Chapter 344 Pager
"Pager." Ron's eyes sparkled. He had almost forgotten about it.
In the era without mobile phones and big brother phones, it was the best alternative.
No, currently mobile phones do not affect the rapid development of the pager market.
Mobile phones are certainly good, but they are too expensive and few young people can afford them.
BB is much more affordable. Its price is less than one-tenth of that of a mobile phone, making it an affordable electronic product.
"Boss, with the license, the pager business will be a natural progression." Yash was very positive.
"Have you investigated the domestic market?"
"Yes, according to the Ministry of Telecommunications, the pager business is a value-added service in the telecommunications industry. Apart from state-owned companies, private enterprises were only allowed to apply for telecommunications licenses last year.
Although there is a pager market in India, it has not yet been widely adopted. We need to move quickly, and other companies with telecom licenses will definitely take notice of this market."
Since Yash was interested in pagers, he must have specifically learned about domestic policies.
Pagers were popular overseas as early as the mid-1980s, and they also gradually became popular in Tokyo in the 1990s.
India was a step behind, and it was not until two years ago that the telecommunications bureau launched this new communication product.
This is related to the fact that India only opened up its economic policy in 1991. It started too late and development in all aspects was slow.
Not to mention the technology, the people have no money and there is no market foundation.
In 1993 and 1994, families with telephones were considered middle class.
When his father passed away, his will clearly stated that he would distribute the landline telephone as his inheritance to his two sons.
Just think about it, if landline phones were considered household property, you can imagine how poor India was during those years.
In this situation, there is no way pagers or anything like that will have a market.
So although the telephone company has been selling pagers in the past two years, they are too expensive, the service attitude is extremely poor, and the monthly fee is very unfriendly.
However, the situation has changed since last year. The issuance of private licenses will inevitably introduce new competition in the telecommunications industry.
The state-owned telephone company cannot compare with private enterprises in terms of service. Those civil servants with a regular salary regard themselves as officials and are extremely arrogant.
It goes without saying that as soon as the two sides start competing, private enterprises will definitely defeat state-owned companies.
The most important thing is that by 1996, India's domestic economic situation was much better than before, which can be seen from the sales of televisions.
Yash felt that now was a good time to enter the pager business, whether from a policy or market perspective.
"How difficult is the technology of pagers?" This was Ron's first concern.
"The core is radio frequency receiving technology, which is mainly achieved through chips. The key to the production process is surface mount technology, but this is not a problem for us."
The technical analysis of the pager was carried out by Professor Singh of the Indian Institute of Technology, who was a specially appointed technical consultant for Sur Electric.
Since the construction of the Sur Park was completed, Ron specially marked out a piece of land and established the Sur Research Institute.
What is done there is not ordinary R&D work, but high-end technological research.
Many technologies are still in the theoretical stage and there is a long way to go before they can be put into practical application.
This is another of the two-pronged strategy formulated by Ron. On the one hand, he entered the infrastructure and energy industries on a large scale, and on the other hand, he began to invest heavily in research and development.
This is how technical research works. If you don’t invest, it will never bear fruit.
But once the money is spent, it may take several years or even ten years to see the results.
The current focus of the Sur Institute is mobile communications.
Because Ron wants to do the mobile phone business, this is just the initial accumulation, and there will be obvious results in five or eight years.
The team led by Professor Singh is composed entirely of doctors and masters, representing the highest technical level of Suer Electric.
He said the difficulty in manufacturing pagers lies in the radio frequency chip and patch technology, so Ron naturally believed his judgment.
"For chips, you can consider purchasing mature products, but what about surface mount technology?"
"Our TV production line has a surface mount process (SMT), which can be completely solved internally," Singh said confidently.
"So, there's no barrier to entry for us in making pagers?"
"Almost. The key is design. Once the technical demonstration is passed, the factory can consider building a supporting production line."
Strictly speaking, the technical difficulty of pagers is not as high as that of televisions.
Because it is just a circuit board, with a display screen and a battery compartment.
It's nothing like a TV, which has hundreds or even thousands of parts and various input and output signals, making it much more complicated than a pager.
"In that case, let's complete the design work internally first. We'll have another meeting after the engineering prototype is ready."
"Okay, we'll complete the design in two months and strive to produce an engineering prototype before the end of the year." Singer nodded.
This matter still needs to be led by the research institute, and it is difficult for the R&D department of Suer Electric Appliances to solve the design problems in a short period of time.
Ron still has some confidence in the pager. Sur Electric has invested a lot of money in research and development and has trained a group of talents.
This time I don’t have to rely on Todai, it won’t be a problem to handle the small pager.
As long as the signal reception and anti-interference issues are solved, the rest will be a natural progression.
Of course, it is normal to collect mature products from around the world and use them as reference.
Don’t mention things like intellectual property rights and design patents, as these words conflict with India.
