Feng Yu thought he has only one competitor, Apple, who is no match for him. But soon, another formidable competitor, a joint venture by two companies, appeared.
Samsun and Microsoft had cooperated to develop a WMA format music player. The strength of this music player is its WMA format.
WMA format’s songs take up very little storage space, and a song’s size is only half of the MP3 format. The quality of the songs is also not bad.
A music player can store more songs in WMA format compared to MP3.
Samsung’s music player, YP, has the features of the MP3 and iPod. The battery life is long and can store more songs.
Also, the LCD display of this YP player is bigger, like the iPod, and the buttons are all on the right. Users can operate it with their right thumb, and it is very convenient.
Microsoft is also very supportive of this format. They include the WMP player in their Windows operating system, making it popular.
WMA format is getting popular, and many people felt WMA will replace MP3 very soon.
When this YP music player was launched, Microsoft’s CEO was also present. This is very rare.
Aiwa was also invited to the product launch. Heitaro Nakajima is looking terrible because of this new competitor’s appearance.
Compared to Aiwa’s competitors, Aiwa’s website technology is the worst. Apple’s download site is much nicer and better than them.
Microsoft and Samsung’s music download sites are also simpler and more well-designed than Aiwa’s website.
However, Kameda Masao told Heitaro Nakajima not to worry. Their website will be revamped, and a new search engine will be added to the site.
Kameda Masao had contacted Google to design a search engine for Aiwa’s music download website after consulting Feng Yu. The users can search songs using the song’s title, singers’ name, album’s name, sort the songs by genre, and even lyrics.
Users don’t even need to know the title of the songs or the name of the singer. All they need is just some of the song’s lyrics, and they can find the song they are looking for.
This feature will increase the site’s visitors and downloads and win against the other two formats’ music download sites.
Luckily, the MP3 format is still the most common format used by the users. Apple and Microsoft’s formats’ users are still lesser than MP3. But these two companies are influential and pose a great threat to MP3.
Heitaro Nakajima is very anxious, but Feng Yu is very calm.
In Feng Yu’s previous life, these three formats had gone against each other, but WMA did not succeed in replacing MP3.
Instead, it is Apple that continued to use its format in their products.
Aiwa is still the strongest compared to the other two companies when it comes to the music player industry.
Apple and Microsoft can compete with Aiwa if they work together, but is that possible? Apple’s Steve Jobs’ pride is greater than Bill Gates, and he prides himself as someone who will change the world.
Microsoft will also not bow down to Apple. Two years ago, if Microsoft had not helped Apple by investing 100 million USD and went into some cooperation with them, Apple might have gone bust.
That’s why both companies will not work together when it comes to audio format. Both companies could not win against Aiwa if they were to go solo. Aiwa still supports lots of other music player manufacturers, and MP3 still maintains the lead.
MP4 will be launched when more music formats appear in the market. At that time, everyone will switch their focus to developing video players, and music format development will slow down.
Also, at that time, music players can play different formats, and the battle of the formats will end.
Feng Yu is very confident that MP3 players will maintain the lead despite another major competitor’s appearance.
But Feng Yu is still surprised by the Samsung YP music player’s exterior design. Even when he knows the future, but he cannot use all the designs he knows on his products.
Feng Yu must introduce a new MP3 player model every three weeks like Nokia mobile phones if he wants to use all the designs he knows from his previous life. But if he does this, there will be a major flaw. Aiwa cannot focus their marketing on a single product.
Aiwa is the top brand of music player globally, and their marketing is always focused on their products and not their brand.
Since there is a new competitor, Aiwa has to add some innovations to their products.
…….
“Boss, you are saying that our MP3 players can support external storage?” Heitaro Nakajima was surprised. External storage means the player can insert the TF cards!
“That’s right. It will be similar to mobile phones. There will be a card slot, and users can insert a TF card. This way, the player’s storage will be increase and extend the lifespan of the product.”
“Boss, the TF card has only 128MB of storage, and the 256MB is still in the testing phase. Our MP3 player’s 1GB internal storage is ready, and the 2GB model is already in the testing stage. This external storage cannot increase the storage by a lot.”
Heitaro Nakajima thought nothing about this. 256MB increase from 2GB is nothing. What’s the point of that? If the storage is 256MB and can be increased by 2 GB through TF cards, it will be very popular.
If Feng Yu does not know how fast the TF card’s development is, he will think like Heitaro Nakajima. But TF card will soon exceed the USB drive’s storage. In the future, many MP3 players will have 2GB internal storage and can be expanded with a 4GB or 8 GB TF card.
Feng Yu did not say anything, and Kameda Masao started lecturing Heitaro Nakajima. “Just follow what Boss says. He doesn’t need your suggestions!”
Heitaro Nakajima looked at Kameda Masao angrily. Aiwa was much bigger than Kameda Masao’s company in the past. Still, now, Kameda Masao had become his superior and can even lecture him!
However, Heitaro Nakajima must admit that Kameda Masao is young and capable. If Heitaro Nakajima is in Feng Yu’s position, he will also choose to groom Kameda Masao instead.
Feng Yu had only passed this instruction through phone and did not fly to Tokyo. He needs to go to Moscow to attend Kirilenko’s wedding.
