Little Swift acted quickly. After discussing with Jobs, he immediately submitted the application for additional issuance to Nasdaq.
This is the advantage of holding 55% of the shares. With the cooperation of the management, the application for additional issuance was directly submitted even without the permission of other directors.
Since all financial operations of the company are public, the news of Apple's application for additional issuance spread throughout Wall Street the moment it was submitted.
Well, this might be a bit of an exaggeration. Apple doesn't have that much influence yet. After all, it's just a company with a total market value of around 6 billion US dollars. While not small, it's not big enough to shake the entire market.
And additional issuance is a common and routine operation, so it didn't cause much of a stir in the market.
Of course, some people were closely watching Apple's additional issuance because, according to the news released by Apple, they would release the new generation iPod 3 in early June.
After this news was announced, Apple's stock price dropped by 8% that day, falling by nearly one dollar per share.
This is also quite normal, as 200 million shares are being issued, which is bound to cause the stock price to fall.
Therefore, even shareholders who had recently bought Apple stock were considering selling their shares at a higher price and then buying them back at a relatively lower price after the additional issuance, thus making a small profit.
So, Apple's stock price experienced some fluctuations, but these were all normal occurrences.
It is worth mentioning that Western Wild Horses, as a major shareholder, did not sell any shares during this period. Instead, they secretly bought more shares, which clearly indicated their confidence in Apple's stock price. As a result, the initially restless market was immediately soothed.
Little Swift is currently a rising star in the Black community and a significant financial celebrity in the market. The investors of Western Wild Horses are mostly fellow Black people, so they trust Little Swift very much. Seeing Little Swift continue to increase his holdings, they felt somewhat reassured about Apple's stock price.
A few days later, Nasdaq approved Apple's additional issuance. Including the necessary preparation time, this additional issuance will take place two weeks after the release of the iPad 3.
Upon seeing this, everyone understood Apple's intentions. Clearly, Apple and Little Swift believed that the release of the iPad 3 would greatly improve market expectations for Apple. Therefore, even with the additional issuance of shares, the stock price would not be significantly affected, and at the same time, Apple's liquidity would be increased. This is indeed good news.
As a result, Apple's stock price actually rebounded to 12 US dollars per share before the additional issuance, even experiencing a small surge. This made many shareholders who had sold their stocks at the time frustrated and regretful, and they all expressed their determination to buy back the stocks they had lost during the additional issuance.
However, the additional issuance was just the beginning. Soon, Apple also announced that they would purchase servers worth around 300 million US dollars to support the iTunes service!
Spending three hundred million on the iTunes service?
Is Apple planning to enter the network business instead of just being a hardware manufacturer?
However, since Apple had put out the order, major server companies in the United States naturally geared up for it. Although three hundred million US dollars was far less than the 2 billion US dollar order from their neighbor, it was still a significant amount.
But this is also normal. After all, Apple's total market value is only 6 billion US dollars, while Yahoo's total market value is as high as 120 billion US dollars. Therefore, for Apple to be able to offer 300 million US dollars is already their best effort.
Moreover, a 300 million US dollar order is definitely a major deal under normal circumstances, so soon server manufacturers from around the world submitted bids to Apple.
By June 10th, after Yahoo announced the end of its bidding process, Apple's bidding had just begun. However, more than ten companies had already submitted their bids, which were then publicly displayed by Apple, with Jiangnan Servers prominently listed among them.
"Apple is really going backward, even giving Jiangnan Servers a chance to bid!" Jerry Yang happened to glance at the news released by Apple and saw the name that annoyed him, and immediately felt displeased.
Coincidentally, there was a media interview that afternoon, so Jerry Yang complained about Jiangnan Servers. Of course, Jerry Yang was restrained and did not directly name them. He only said that there was a server manufacturer from China that always tried to win bids through some crooked methods, but was righteously rejected by him.
He then hypocritically stated that it couldn't be blamed on this manufacturer, as using crooked methods was a necessary way to get orders in China, where they were accustomed to such lack of freedom and democracy. After a round of criticism, Jerry Yang felt relieved.
The reporter for this interview was also quite cunning. Although Jerry Yang did not name them, as soon as he investigated, he realized that Jiangnan Servers was the only server manufacturer operating in the American market.
Therefore, this reporter directly named Jiangnan Servers in the report. After all, it was a Chinese company, and they were an American media outlet. If they dared, they could sue them!
To be sure, this report did cause a small wave of attention, making Jiangnan Servers somewhat famous.
