Chapter 451: The AK47 Plan and Business Opportunities of Office A

After a round of discussion, some things were confidential, so he couldn't explain too much. Finally, Li Xiaofan made the final decision:

"Everyone has fully expressed their opinions just now, and they are all very good and reasonable. However, I have more far-reaching strategic considerations. Because some major projects are in the confidentiality stage, it is not convenient to disclose more information. Don't worry too much, just follow my advice!"

"Okay, Mr. Li, we will do it!"

Although everyone had some doubts about Li Xiaofan's instructions, they still carried them out without compromise.

After Pacific Network Technology Company successfully landed on NASDAQ, Li Xiaofan's prestige within the company reached its peak.

Before leaving get off work, Li Xiaofan received an email from Gu Qijun, who was setting up an incubator in the United States:

"Mr. Li, I just saw a detailed report in the Wall Street Journal about an infringement lawsuit between two EDA companies listed on NASDAQ in the United States. The plaintiff is Cadence Design Systems, the world's largest EDA company, and the defendant is Avant! Microelectronics, an emerging star in the EDA industry. You may be interested in this case. I will download the relevant reports and send you the attachment for reference..."

Now, Li Xiaofan's eyes will light up when he hears or sees the three English letters "EDA", so he quickly opened the attachment sent by Gu Qijun.

The news story in the attachment revolves around a Chinese named "Xu Jianguo":

After the EDA industry entered the explosive period in the 1980s, Cadence Design Systems, under the leadership of Joe Costello, has continuously expanded, merged, and acquired, and has jumped from the seventh in the industry in 1988 to the current EDA industry leader after 1992.

Just when Cadence was in a good situation, a new company suddenly emerged, which made Cadence feel uneasy.

It turned out that in early 1991, four Chinese employees of Cadence resigned and founded a new EDA software company called Arcsys.

Although Arcsys was only a small company with only a dozen people, it was challenging Cadence's core technology: chip layout and PR wiring technology.

And soon Arcsys launched its own layout and wiring product ArcCell, which impacted Cadence's core technology.

This kind of company that targeted the opponent's core field at the first move made Cadence feel uneasy. Costello was determined to squeeze Arcsys to death before it became stronger.

So when 1sys was still in its infancy, Costello found Xu Jianguo, the general manager of the chip design department, known as the "tough guy", and asked him to form a B team to snipe Arcsys's attack on Cadence.

After Xu Jianguo was ordered, he established a B team at the end of 1992, which included technical personnel and marketing personnel. In the internal meeting of Group B, Xu Jianguo named the campaign AK47, which means "Kill Arcysys in 47 weeks" in English, which means: Eliminate Arcysys in 47 weeks!

The strategy formulated by Xu Jianguo was to attack Arcysys from two aspects:

In terms of technology, to surpass Arcsys! At that time, chip design began to enter the submicron and ultra-submicron technology period, and the old channel wiring technology would be replaced by the new area wiring technology. He gave the company's technical personnel a very short R&D time, and required the R&D department to complete the innovation of new technology before Arcsys within a certain period of time.

In the market, Arcsys must be squeezed to death! Xu Jianguo personally led the sales staff to visit those "rebellious" users, asking about every detail of the difference in the other party's EDA products, asking about every reason for the user's conversion, and promised various preferential conditions for each user to "surrender", as long as you come back to our company.

Under Xu Jianguo's leadership, the "A-fighting" was effective. Soon Arcsys encountered a survival crisis and the company's finances deteriorated seriously. The entire 1sys revenue was only $1.7 million, with a net loss of $2 million.

Xu Jianguo's strategies and tactics were effective. Cadence seemed to have pushed Arcsys to the edge of the cliff, waiting for them to collapse.

However, at this time, Arcsys's turning point suddenly came.

The turning point was that after the "A-fighting Office" achieved fruitful results under Xu Jianguo's leadership, Cadence began to have internal strife.

Xu Jianguo is very capable, but his style of being a person and doing things is very strong, even a little unscrupulous.

Externally, for example, in order to fight Arcsys, he actually sent people to check the immigration status of all Arcsys engineers, and once there was any suspicion of illegal residence, he would report it to the Immigration Bureau to achieve the purpose of fighting the opponent.

Internally, the relationship with the company's internal R&D team was very tense. The deadline-setting goals and the extremely short R&D cycle made the R&D team under him miserable and complained.

This contradiction finally detonated when Company 1 achieved a comprehensive victory over Arcsys and Arcsys was about to collapse: the conflict between Xu Jianguo and James Solomon, the head of the chip design department, broke out.

And James Solomon is the CTO who is deeply respected by engineers in the design department of Cadence.

