After that, it was the Daqian Printing Factory that came to report.
The Daqian Printing Factory didn't have much profit this year, but it wasn't because of poor management. It was because the Daqian Printing Factory invested all the money they earned into a new technology development: 3D printing.
To be honest, it was Boss Jia's fault that the Daqian Printing Factory was able to come up with such a new technology.
Last year, during a high-level dinner, Director He of the Daqian Printing Factory told Boss Jia that their factory didn't know where the next technological change in the printing industry was, and wanted to ask Boss Jia for advice.
But Boss Jia didn't know anything about the technological change in the printing industry. He could draw a paper person, but printing was out of the question.
However, Boss Jia couldn't just keep silent. If he did, wouldn't it make Boss Jia seem too incompetent? So, he smiled and said, "The future of the printing industry might be 3D printing."
Boss Jia was just casually saying that. It was true that 3D printing was one of the future technological development directions, but it had nothing to do with the printing industry.
However, Director He, a technology fanatic, didn't think so. 3D printing sounded very high-tech, and it was a matter of the printing industry. So, Director He immediately began to ask Boss Jia for advice on what 3D printing was.
Boss Jia didn't know much about it, so he simply explained it. It was to first use a computer to build a 3D model of an object, then use some materials that could be quickly formed to print it layer by layer. In the end, it directly printed a 3D object.
"Amazing. This way, the printing industry won't be limited to paper or flat surfaces. If we agree to the industry, we can directly agree to the object. This is a technological development that breaks through dimensions!" Director He, a technology fanatic, exclaimed on the spot. Then, he ran back to the factory without even finishing his meal.
Boss Jia thought that Director He was just interested for a while, but he didn't expect that after three days, Director He came to find Boss Jia with a detailed development plan for 3D printing technology.
The Daqian Printing Factory stated that they hoped to complete the technology accumulation and prototyping within three years. Within five years, they hoped to bring the world's first commercial 3D printer to the market.
Boss Jia was a little dumbfounded when he saw this plan. One had to know that in history until 2020, although the concept of 3D printing technology was very popular, 3D printing itself was not that great.
This was because the technical flaws of 3D printing were very serious. First of all, due to the limitations of the materials used, 3D printed products were basically plastic products. Therefore, the limitations of the products were very large.
Secondly, the precision of 3D printing was not very high and could not produce many very detailed things.
Also, 3D printing required modeling. The more complicated something was, the higher the cost of modeling. It was normal for a model to take a few months.
Finally, and most importantly, 3D printing was limited. The speed of 3D printing was very slow. It would take a machine a day to print something the size of a fist. If it was slightly bigger, it would take a week or two.
All in all, 3D printing might be the development direction of the printing industry, but the technology was even less practical than VR. It was basically a gimmick used to cheat money.
Of course, you couldn't say that 3D printing was useless. Perhaps in another ten years or so, a 3D printer would become a standard for every family. Most of the time, people wouldn't need to go out to buy things. They could just use the computer to create a model, and then use the 3D printer to print it out.
All in all, the future of 3D printing itself was limitless, but it would take time. It would take at least 30 years. However, the Daqian Printing Factory wanted to create a 3D printer within five years. It was a little unreliable.
Therefore, after seeing this plan, Boss Jia's first reaction was to reject it. He then explained the difficulties in detail to Director He and the reason for his rejection. He expressed that he wanted to change to a more stable development method.
However, Director He asked, "If we change to a more stable research direction now, then a few years later, foreigners will be the first to achieve a technological breakthrough and occupy the entire 3D printer market. What will happen?"
"If we don't research, will the technology emerge on its own in a few decades?"
"Who said that we can't achieve a technological breakthrough in ten years or even five years? What if we succeed?"
Boss Jia was speechless. Since the Daqian Printing Factory wanted to start 3D printing, then let them. After all, the Daqian Printing Factory's profits were nothing to the Daqian Group. Since they had this ambition, Boss Jia couldn't stop them.
Besides, Director He wasn't wrong. Who said that they couldn't achieve results in ten years? After all, the world now was completely different from before.
Boss Jia agreed to the Daqian Printing Factory's 3D printing development plan. Then, the Daqian Printing Factory began to work with great fanfare. Not to mention the profits of the whole 1997 year, there was also a lot of money accumulated before this. They actually invested all of it into this project. In just one year, they had invested 600 million RMB. It could be said that they were the company that was most willing to spend money among all the subsidiaries of the Daqian Group.
As for the results, Director He said that their current main task was to solve the problem of the printing material. They wanted to create a material that was easy to melt, but after solidification, its strength was comparable to that of metal.
This was the most important material. In addition, they also wanted to create hundreds of printing materials with different characteristics. This way, they could satisfy all the material requirements of a product.
Boss Jia was speechless for a while. The material wasn't the main problem. The main problem was the speed of the agreement. However, the Daqian Printing Factory hadn't started research yet. Boss Jia felt that all the money was thrown into the water.
If Boss Jia didn't ask an independent accounting firm to check the finances and found that there were no problems, and all the funds were indeed invested into the research, Boss Jia even wanted to directly stop this project.
However, after Boss Jia made hundreds of billions of USD, it didn't matter. Let the Daqian Printing Factory play by themselves. After all, they were using their own profits. It was fine as long as they didn't ask the company for money.
The one who actually asked the company for money was actually Wang Xuan, also known as Beilibeili.
In fact, if Beilibeili didn't develop a system, their profits would still be high. They had built a good reputation in the software industry and started to customize software for companies all over the world. They had made a total of 80 million USD in profits.
Other than that, Beilibeili had entered the general software market. Beilibeili had started to design a CAD software. They wanted to break the monopoly of the world's industrial software companies.
But Beilibeili had lost all their money. Boss Jia had given Beilibeili almost 500 million USD last year, and they had spent all their money. This year, Beilibeili asked for 1 billion USD of R&D funding. Boss Jia wanted to kick Beilibeili out of his office.
"Boss, we have a new technology idea!" Wang Xuan said excitedly. "We want to develop a Chinese assembly language. Our new PC system will be written in Chinese assembly language. This way, we can bypass all of Microsoft's patent barriers!"
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