooperate with other mobile game platforms!" Grant's eyes gleamed. This rule was clearly designed to target the 00 Game platform.
"Is that so..." Bannon was a little frustrated. The 00 Game platform didn't have such a "choose one of two" restriction, but this new platform had so many damn regulations. Wasn't this forcing him to abandon cooperation with the 00 Game platform immediately?
However, if the new platform could be established, its prospects were much better than the 00 Game platform. Therefore, although Bannon was a little unhappy, he still asked, "When will this platform be launched?"
"Within three months!" Grant said confidently. "We have already pooled elite personnel from various companies to form this joint development team. We believe that within three months, we will definitely be able to launch this mobile game platform!"
"Pooling personnel from various companies? Isn't this a forced patchwork? Just the adaptation period for cooperation will take several months. Why not let one company independently complete the development work?" Bannon asked, confused.
"What's so strange about that? You can't expect one company to be solely responsible for the entire development work!" Grant said as a matter of course. "The mobile game platform is a completely unfamiliar platform for all of us manufacturers. The entire development process will cost at least several million US dollars and require a significant amount of manpower and resources. If you let one company be solely responsible for this work, who do you think is willing to pay these millions of dollars for free?"
"Then we can all contribute money, and let a team, or directly establish a new company to operate this platform. It's much less troublesome than each contributing personnel!" Bannon said.
"It's useless!" Grant shook his head. "If you can think of such a method, how could so many people in the meeting not think of it? It's just that if everyone has to contribute money, who pays the lion's share, who pays the smaller part, and how much does each person have to pay?"
"For example, Nokia and Motorola account for 50% of the entire market share. Do these two companies need to pay 50% of the expenses? Are they willing?"
"And do companies with smaller market shares only need to pay a small amount of money and then can use the same platform and products for free?"
"These issues are too difficult to calculate. If we only discussed these, it would probably take at least a year to come up with a result. Therefore, everyone decided to contribute personnel. Anyway, personnel are not valuable, and the tug-of-war over interests is not that great, so everyone agreed."
"..." Bannon opened his mouth, speechless. He seemed to already see these companies producing some useless junk to be responsible for this mobile game platform.
Don't ask why Bannon knew this. The reason is that Bannon and the Bell Telephone behind him were serious victims.
As mentioned before, Bell Telephone was split from the massive Bell Communications Group. This company had a history of over a hundred years of development, with very complex shareholding involving dozens of investors.
At the same time, Bell Communications also had more than a dozen different sub-departments. Because there was no strong president to lead, these sub-departments were basically operating independently. The headquarters was only responsible for financial statements.
Later, the board of directors of Bell Communications Group discovered that the mobile phone business was very profitable and wanted to establish a mobile phone project team. However, establishing a mobile phone project team required personnel, so the board directly ordered personnel to be seconded from various sub-departments to form the mobile department.
In the board's order, it was requested that elite personnel be seconded from each sub-department to form the mobile department. However, when various sub-departments were preparing to second personnel, none of the heads of these departments executed this order.
It should be known that the various sub-departments below were basically operating independently. The head office was only a place to manage money and distribute money. As for how much bonus and budget they would receive in the second year, and how their respective departmental merits were calculated, it all depended on their respective departmental performance.
Under these circumstances, the elite personnel of each department were their precious treasures. How could they be willing to give them to a newly established mobile department for free, especially since this department was not led by them?
However, the board's order had to be executed. Therefore, each sub-department fully understood and interpreted the spirit of the board's order. They called all the old hands, slacking masters, or newcomers, and the dispensable guys in their respective departments as elite personnel and sent them to the mobile department.
For the sub-departments below, this was a good thing. They could get rid of the guys who only ate but didn't work, greatly eliminating some trash.
But it was obvious what the mobile department composed of these elite personnel would be like.
Bannon was one of the people seconded to the mobile department at that time, and he was perhaps the only genuine elite in the entire department. This was because he was originally a deputy general manager of a sub-department. Because he fought for power with the general manager, he was opportunistically sent to the mobile department.
Bannon was quite happy to become the actual leader, but when he discovered the quality of the people under him, he was completely desperate... Even though Bannon worked very hard to make this department successful, it still took him a full five years to produce the first mobile phone, and it was a phone that was three years behind the industry. It was basically a phone assembled from finished parts. The sales volume, naturally, did not need to be mentioned.
If it weren't for the later split of the Bell Group, merging the telephone department and the mobile phone department, and the telephone department had a group of genuinely capable personnel.
At the same time, Bannon became the president of the company. With no higher authority above him, he could implement reforms vigorously. This was how Bell mobile phones managed to gain a foothold in the market.
However, it was only a foothold, occupying less than 2% of the US mobile phone market share. Bannon found it very difficult.
It was precisely because of this that Bannon knew very well how terrible the outcome would be when these dozen mobile phone companies decided to second their elite personnel to do the work.
Even for the sub-departments of one company, it was like this. How could these companies, which were already independent, truly send their elites? It would be strange.
However, at this point, Bannon was not completely desperate. He felt that this platform still had a chance because one of the mobile phone companies among these enterprises was Sony Ericsson.
As the name suggests, this was a mobile phone brand jointly established by Sony and Ericsson. Sony was the world's number one game platform manufacturer. With the participation of Sony Ericsson, the background of this platform would be much stronger than the 00 Game Center.
So he asked, "Did Sony Ericsson also join this joint development?"
"Of course, they joined. Their names are on the list!" Grant said decisively, his eyes darting around.
"That's good!" Bannon nodded. "How about this? You guys build your platform first, and once it's successfully built, Bell will sign with you immediately!"
"Mr. Bannon, you can't have it both ways!" Grant snorted. "You want to get the benefits. You want to take advantage of the current interim period to rip off the 00 Game Center, and then come to share our achievements once our platform is established. There's no such good thing in the world!"
"I'm telling you, we have already agreed on the rules. The opportunity for you to join is only these three days. After three days, the contract will change, and you will no longer receive a 50% profit. Instead, you will only receive a 20% profit, just like the 00 Game platform. The remaining 30% will be divided among us, the platform development companies!" Grant said.