The two had a dispute over who the engineering team should report issues to, and the conflict finally came to Cadence boss Costello.

After weighing the situation, Costello finally sided with R&D in the conflict between marketing and R&D, and hired a new general manager of the chip design department from outside the company.

Costello's approach made Xu Jianguo feel that "when the birds are gone, the good bow is hidden; when the cunning rabbit dies, the lackeys are cooked".

This was an insult and blow to Costello who had made important contributions, which made him determined to leave Cadence.

The internal strife of Cadence is undoubtedly a big pie suddenly dropped from the sky for Arcsys, which is struggling to survive in difficult times. This is great news!

This company composed of Chinese people has very weak sales and marketing due to its emphasis on technology and its own language barriers. Xu Jianguo, who has a background in sales and marketing, is the candidate Arcsys needs most.

Therefore, Arcsys extended an olive branch to Xu Jianguo: it promised to give Xu Jianguo 550,000 stock options at US$0.3 per share. Three years later, the actual value of those offers exceeded more than $20 million.

In the process of Cadence's leadership "doing business A", Xu Jianguo also understood the strength and marketing shortcomings of Arcsys. His joining could completely bring Arcsys back to life.

As a result, Xu Jianguo, the former head of the "A Office" of Company 1 two years ago, officially joined Arcsys as president and CEO.

Xu Jianguo's resignation is a huge blow to Cadence. The original B-Team, which had been "doing everything", collapsed with Xu Jianguo's departure, which had a huge impact on the morale of the company's employees.

Generally speaking, if people in a team leave one after another, a trend will soon form and the entire team will collapse. As a manager, if you notice such signs, you should deal with them immediately.

Therefore, when Arcsys announced that Xu Jianguo had joined, Cadence immediately sent a lawyer's letter to Arcsys, threatening to sue Arcsys for unfair competition.

At this time, Arcsys had not yet recovered and had to reach an agreement with Cadence:

Xu Jianguo's appointment was postponed from April to July 1994 in order to hand over the work at Cadence. 1sys shall not recruit any Cadence employees...

With this agreement, Xu Jianguo began to recruit troops "unscrupulously" to expand his power.

Time soon came to 1995, and the freeze period for poaching agreed upon by both parties ended.

In January 1995 alone, some of the company's core technical employees joined Arcsys.

At the same time, Xu Jianguo launched a market grabbing war and replaced the traditional permanent license model with a three-year license model, which greatly reduced customer costs and quickly won the market.

In just over a year, Arcsys's sales surged six to seven times and turned a profit.

Last year, 1sys was successfully listed on Nasdaq.

In November last year, it acquired ISS Company to expand its verification business, and the company was renamed American Pioneer Avant! Microelectronics Company.

With more capital, Avant! Pioneer Company seems to be unstoppable under the leadership of Xu Jianguo. It is approaching Cadence Company with an aggressive momentum and has seriously endangered its position.

Not only that, Xu Jianguo also secretly met with core employees of Cadence.

Of course he wouldn't just meet old friends. Xu Jianguo's move completely angered Cadence boss Costello!

Costello launched a comprehensive investigation and found some evidence that former employees had stolen core Cadence intellectual property.

Therefore, at the end of last year, in the face of the evidence provided by Cadence, the prosecutor agreed to Cadence's request to launch a large-scale search of the entire Avant! Pioneer Company.

Since then, the two companies have launched a long marathon lawsuit, facing each other in court, and it is difficult to tell the winner...

After reading this news report sent by Gu Qijun, Li Xiaofan recalled that the foreign-funded company he worked for after returning to China in his previous life also bought circuit design software from the American Avant! Pioneer company because of Avant! Pioneer's three-year licensing model. , replacing the original traditional permanent license model, greatly reducing customer costs, and the price is very attractive.

However, six years later in 2001, after a lengthy marathon litigation, the local court in the United States ruled that Avant! Pioneer Company had lost all aspects of the lawsuit. Except for Xu Jianguo, who was fined and escaped jail, the other six Avant! Pioneer Company employees were sentenced to prison. .

While the snipe and the clam quarrel, the fisherman benefits. During the seven years of the quarrel between Cadence and Avant!, Synopsys, the second largest company in the industry, seized the opportunity to develop rapidly and almost monopolized the digital front-end market. Mentor Graphics, which was struggling, also made a comeback.

After Avant! lost the lawsuit, Synopsys waved its hand and acquired the entire Avant! company for US$770 million...

Thinking of the past, Li Xiaofan lit a cigar and fell into deep thought: There seems to be a lot of business opportunities here, where is my opportunity?