As a qualified Indian, Ron knows the rules here very well, so feel free to copy them boldly, no, just refer to them!
If all goes well, pagers will be Suer Electric's key product next year.
Just like Yash said, if you have a telecom license, it would be a big loss not to do this business.
Instead, Housuer Electric was responsible for producing pagers, and another company was established to provide telecommunications services.
Well, Ron decided to call it India Mobile Communications.
It’s not that private companies cannot start their names with “India”, but there are stricter restrictions.
First, approval must be obtained from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, New Delhi, and second, the company must reach national and international scale.
Given the giant status of Sur Electric, I believe New Delhi will give this face.
If all else fails, Ron can also set up the Sur Group and incorporate Sur Electric, Sur Building Materials Company, Sur Mining, Sur Electric Power, and Sur Port into the group's business.
It would be reasonable to apply for telecommunications business in the name of Sur Group and name it India Mobile Communications.
What's more, as the business grew bigger and bigger, Ron really wanted to integrate all the businesses together and set up a group company.
In order to achieve flexible management, we basically attacked from all directions.
When it reached a certain scale, it became increasingly difficult for Ron to handle it on his own.
After all, his energy is limited, so it would be better to hire a professional manager to take charge of other businesses.
As for the media industry's Sun Entertainment, Sun Television and Red Sausage Agency, they will set up Sun Media Group separately.
In fact, Sur Electric Appliances is already large enough that it can become a company on its own.
For example, Sur Technology Group was formed with consumer electronics and mobile communications as its core businesses.
This divides Ron's business into three major areas: technology, infrastructure, and media, all of which are group-sized.
Tsk, it’s a bit complicated. It’s best to ask a professional team from home or abroad to integrate it.
The establishment of Indian Mobile Communications is another matter. After the meeting at Sur Electric, Ron had already roughly planned the development for the next few years.
In addition to pagers, the company will also launch the microwave oven business this year, and will begin developing VCDs, refrigerators, washing machines, and other products next year.
The decision to release VCD was entirely based on the market share of televisions at that time.
The number of televisions sold by Suer Electric alone exceeds tens of millions, and if you add other brands, the number could be at least tens of millions.
Such a large number of TV users is enough to support the VCD market, not to mention that TV sales are still increasing rapidly every year.
Not to mention refrigerators, which are almost a necessity for middle-class families in the hot weather of the Indian subcontinent.
As for washing machines, they have the lowest priority and the market demand is not very urgent.
The technical difficulty of these three major items is on a completely different level, some are even more difficult than televisions.
Self-development is a bit uneconomical.
The research on characters is much faster.
However, we cannot abandon our R&D capabilities just for the sake of fast food.
Ron still thinks that it is more reliable to introduce technology and then produce it independently.
Which company has the best VDC technology? Of course, it’s Dongda, an old friend of Suer Electric.
When it comes to introducing open source technology, Ron is a professional.
He had an exceptionally good reputation at Todai, so buying him a set of VCD technology was no problem at all.
The original time and space VCD did not experience explosive development in India because it was introduced too late.
It entered India in the late 1990s, when DVD technology had already matured and was replaced without making much of a splash.
It can be said that VCD was born at the wrong time and India skipped this stage directly.
Now that I have Ron as my butterfly, it would be a shame not to flap his wings.
It is true that VCDs have poor picture quality and outdated functions, but they are cheap.
Indians are particularly fond of Bollywood, and their pursuit of movies far exceeds that of the University of Tokyo.
There's no reason why this cheap and easy-to-use video playback device wouldn't become popular.
Now that there are cost-effective companies like Sur Electric, they naturally take on the responsibility of popularizing VCDs.
Oh, Ron has to call Dongda in the next couple of days to keep in touch.
This is the most important product of Sur Electric besides the pager. It is considered good that the refrigerator can be launched in 1998.
Ron has not yet decided whether to introduce Tokyo University's technology or ask Oda to cooperate with NEC again.
Now that Sur Electric has entered a period of explosive growth, the small amount of balance owed to NEC is actually nothing.
Forget it, why don’t I settle the bill some other day and then have a good talk with Oda about the refrigerator.
You can't catch a wolf without sacrificing a child. Ron set his sights on something better from NEC.
As for washing machines, to be honest, they are not such a necessity in India.
Because India has servants!
Rich and middle-class families all had their own laundrymen.
Even the employees of Sur Electric began hiring servants to do odd jobs like cleaning and laundry.
India's huge population and low labor costs have completely taken over the washing machine market.
Outrageous!
Therefore, this product was placed at the end of Sur Electric's internal plan, with the goal of being launched around the millennium.
After the meeting, Ron started to work on the telecommunications company's affairs again.
After he got the license, he hasn't started business yet, so he can now do the preliminary preparations.
(End of this chapter)
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