"President, the tone of these organizations and units is very firm. They stated they would rather pay liquidated damages than continue with the previous configuration. This is an order, with no room for negotiation." The secretary reported to Yang Yuan.
"If they have no room for negotiation, do I have room for negotiation?" Yang Yuan clenched his fists, his heart filled with a deep sense of grievance. However, he knew that such grievances were meaningless.
This was Huaxia, where the collective will was paramount, and no one could defy it. Thus, no matter how wronged he felt, Yang Yuan could only grit his teeth and swallow his pride.
Yang Yuan didn't even have the nerve to demand liquidated damages from these units and organizations based on the previous procurement contracts.
If he were to demand liquidated damages, that deal would surely be lost.
Following that, the decade-long network of relationships maintained by Fantasia Group behind this deal would also come to an end. Therefore, Yang Yuan had no choice but to brace himself and accept it.
However, accepting the order meant that the vast amount of computer hardware, with the Windows system as its core, previously purchased by Fantasia Group, would become unusable.
But this was not difficult to handle. Yang Yuan decided to directly transfer this batch of computer hardware to the individual retail market. After all, the regulations issued by the authorities were only applicable to enterprises and institutions. For personal computers, it was entirely up to the user's discretion, and the authorities would not impose such mandatory regulations. Therefore, the personal market should be able to slowly digest this batch of hardware.
What truly troubled Yang Yuan was where to obtain a batch of computers with the Lingyun system as its core.
Of course, it was common knowledge that to acquire these computers, one had to approach Jiangnan Group. Yang Yuan was not unwilling to approach Jiangnan Group because of the recent phone argument with Boss Huang. After all, in business, pride was never a major issue.
As long as there was profit to be made, Yang Yuan could endure being spat upon.
The real problem was that Jiangnan Group was out of stock!
In fact, as soon as the notice was issued, Yang Yuan had already ordered his business personnel to contact Jiangnan Group and procure the relevant hardware equipment.
However, the business personnel returned and reported to Yang Yuan that Jiangnan Group's attitude was very good, expressing great willingness to cooperate with Fantasia Computers. It was just that Jiangnan Group itself knew that opening up the market for Lingyun computers in the early stages would be very difficult. Therefore, they had not prepared much hardware. The first batch consisted of approximately 200,000 sets of chips.
But these 200,000 sets of chips had already been sold out through various channels. They were currently stepping up production, but it would take some time before they could supply chips to Fantasia Computers.
And it wasn't just the Lingyun chips; other accessories required for Lingyun computers were also affected.
For example, motherboards, GPUs, power supplies, memory modules, storage devices, etc. Jiangnan Group itself was not responsible for these; they were all licensed to other computer accessory manufacturers for production. The situation was similar to what Jiangnan Group was facing.
Initially, they had produced only a small quantity of 200,000 sets to appease Boss Huang, but now they were all sold out, and they had no stock. They could only say that they were actively preparing for production and replenishment, essentially dismissing Fantasia Computers.
This put Yang Yuan in a complete panic. The orders that had been reinstated in his hands all had delivery deadlines.
Since he had already agreed to the work, if he could not deliver within the deadline, Fantasia Computers would have to pay a large amount of liquidated damages.
In desperation, Yang Yuan ordered his public relations department to conduct comprehensive public relations efforts with Jiangnan Group, finding a way to obtain a batch of computer hardware from them to deal with the most pressing orders first.
The public relations department fully executed Yang Yuan's orders, employing all sorts of tactics. And surprisingly, it yielded results.
According to the public relations department's report, the Lingyun-related hardware from Jiangnan Group within Huaxia had indeed been sold out. The next shipment would not be available until around May, more than three months away.
This outcome made Yang Yuan's expression extremely grim. The total volume of orders with delivery deadlines within the next three months was about 45,000 units. If these could not be delivered on time, and liquidated damages had to be paid, the amount could be hundreds of millions of yuan.
Money was a minor issue. The key point was that it would have a fatal impact on Fantasia Computer's stock price. Banks, sensing blood in the water, would surely descend upon Fantasia Computers, demanding the payment of interest, which would lead to the complete breakdown of the entire capital chain.
Fortunately, the public relations department had obtained another important piece of information besides this. They had learned that while most of the first batch of 200,000 Lingyun sets from Jiangnan Group had indeed been sold out, a batch of hardware located in the United States had been slow to sell.
