How Would You Like to Cooperate?

Chu Feng said nothing. He merely took a cardboard box from beneath the table and handed it to Bill.

"Mr. Bill, you know that tomorrow is the launch event for our company's new phone, right?"

Seeing the box Chu Feng had handed over, coupled with his words, Bill could guess that it contained Origin Company's new phone. That only left him even more confused. What did these things have to do with today's negotiations?

When it came to the mobile phone industry, Bill—or rather, Microsoft—had its own analyses and plans for development.

Within the economic landscape, the USA had always placed considerable importance on high-tech development and supported the growth of high-tech companies. The service sector accounted for roughly 78% of the USA's GDP, with high technology making an enormous contribution.

For a long time, Microsoft had dominated PC software development. But now, sales growth for PCs had slowed dramatically, because consumers had turned their attention toward smartphones and tablets.

With the arrival of the information age, people had become increasingly dependent on their phones.

A phone was no longer merely a communication device. People were placing ever greater emphasis on its variety of functions and its brand appeal.

As consumers became increasingly brand-conscious, modern buyers also placed more and more importance on brands when choosing a phone.

Moreover, with the development of smartphones, they were no longer exclusive to young people, but had become products for everyone. Smartphones had become a fashion trend, and upgrading one's phone had even become a symbol of status. The mobile phone market was tremendously promising!

Competition in the mobile phone industry was also fierce. The only way forward was to keep technology one step ahead of everyone else. High-tech products were updated quickly and had short life cycles, placing even higher demands on phone companies to develop software and continuously upgrade hardware. Nokia, the leader of the mobile phone industry, possessed a vast number of patented technologies, as well as deep talent and technical reserves.

Thus, on the evening of September 2, 2013, Microsoft announced that it would acquire most of Nokia's mobile phone business for 3.79 billion euros, while spending another 1.65 billion euros to purchase licenses for Nokia's patents. The total value of the deal was therefore approximately 5.44 billion euros.

What gave Microsoft the confidence to pursue this acquisition was that it was a pioneer in personal computer software development.

It was the world's largest supplier of computer software! At the same time, Microsoft's W family occupied 91.49% of the global PC operating system market!

Over its long history of development, Microsoft had accumulated tremendous goodwill and a massive user base. The name Microsoft enjoyed extremely high recognition around the world!

As the dominant force in the PC market for thirty-eight years, Microsoft possessed enormous capital and technological reserves, elite cutting-edge R&D teams, and sales and management teams.

That was also what Chu Feng envied most.

However, even a company as powerful as Microsoft had suffered a crushing defeat with this investment.

It had entered the mobile phone industry too late, the market was already approaching saturation, and most of the market share had been seized by Android and Apple. Its unfamiliarity with the mobile phone industry, slow updates, lack of core mobile phone patents, and absence of stable suppliers had also turned the acquisition into its greatest blunder.

Seeing Bill lost in thought, Chu Feng had no choice but to remind him.

"Mr. Bill, you can open it and take a look first. Then you'll understand where my confidence comes from!"

"A newborn calf fears no tiger!" Bill suddenly recalled an old Chinese saying he had seen somewhere before. He did not argue, merely opening the phone box in front of him.

It felt rather heavy in his hand. After removing the plastic seal, he found what looked like an alloy case inside.

"The workmanship is quite good. Are they planning to target the high-end market?" A thought flashed through Bill's mind.

He examined the phone case. It fit together seamlessly, with only Origin Company's laser-etched logo on top.

He pressed it, and the case opened instantly, finally revealing the phone's true appearance.

Like most phones, it had an enormous 5.5-inch screen. Yet the entire front was a smooth black glass display. There was no ridiculous Apple notch, and he could not see a camera, earpiece, or proximity sensor. It was a true full-screen phone, without the slightest trace of a bezel.

Tilting it slightly, he found no headphone jack, no volume buttons, no Home button—not even a charging port. There were only microphone holes reserved at the bottom and a power button on the side. The back was silver-gray and seemed to be made of aluminum alloy, but it had three cameras as well as an Origin logo in Chinese characters.

"Th-this... is a phone?"

Even someone as worldly as Bill was stunned. This phone was simply unbelievable. Hadn't they said a bezel-less design was impossible? And without a power port, how could it connect to a power source or a computer?

Though shocked inwardly, Bill revealed nothing on his face and tried pressing the power button.

An Origin logo suddenly flew in from the depths of the screen.

He silently began counting, wanting to see how fast it booted. Yet before he could even start, it had already entered the home screen.

The starry-sky wallpaper looked incredibly futuristic. The phone came with small apps such as an alarm clock and calculator, along with a sci-fi-styled digital clock and a lively little figure—Xiaoke. Bill's eyes flickered as he noticed something else.

Forget the boot-up speed—the colors and visual quality of this screen were far too good! Its resolution was definitely not low.

Xiaoke, included with the phone, then introduced it in such fluent, authentic English that even Bill felt ashamed.

