Reinventing the Millennium

Intel once missed one of the best opportunities to enter the mobile market.

This is a lesson worth remembering.

When such a lesson is placed in front of Yike's chip needs, it is difficult for Brian not to be touched. He has been working for Intel since 1982 and has worked for the company for 33 years. He has witnessed Intel's peak and slowdown.

As early as before 2000, Intel's peak market value exceeded 500 billion US dollars, but now it is only 150 billion US dollars.

Brian persuaded the board of directors to acquire Broadcom last year, which was to re-promote the mobile strategy and rebuild Intel's glory.

However, the acquisition of Broadcom and technical cooperation with Yike did allow Intel to gain a point of entry in the mobile market, but the strength was always a bit scratching the itch.

Now Yike is in crisis, and a sky-high order is almost on the market.

After Jobs was rejected, he found Samsung to manufacture chips for him, which greatly promoted Samsung's wafer manufacturing and brought great inspiration and promotion to Samsung's transformation.

Just before Apple gave the order to Taiji, it had always been the largest customer of Samsung's wafer foundry.

There are not many companies in the world that can have such a large order, so when the market was full of doubts and concerns about Yike, Brian flew to China in person to control Yike.

But after two days of talking, he suddenly felt that he was being controlled by Mr. Fang.

When he returned to the hotel, Brian first discussed the current situation of Yike with the team, and then called the base camp. In the early hours of the morning, he lay in bed tossing and turning, with a question echoing in his mind.

Is this another "Apple moment" for Intel?

No, perhaps it is a new "Yike moment".

However, unlike Apple, the current situation is more complicated and faces geopolitical influences.

Brian was getting less and less sleepy the more he thought about it, so he simply got up and made a cup of coffee, considering various possible changes. Yike must need to change chip manufacturers.

Even if Bingxin International was also founded by Mr. Fang, he must sacrifice the small to protect the big.

This is not subject to his subjective will, otherwise, the final result can only be that neither Yike nor Bingxin can be saved.

As the current CEO of Intel, Brian has been scratching his head about the company's situation in the past decade. He does not believe that Fang, the founder of Yike, does not feel urgent about the current crisis and does not make a trade-off.

Grasping this premise, the game between Intel and Yike seems to be much clearer.

Brian thought a lot late at night and believed that Yike's overall crisis is controllable. Even if geopolitical factors erupt again, Yike's crisis is protracted but controllable.

And the longer Yike's crisis is, the greater the space Intel can get for cooperation.

Brian made calculations and did not show up until the next morning. Instead, the accompanying team negotiated with Yike and tried their best to strive for the established conditions.

No matter what Fang said, Yike's crisis is a crisis, and Intel's cooperation is a helping hand in a sense.

Brian did not participate in the negotiation, but only reviewed the situation at night, speculating on the boundaries of Yike’s cooperation and Mr. Fang’s bottom line. He recognized the mutual benefit of cooperation, but he would always strive for the interests that belonged to him.

When the review was over, he asked the head of Yike: "Did Mr. Fang not show up once today?"

The deputy director of Intel shook his head.

Brian thought it was normal. After all, he did not show up either. Everyone left each other alone, which was also a small game.

However, after two days of continuous talks, Brian raided the negotiation site on Friday afternoon and talked with Yike’s senior executives about the consumer electronics market, but he did not see Mr. Fang or hear from him.

"Speaking of which, I received a call from the Washington BIS a few days ago, and they also asked about Mr. Fang." Brian threw out the news in a light-hearted way, and as expected, it attracted the inquiry of Qi He, the president of YMS on the opposite side.

However, he just avoided the topic and did not reveal the content of the call.

As the negotiation was about to end, Brian still didn't see Mr. Fang show up, and finally couldn't help asking: "Is Mr. Fang very busy today?"

"Mr. Fang went on a business trip to Beijing the day before yesterday, and it may take two days for him to come back." Qi He replied, "He attaches great importance to our cooperation and told me to tell him immediately if there is any new news."

After saying this, he shrugged regretfully: "But we do have some differences, and I haven't reported to Mr. Fang yet."

Brian was a little unhappy. He was still thinking about the game, but you left Shencheng a long time ago.

He kept his expression unchanged and smiled: "Important cooperation always requires patience. Yike did have some troubles this time, but any great company can always recover from difficult and challenging times, and it can be stronger than ever before. I believe Yike will be such a company."

Brian saw Qi He nod across from him, and after a moment of hesitation, he continued: "Since Mr. Fang is busy with work, I hope to talk to Mr. Yu about WLS tomorrow morning. I have some new ideas about WLS."

Qi He said with some embarrassment: "Brian, Morenkov is on his way by plane. If you have new ideas about WLS, it would be more constructive to talk to him."

Morenkov is the CEO of WLS, and he is the former Qualcomm COO who was poached.

Brian expressed his displeasure this time with a low voice: "I think it would be more meaningful to chat with Mr. Yu."

Even if Mr. Fang doesn’t show up, he must be at Mr. Yu’s level to barely match. Now he just wants to kill himself by doing Mollenkopf? Do you, Yike, still want to cooperate in wafer manufacturing?

An idea flashed through Brian's mind, maybe he could release the news that the negotiations between Intel and Yike were not going well, and the stock market would naturally bring him persuasion.

"It's not that I can't chat with Mr. Yu, it's just that Mr. Yu has already made arrangements for his work tomorrow." Qi He had no choice but to reveal the news, "Mr. Yu has arranged a meeting with GF's senior executives tomorrow morning. So, Brian, Mollenkopf can arrive tonight, and Mr. Yu and Mollenkopf can chat with us the day after tomorrow.”

GlobalFoundries was the only wafer foundry that had contact with Yike when the media previously verified the news.

Brian's expression changed slightly but quickly returned to normal. He smiled and said, "Mr. Qi, you don't think GlobalFoundries is a more suitable partner than Intel? The best wafer manufacturing process on the planet is at Intel."

Qi He nodded: "Indeed, Intel's 14nm process is amazing, and it is also the best partner for our Yike."

Brian looked at the president of Yike YMS across from him with some suspicion.

Qi He continued: "However, GlobalFoundries may be a better company worthy of Yike's investment. In addition, Bingxin's technology is not bad."

Brian's eyes narrowed. Is Yike buying a stake in GLOBALFOUNDRIES?

And, will the ice core technology be reintroduced into GLOBALFOUNDRIES?

BIS restricts ice cores, so Yike simply found an American wafer foundry company?

He instantly thought of AMD, which was cooperating with Ice Core, and felt disgusted with Ice Core's rush to 16nm regeneration. Ice Core was restricted, but it was waving the technology in its hands everywhere...

Empowerment everywhere!