I am Hollywood

[Chapter 813: The Apparent Reason]

At 2 PM, Eric arrived at the agreed-upon cafe with Caroline. Sophie Wilson was already waiting there.

Sophie Wilson was around forty years old, tall in stature, dressed in a light gray suit, wearing rimless glasses, and her hair was meticulously styled.

After polite introductions, they found their seats and ordered coffee. Once the waiter left, Sophie Wilson discreetly sized up Eric and said, "Mr. Williams, how is the filming of 007 going? Everyone is very excited!"

Eric nodded and replied, "Of course, everything is going smoothly. And Sophie, you can call me Eric."

"Alright, Eric," Sophie Wilson said with a smile and nodded, "Actually, we were quite surprised to hear you were interested in ARM."

Eric chuckled to himself, recognizing that Sophie was still the focused tech engineer she always was, transitioning quickly to the main topic.

When the waiter brought their coffee, Eric paused briefly, waiting until the waiter was out of earshot before saying, "I have always been very interested in the IT field. To me, ARM technology has a broad application potential, which is why I asked Caroline to gather technical materials about ARM."

Sophie pondered for a moment and asked, "Eric, can I know your specific expectations regarding ARM technology?"

"Certainly," Eric nodded and glanced at Caroline. The girl took out a Newton tablet from her bag and placed it on the table.

Eric powered on the tablet and said, "I hope to acquire ARM and continue to focus on the development of application software chips."

Acquiring ARM required a sound reason; otherwise, the technical team would not follow a directionless owner.

The reason Eric wanted to buy ARM was straightforward: he aimed to prevent the widespread diffusion of ARM technology and even cut off technical licensing to potential competitors.

However, this monopolistic reasoning would surely not sit well with outsiders. As for mobile chip development, Eric already held interests in Nokia and Qualcomm. With complete authorization of ARM technology, these companies could far exceed ARM's own development capabilities in mobile chips.

After careful consideration, Eric decided to focus on tablets.

Sophie Wilson took the Newton tablet from Eric and operated it briefly, but her expression turned somber as she remarked, "Eric, I spoke with Apple's CEO, John Sculley, last time. They might stop production of the Newton tablet next year, so this product should be considered a failure."

Sophie Wilson's subtext was clearly implying that Eric's choice to develop a handheld tablet was not a wise one.

But Eric disagreed with Sophie Wilson's perspective. He stated, "Sophie, the Newton itself is an outstanding product. Its failure was simply due to not finding the right price and market positioning. According to the data I've gathered, last year's total shipment of handheld computers reached three million units, and in the first half of this year, that figure has already reached 2.6 million. This market is growing rapidly."

Sophie Wilson quickly calculated in her mind. If Eric was right, at an average price of $500, this year's market for tablets could reach about $2.5 billion. Although this number seemed insignificant compared to the over one hundred billion-dollar personal computer market, it was enough to demonstrate the value of tablets.

ARM was originally founded to develop processors for Apple's Newton tablet, and both Sophie Wilson and most of the ARM engineers had strong sentiments toward tablets.

After some thought, Sophie Wilson asked, "So, Eric, what kind of tablet do you want to create?"

Eric replied, "I plan to develop this tablet as an accessory hardware product for Yahoo! If we can cooperate, ARM will be responsible for chip development while Yahoo! will develop a dedicated operating system for the tablet, integrating services like the Yahoo! browser, instant messaging, and email into the tablet. I want this product to emphasize both entertainment and practicality, so it should be able to connect to the internet, read books, listen to music, and more."

"From what you're describing, it sounds like a mini handheld PC terminal," Sophie Wilson remarked. "However, Eric, have you considered the connectivity issue? The biggest advantage of a tablet is its mobility; you can use it anywhere. But if it requires dragging a long network cable around, I think most people would find that less convenient than a laptop."

"That's easy to solve," Eric chuckled. "Earlier this year, I had Firefly Electronics acquire the complete patent for a wireless local area network technology called Wi-Fi. This technology allows for device connectivity with the internet over short distances. Although the range is only a few dozen meters, it's sufficient for a person to use the internet within their home or office."

"That sounds quite similar to the Bluetooth technology introduced by Ericsson," Sophie Wilson replied. "But, Eric, while we might integrate Wi-Fi into the tablet, where will the signal transmitter come from?"

It wouldn't be until a decade later that wireless routers integrated with Wi-Fi technology would start to become popular. Although Firefly held significant shares in Cisco, the primary business area for Cisco was enterprise-level routers, not personal consumer terminals. Eric wouldn't interfere with Cisco's business strategy.

Since Cisco couldn't provide any assistance in this area, it would be challenging for Eric to leverage Firefly to push other router companies to develop wireless routers.

However, this problem was not insurmountable.

Eric said, "As long as someone has internet connectivity at their home, creating a signal transmitter, or what you might call a 'hotspot,' is quite easy. We just need to supply this tablet with an accessory that has a Wi-Fi chip and signal transmitter. Compared to the potential hundreds of dollars price tag for the tablet, the production cost of this mini Wi-Fi signal transmitter would only be around ten dollars. Therefore, like the tablet's charger, it wouldn't significantly affect the overall cost or price, making it a highly viable option."

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