Sure enough, the main screen had actually reached 8K-level resolution. It used a newly developed proprietary display, with a 40-megapixel rear wide-angle camera and an ultra-wide-angle camera, along with a Starlight Photography function. The front camera was hidden at the top of the phone and could rise and retract.

There was nothing particularly novel about the battery—it was a 3,000 mAh battery—but it used black technology: Wireless Charging.

And this Wireless Charging was not the gimmicky kind that required placing the phone on a charging pad, falsely calling itself wireless. This was true Wireless Charging: as long as the phone was within fifteen meters of a power source, it could charge!

Bill knew about Tesla's wireless electricity, but integrating wireless charging equipment into a phone only a few millimeters thick—that took real skill.

As for the CPU, it was the independently developed Origin CPU, meeting eight-core processor standards. It could run any mobile game smoothly, and with Xiaoke's acceleration effects, it left other smartphones in the dust.

With 8 GB of cache and 1 TB of storage, anyone who did not know better would think it had desktop-level specifications. Combined with the system's built-in cloud drive and ten terabytes of free space, there was no longer any need to worry about insufficient storage.

As he played with the phone in his hand, even Bill had to admit that if the price difference was not too great, he would absolutely choose this phone.

The technological content packed into this phone was simply too high. Even if just one of its features were taken out on its own, Bill was confident it could compete with Android and Apple!

Thinking of that, he could not help remembering the Nokia Microsoft had acquired, and felt a faint melancholy...

"Mr. Chu, your company's phone... is quite good."

After holding it in for so long, that was all Bill managed to say. After all, this was a negotiation. He could not reveal any more than that, or he would be handing his bargaining chips to the other side.

"Hehe, Mr. Bill, there's no need to rush. You may not yet know about another function of this phone."

Chu Feng's words left Bill somewhat puzzled. The phone's functions were basically all there. What else could possibly be special about it?

"Look at what's inside the box." Chu Feng gestured for Bill to examine the phone box before him.

Indeed, this phone box was far too large compared to the phone itself.

Sure enough, when he opened the second layer, two boxes lay quietly inside, one large and one small. One contained Bluetooth earbuds and a charging case, while the other was a glasses case marked VR.

Bill opened the earbud and glasses packaging, took off his own glasses, and put on the Bluetooth earbuds and glasses from the box.

Without any operation on his part, a prompt appeared the moment he put them on, informing him that they had connected automatically.

He casually opened a test video that came with the phone.

At first glance, Bill nearly threw the phone in his hand!

Fortunately, he did not make a fool of himself, though the scene before his eyes still left him stunned.

It was a video filmed in the deep sea. The reason Bill had nearly thrown his phone just now was that a great white shark had suddenly appeared in the shot. The image seemed to be right before him, close enough to touch.

Although he knew it was fake, he could not help wanting to reach out and try. It was as if he were beneath the deep sea himself, swimming freely alongside the fish, while the flawless sound quality of the included earbuds gave him an utterly immersive experience.

It was too incredible. This was practically a groundbreaking design. This VR technology completely crushed all the other fake high-tech products. Compared with this phone, other VR devices could only be called pathetic!

The release of this phone would trigger a tsunami-like disaster in the smartphone industry.

Bill could already foresee the cliff-like plunge in other phone sales!

At that thought, Bill could not help feeling a lingering fear. If his company primarily made phones, would he have been able to withstand this?

After thinking it over, the answer was rather discouraging. The technology packed into this phone was simply too terrifying.

Who cared about playing hard to get or bargaining chips? To hell with all that—he had to cooperate with Origin Company!

Bill took off the glasses, and his slightly trembling hands revealed the excitement in his heart.

He had not felt this way in a long time. It was just like when he had first designed Windows. This was the opportunity laid right before him!

Origin Company's weakness was its lack of foundation, while Microsoft's weakness was its insufficient technology. (Thinking that such a massive company of his actually lacked technology, Bill felt a little dejected again.)

If the two could cooperate, did the future market prospects even need to be discussed?

"Mr. Chu, tell me—what will it take for us to cooperate with Microsoft? If you cooperate with Microsoft, the smartphone market will be divided between our two companies!"

The conference hall erupted in an uproar...

No wonder everyone cried out in surprise. What Bill had said was simply too shocking. He had only tested the phone, yet his attitude before and after had changed far too drastically.

Right now, Bill might as well have had "easy mark" pasted on his forehead. He was practically telling Chu Feng, "I'm stupid and rich. Just tell me whatever you want."

Even the team Bill had brought with him wanted to dissuade him from this decision. If they had not all come together, they would have truly believed Chu Feng had given Bill some kind of hallucinogenic drug!

While maintaining the guaranteed 3,000 words a day, I'm working hard to build up a backlog, so I'm not posting much for now. I can only write on my phone while I'm away, but after a while I'll be able to go all out. As usual, please vote with recommendation tickets. Thank you to all the friends who have continued supporting me.