Chapter 212 - 150: Special Fifth Bureau: Trouble, They Slipped In

"A cell phone!?"

"How is that possible!?"

The men were stunned. They instinctively shot to their feet and drew closer in disbelief, the meal completely forgotten.

"It’s a cell phone."

"According to Mr. Xu’s predictions, we’ll soon equip this phone with touchscreen technology and add cameras to the front and back."

"We will develop a wireless technology that connects to the internet, and at the same time, prompt countless websites to be converted into apps that appear on the phone’s screen!"

"And users will no longer operate it with clumsy buttons."

As he looked at the stunned faces around him, Zhang Niu continued slowly.

"Instead, they’ll use their fingers!"

"With just a simple touch, you’ll be able to switch between pages!"

"In other words, this is the future of the internet’s..."

"Cornerstone!"

Zhang Niu uttered a single word, and the hearts of everyone present skipped a beat.

They passed around the single prototype, their expressions ones of utter shock. Just imagining what he had described made their scalps tingle.

The cell phone was crude.

Features like a touchscreen weren’t functional; it could only play a video and be turned on or off with a power button.

But...

Not a single one of them doubted it could be done.

The market already had sufficiently mature technologies. They just needed to be branched out and integrated!

And the cornerstone...

This was the cornerstone!

The internet of the future—its products, software, apps, and all its data—would all revolve around this.

They would all revolve around this very prototype, a device that could do nothing more than play an uncontrolled video!

In other words, whoever controlled this, controlled the future...

And the key to the palace of the future that Zhang Niu had mentioned...

Without a doubt, it was worth its weight in gold!

"This is a cell phone!?"

"This can really be a cell phone? A miniaturized computer..."

The men’s eyes burned with desire.

They didn’t think Zhang Niu and Xu Huo were setting a trap for them.

In fact, for them to be able to articulate such an idea... it couldn’t be a trap!

If it was, then they only hoped for more traps like this!

"There are a lot of powerful people in the Capital City. We might not be able to take this prize for ourselves without a fight."

After a moment, someone calmed down and spoke.

"Don’t worry about that. We have official backing," Zhang Niu said.

"My goal is..."

"To capture the majority of the market the moment this launches, leaving the rest for reasonable competition!"

"As long as we aren’t maliciously crushed, growing bigger is just a matter of time!"

Official backing?

That was helpful, but the tricky part was malicious competition.

The cell phone technology wasn’t difficult; the difficult part was the concept.

And since the technology wasn’t difficult, imitation would be easy. In two or three years, countless knockoffs would likely flood the market.

And that’s when you’d see the ugly side of malicious competition...

The bad driving out the good!

This was a difficult problem. Most people were financially strapped, yet they still yearned for a better life.

So, they would often choose the inferior product.

But for someone like Zhang Niu, this was a fatal threat.

"So, we need a solution," Zhang Niu spoke slowly.

Hearing this, everyone frowned and fell into deep thought.

But unfortunately, they had been exposed to this concept for too short a time and had no good ideas at the moment.

After a moment, they looked toward Xu Huo.

"Mr. Xu, you were the one who proposed this direction."

"Do you have any suggestions?"

The people present were all incredibly wealthy. Unsurprisingly, any one of them was richer than Cheng Yang of Zhaozhou, the man Xu Huo had gotten rid of.

Xu Huo’s net worth was a rounding error compared to theirs.

But... at this moment, they showed no sense of superiority, instead being incredibly respectful.

"Since we can’t avoid the bad driving out the good, leading to a race to the bottom in the market..."

"Then we might as well aim for the high-end market."

Xu Huo spoke slowly, a trace of regret in his heart as he looked at the grand banquet on the table.

’It’s all going to end up in that glutton Chao Zi’s stomach...’

He refocused his thoughts and began to explain in detail.

"Build a high-end brand. Whether it makes money or not isn’t important. What’s important is to set a trend!"

"A trend powerful enough to shape people’s habits!"

The downward pull of the market is inevitable.

This was also a good thing; it meant the average standard of living for the people of the Eastern Country was rising.

Rather than competing in the low-end market like the current keypad phones, it would be better to build a brand!

A brand is a symbol of authority.

And people yearn for authority!

"In the short term, the cell phones won’t be profitable. This will require a massive amount of capital to stay afloat. But with the government’s backing, they won’t let an authoritative brand like this just disappear."

"That would reflect negatively on the Eastern Country itself."

Xu Huo explained eloquently.

"So, for the short-term goals of the cell phone, we’ll eliminate the concept of making a profit."

"The real value of introducing the cell phone isn’t in the device itself, but in the market it represents!"

"And what is that market? It’s the internet. It’s the apps people use!"

"Set your sights on those."

"Currently, there isn’t a single piece of cell phone software on the market. This is an opportunity, but it’s also a huge pitfall."

Imagine you have the latest cell phone in your hand, but it has no features.

That phone might as well be a hunk of scrap metal.

So, Zhang Niu and the others will also need to independently develop many pieces of software!

And since you’re developing them yourselves...

"Then why not develop something useful, like online shopping, or transactions using virtual currency!"

"Or perhaps, a GPS map with real-time positioning."

"Make these kinds of things the phone’s built-in software."

"With no other software available to download, the first batch of customers who buy the phone will slowly explore it, and gradually get used to it after using it."

"And the first customers for a high-end phone will tend to be people with money to spare."

Xu Huo spoke again.

What he proposed wasn’t some revolutionary new concept. But for its time, it was a completely novel approach to carving up the "cell phone internet" pie.