By June 18th, Apple's bidding also concluded, and it entered the internal evaluation stage.
"Everyone, please take a look. These are the five companies that passed the first round of screening. You can select one or more from these other companies for joint procurement!" The head of the procurement department handed out the documents.
The executives each picked up a document, and after a glance, one executive asked in confusion, "Why is this Chinese company still selected? Are they here to make a joke?"
"No, although I also think they are here to make a joke, according to the technical data and prices provided in their bid, they are actually the most cost-effective company!" The head of the procurement department said with a wry smile.
"How is that possible? Chinese people can't even make chips, how can they have the technology to manufacture the servers we need?" This executive questioned.
"We have reviewed their bid. Their computing servers use a clever approach to meet the requirements. They use mid-range chips and then connect four servers in series and cluster them to achieve our server requirements!" the executive said.
"This kind of thing should be directly eliminated. If one server can do the job, why do they need four? Wouldn't the energy consumption be four times higher?" the executive continued.
"But their price is very low." The head of the procurement department said.
"How low?" the executive asked.
"For equipment with equivalent computing power, Compaq's quote is 1.8 million US dollars per unit, while their four-unit cluster only costs 400,000 US dollars."
"..." The executive immediately fell silent. For one server to be 1.4 million US dollars cheaper, even if the energy consumption was four times higher, it wouldn't cost 400,000 US dollars in electricity over ten years, right!
"Ahem, this time the computing server order is only a small-scale procurement, with an order value of only 40 million US dollars. The real main part is the storage servers, which require a large number of storage chips."
"This is not just about winning by quantity; more importantly, it's about the stability of data storage. If any single server's data is lost, it will be a huge reputational loss for our company!" another executive said. This statement was clearly directed at Jiangnan Servers.
"This... similarly, according to the data in their bid, the Chinese storage servers indeed have world-leading levels, and even surpass them."
"Among all the bidders, IBM servers, which have the best data, offer single storage of 6TB for their storage servers, with the shortest response time being 0.18 seconds, the longest response time being 1.24 seconds, and a power consumption of 600w."
[PS: I couldn't find the data for 2003, so everything here is made up.]
"And Jiangnan Group's storage servers can provide pure storage of 8TB for their storage servers, with the shortest response time being 0.12 seconds, the longest response time being 0.98 seconds, and the power consumption is also 600w," the head of the procurement department blurted out. He had clearly memorized these figures by heart.
It's likely that he was shocked by this data.
In fact, everyone present was also shocked by this data. This data crushed all the storage server data from American companies. Have the Chinese already produced the world's best storage servers?
It would be more believable to say that God is Chinese.
"This data must be fake, right? Aren't Chinese people the most boastful? I've seen their official promotional materials from decades ago, saying that they could grow 3,000 jin of rice per mu, which is simply laughable!" a high-ranking executive, known for being a China expert, said.
"I'm not sure about that. Anyway, we have reviewed every data point and every decimal point in their bid, and we have confirmed that they have indeed written these figures. As for whether they have faked the data, that's something I cannot confirm. We will only be able to determine that after seeing the actual product and testing it!" the head of the procurement department replied.
"What about the price?" someone suddenly asked.
"IBM's single storage server sells for 0.99 million US dollars per unit, while Jiangnan Group's price is 4,999 US dollars per unit."
"Hiss!" Everyone gasped. This is half the price! How did these Chinese create such cheap storage servers?
"Heh, such exaggerated data must be false!" a senior executive immediately said.
"However, I think it's okay to let them be selected. At least I'm very curious how these Chinese people managed to fake it!" several executives said with a cold smile, and then continued to flip through the documents.
The other four selected companies were IBM, Compaq, and Samsung. These are all relatively normal companies.
"What about this fifth company? I've never heard of them, and they have such a strange name, American First?" an executive asked in confusion.
"This is a newly established group company. It is said that they have already ventured into several network and high-tech industries and plan to develop comprehensively, including the server industry!" the head of the procurement department replied.
"Isn't this a joke? If we don't understand Chinese companies, I've never heard of American First having any technical accumulation in the server industry. What exactly do they plan to offer?" This executive questioned, and other executives also expressed their doubts, even more so than when they questioned Jiangnan Group.
"I'll just say one thing to you: this company is invested in by Western Wild Horses!" Jobs, who had been sitting at the head of the table and had not spoken, said calmly. All the executives immediately fell silent.
Then, the initial screening list was unanimously approved.