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May 7th, 11: 00 a.m.
Dream Entertainment's temporary headquarters was located on the 38th floor of the Jade Building. The negotiation between Intel and Dream Entertainment had entered its final stage.
Based on their attempt to acquire AMD, Shi Lei and Mu Shuang agreed to the cooperation plan proposed by Intel as a cover.
Before signing the agreement, Intel's Senior Vice President, Craig Bereit, had made a bold request to feature Xia Xia. This had caused the smooth negotiation to fall into a stalemate.
"Ms. Mu, Mr. Shi, we, Intel Corporation, hope that the cooperation agreement signed by both parties must be properly secured.
Also, during the press conference, we will disclose the details of the cooperation to the media, and it must be stated that both parties will take 50% of the cooperation.
After all, Intel has many partners all over the world. I hope that Dream Entertainment can understand our difficulties, "Craig said slowly as he carefully observed Shi Lei and Mu Shuang's facial expressions.
Mu Shuang turned to Shi Lei and asked, "Mr. Shi, how do you think we should deal with Intel's request?"
"I can understand Mr. Craig's concerns.
The cooperation agreement should be kept confidential.
As for publicity, as long as Intel has such a request, Dream Entertainment will cooperate, "Shi Lei replied with a smile.
Craig's hanging heart was finally relieved!
Ten minutes later, the legal staff of Dream Entertainment and Intel jointly drafted a bilingual cooperation agreement for the coexistence of Xia Mandarin and English.
The agreement clearly stated that if there was any discrepancy between the English and Xia Xia versions of the agreement, the cooperation agreement would be void.
This was to prevent any translation pitfalls. In English, a single word could mean many different things.
Intel's legal staff and five members of the think tank carefully checked the cooperation agreement, including the cooperation agreement described by Xia Guoyu.
Many members of Intel's negotiation team were proficient in Xia Xia.
After both parties had finalized the cooperation agreement, there was only one last step left to complete the agreement.
This last step was the punishment for violating the agreement!
The reason why business cooperation needed to sign a cooperation agreement was to prevent one party from unilaterally violating the cooperation agreement and obtain compensation through legal means.
Craig Berett and the company's think tank members had long discussed the terms of compensation for violating the agreement.
"Mr. Shi, Ms. Mu, regarding the compensation for breach of the agreement, this is the request of Intel."
Craig took out two copies of A4 paper from his briefcase and pushed them to Mu Shuang and Shi Lei on the conference table.
After Shi Lei received the documents, he looked through them. Intel's compensation terms were quite strict.
However, most of the terms were just compensation.
Dream Entertainment couldn't avoid the last one.
The last clause of the compensation agreement specifically stated that if either party violated the agreement, they would have to compensate the other party with 10 billion USD!
Ten billion USD!
This was definitely a sky-high price!
Neither Dream Entertainment nor Intel would be able to pay such compensation in the short term.
Even if Intel's total assets were as high as hundreds of billions of USD, total assets did not equate to liquid assets. Most of the assets were converted from stocks, production bases, and related technical patents.
Mu Shuang also noticed the last clause of the compensation agreement. She sneered in her heart and placed the A4 paper on the table. "Mr. Craig, I think this agreement is not suitable."
"Oh?
May I ask which one is not suitable? "Craig immediately asked.
Mu Shuang glanced at Shi Lei and said, "Mr. Shi, why don't you say it?"
Shi Lei nodded and said in a clear voice, "Mr. Craig, our Dream Entertainment Company and Intel Company have had a good cooperation experience.
In the last cooperation, we signed a compensation agreement. If either party violates the agreement, they will have to compensate the other party with 100 million USD.
Why is it that the penalty for breach of contract this time is 10 billion USD? "
The 10 billion USD penalty for breach of contract was the result of a joint discussion between the five members of Intel's think tank.
During the first cooperation between Intel and Dream Entertainment, they did not realize that the sales volume of personal gaming servers had reached 7.2 billion USD.
Therefore, the penalty for breach of contract was not considered large.
During the first cooperation, Intel had tasted the sweetness of the profits and knew what kind of income personal gaming servers could bring.
It would not be appropriate to sign another 100 million USD penalty for breach of contract.
Therefore, Intel had raised the penalty to 10 billion USD. Even if Dream Entertainment were to violate the agreement regardless of the cost, Intel would still be able to reap sufficient benefits.
"Mr. Shi, Ms. Mu, according to our company's internal evaluation department, Dream Entertainment's second-generation personal gaming servers will sell at least three million units worldwide.
For the sake of our cooperation, we need a high penalty for breach of contract to restrain both parties, "Craig explained in a serious tone.