This was because the regulatory authorities in the United States prohibited the sale of this batch of hardware, citing that during random inspections of this batch of products, some products were found to have unclear serial numbers, which did not comply with product sales regulations. Therefore, they were not allowed to be sold in the US market.
Jiangnan Group was addressing the issues with this batch of products, so they were still stored in a warehouse in the United States, totaling about 50,000 sets. Moreover, these products were actually packaged sets of chips and other hardware. After all, if users wanted to use the new Lingyun system, they needed a complete set of hardware.
Selling each piece of hardware individually would be too troublesome for users. Therefore, Jiangnan Group's sales strategy in the entire market was basically packaged sales.
This packaged strategy perfectly matched Fantasia Computer's needs. If Fantasia Computer could obtain these 50,000 sets of packaged Lingyun hardware and transport them back to China by air, all the problems would naturally be solved.
This news made Yang Yuan overjoyed. Although the goods were currently in the United States, Fantasia Computer was also an international enterprise with its own headquarters and a large number of staff in the United States, which could immediately handle this batch of computers.
However, out of concern, after careful consideration, Yang Yuan personally called Boss Huang. First, he apologized in a very humble tone for his previous rudeness on the phone.
Then, in an even more humble tone, he stated that Fantasia Computer was in dire need of this batch of hardware in the United States to alleviate the urgent situation and hoped that Boss Huang could help.
"You can rest assured about this. Character is character, and business is business. Business between two companies should still proceed as usual. Once the products are manufactured, they are naturally meant to be sold to customers. If Fantasia Computer is willing to purchase products from Jiangnan Group, they are customers of Jiangnan Group, and Jiangnan Group has no reason to refuse."
"So, if Fantasia Computer has the need, they can directly purchase them locally in the United States and discuss it with the local dealers. Jiangnan Group fully supports this!" Boss Huang's words were very well-spoken and put Yang Yuan at ease. He instructed Fantasia Computer's US operations to acquire this batch of hardware as quickly as possible and then air freight it back to China.
Facing the fate of their boss, Fantasia Computer's US branch naturally dared not delay. They immediately approached Jiangnan Group's US branch.
However, upon hearing the purpose of their visit, Jiangnan Group's US branch stated very frankly that this batch of products was not their concern, as Jiangnan Group itself had no sales operations in the United States.
This batch of computers was actually handed over to the general distributor in the United States for sales. Therefore, if Fantasia Computer wanted to purchase them, they had to find the distributor.
Fortunately, Jiangnan Group's US branch did not seem to intend to make things difficult for Fantasia Computer. They readily provided the distributor's address and contact information to the other party. Thus, Fantasia Computer's staff, without delay, found the distributor.
When the distributor heard the purpose of Fantasia Computer's visit, they were initially very pleased, but then they became somewhat hesitant. This was because these products were temporarily sealed. If the relevant authorities could not lift the ban, they could not sell them to Fantasia Computer.
"Are the nameplates on your products really unclear?" Fantasia Computer's representative asked helplessly.
"Only one or two units had such issues! Most computers are very clear!" the distributor said indignantly. "This is definitely Microsoft's doing. They are afraid our system will take over their market, so they deliberately bribed those agencies and found excuses to ban our sales. Our products have no problems!"
"Have you tried to apply for the unsealing yourselves?"
"Of course, we apply every day, but we haven't received any response until now. I say this is Microsoft's doing behind the scenes. I believe this batch of computer hardware will likely never be unsealed!" the distributor said helplessly. Fantasia Computer's staff were also dumbfounded and immediately reported the situation to Yang Yuan.
"We will help them solve this problem!" Yang Yuan said through gritted teeth. He then personally ordered the executives of Fantasia Computer's US branch to communicate with the relevant management agencies and find a way to lift the ban.
It is unclear how much cost and effort Fantasia Company paid, but after a week, the ban was indeed lifted. Fantasia Computer's employees immediately found the distributor again, asking if they could take the hardware now.
"Of course, there are no problems. Here is our quotation. If you have no objections, please make the payment directly. We do not accept deferred payment!" The distributor smilingly handed the quotation to Fantasia Computer's staff. Upon seeing the quotation, Fantasia Computer's staff's expressions changed instantly. After a moment of hesitation, they handed the quotation directly to Yang Yuan, leaving the decision to the big boss.
This was because the price on the quotation was more than double the sales price of Jiangnan Group in China!