Shi Lei sneered. "Mr. Craig, can I interpret this as Intel suspecting that Dream Entertainment is going to break the contract?"
"Of course we don't mean that!"
Craig was the first to correct his attitude. In fact, Intel was really worried that Dream Entertainment would break the contract. They just could not say it out loud.
"Mr. Shi, a high penalty for breach of contract will only strengthen our cooperation."
Mu Shuang's expression was calm as she allowed Shi Lei to negotiate. No one could tell what she was thinking.
"Mr. Craig, our Dream Entertainment Company will only accept the same amount of liquidated damages as last time.
Otherwise, there's no way we can continue discussing our cooperation, "Shi Lei said with a firm attitude.
Craig looked at Shi Lei with a wry smile. In business negotiations, once the negotiation had reached its climax, both parties would not bring up the topic of terminating their cooperation. They would only continue to negotiate on the terms that were problematic.
How could Shi Lei cause the negotiation to break down as soon as he opened his mouth?
Fortunately, after several negotiations, Craig knew that Shi Lei was a rookie negotiator who did not know the rules of negotiation at all.
Craig could only look at Mu Shuang helplessly, hoping that Mu Shuang would make her stand clear.
Mu Shuang coughed softly, and Shi Lei immediately stopped talking.
"Mr. Craig, I agree with what Mr. Shi said just now.
Dream Entertainment and Mirage Technology will not accept a penalty of ten billion USD.
Of course, we understand Intel's difficulties.
Therefore, the penalty for breach of contract can be increased from one hundred million USD to two hundred million USD. This is Dream Entertainment's bottom line. "Mu Shuang's tone was full of sincerity.
However, there was no sincerity in her words at all.
Increasing the penalty from one hundred million USD to two hundred million USD was not sincere compared to a cooperation agreement worth more than ten billion USD.
Craig was worried. Dream Entertainment was not willing to increase the penalty. This meant that Dream Entertainment had the intention to break the agreement or had the inclination to do so.
Once AMD, IBM, Sun, etc., companies with achievements in the chip and server industry offered Dream Entertainment better terms, Dream Entertainment would unilaterally break the agreement.
"Ms. Mu, Intel cannot accept a penalty of two hundred million USD!" Craig gave a tough answer. He had to fight for a reasonable profit for his company.
Otherwise, he would become the company's sinner!
Mu Shuang sighed softly. "It seems that our negotiation will continue to be at a stalemate. Maybe AMD will be a better choice.
They don't even need the penalty, right? "
Mu Shuang had purposely mentioned AMD to provoke Intel.
In the world of chip manufacturing, Intel and AMD were natural enemies.
Although both companies had worked together, and Intel even controlled some of AMD's shares behind the scenes, both companies were mortal enemies!
Craig's face darkened. He knew that Mu Shuang was telling the truth. AMD wanted to rope in Dream Entertainment. Even if the penalty was low, they could accept it.
As long as AMD cooperated with Dream Entertainment, even if it was only for a short period of time, AMD could accept it.
What AMD needed the most was to use Dream Entertainment to gain the recognition of its products from users all over the world!
"Wait!
Madam Mu, the compensation for breach of contract will be lowered to five billion USD! "Craig directly cut the penalty by half, making a big concession.
Unfortunately, Dream Entertainment didn't consider the amount of compensation for breach of contract either.
After a short and intense tug-of-war negotiation, Intel finally set the breach of contract compensation at one billion USD and refused to lower it no matter what.
Intel's thinking was simple. If Dream Entertainment unilaterally broke the agreement, they would have earned at least one billion USD.
Anyway, Dream Entertainment's personal game server did not need a separate product production line. They only needed the company's current product.
Mu Shuang also brought out the final price that Dream Entertainment could accept. "Mr. Craig, Dream Entertainment can accept up to five hundred million USD as compensation."
To make it clear that five hundred million USD was Dream Entertainment's bottom line, Mu Shuang said in a serious tone, "If you can't accept it, the negotiation ends here!"
Shi Lei stood up and looked like he was ready to leave.
However, while Craig from Intel was still hesitating, Shi Lei's phone rang. He took out his phone and looked at the caller ID. The caller ID was from Beijing.
Shi Lei thought that Lingyumo had changed her phone number. He pressed the answer button and put the receiver to his ear.
"Boss, Ms. Lingyumo is missing!"
The voice of Chen Zhiyong, who was sent by Judgment Security to protect Lingyumo in Beijing, came through the phone.
"What?" Shi Lei's face changed. He asked loudly, "What's going on?"
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