Convergence in Motion
Yoo Jae-won wanted nothing more than to start building smartphones right away. Yet the immature technology held him back. Capacitive touchscreens were still under development, but an even greater obstacle loomed. “By the way, how far along is the single-chip project?”
He asked the question in a deliberately casual tone, though it was hardly necessary. The single-chip initiative aimed to integrate multiple functions onto one chip. So far, the team had succeeded in embedding a VGA card and RAM controller into the mobile application processor. Yoo Jae-won had conceived the idea of cramming chips with fundamentally different characteristics into a single package, but the actual execution fell to the development team led by Lisa Su.
Their work had been outstanding. Thanks to it, the DAP now rested in Yoo Jae-won’s hands. Without the all-in-one chip, the device could still have been built, but it would have been twice as large. Even now, it felt anything but slim. Disassembling the current DAP revealed three separate boards. The largest, occupying the most space, was the storage board packed with eight 32-megabyte flash memory chips. Next came the board handling sound output. The final board contained the mobile application processor, RAM, and other core functions including the touchscreen interface. The remaining space was completely filled by the battery.
In the twenty-first century, a smartphone’s entire functionality fit onto a board the size of a finger. At present, however, three boards were required just to make one DAP, driving up the unit cost accordingly.
“Is there another function we need to add?” Lisa Su answered his question with one of her own. Yoo Jae-won hesitated for a moment, wondering whether it was too soon to reveal the next step.
“Yes. A wireless communication modem.”
After quickly running the numbers, he stated the next item outright. Lisa Su’s eyes widened. “A modem? You mean those things that made that screeching noise?”
She was, after all, a computer enthusiast. When she heard “modem,” she pictured the old dial-up devices used for PC communications rather than Qualcomm’s offerings. Technically, those had been modems too, but the precise definition was a device that enabled digital data communication through analog radio signals.
“I mean a mobile communication modem—GSM or CDMA.”
With Yoo Jae-won’s clarification, Lisa Su understood at once. She was a woman of considerable insight, and the implications of integrating a modem into the mobile application processor struck her immediately.
“Wait… really? If we pull this off, it would be revolutionary.”
Her genuine admiration made further explanation unnecessary. A single meaningful glance between them sufficed.
The visit to ID Technology had been highly satisfying.
“How is Chairman Levin holding up?”
“On the surface, he seems to have regained his usual composure. He’s even agreed to cooperate on the new project. Privately, though, I suspect he’s still in a wait-and-see posture.”
Back at home, Yoo Jae-won headed straight for his most comfortable study. The moment he sat down, he placed a call to Vice Chairman Remington in New York. There was a slight time difference between San Francisco and New York, but nothing like the gap with Korea, so the connection went smoothly.
As expected, he did not use a landline or ordinary wireless phone. The call was made through the voice-chat function of ID Talk, available only between Tiffany phones. All data was encrypted in real time, rendering any intercepted packets useless—an ironclad security measure. The only drawbacks were minor lag and slight audio degradation, neither of which rendered the system unusable.
He took these precautions because he had sensed increasingly overt pressure directed at the ID Group. Several industrial-espionage attempts by competitors had already been uncovered, and countless wiretapping efforts had been detected. Although CDMA technology was touted as interception-proof, Yoo Jae-won knew that claim was nonsense. Consequently, conversations with distant close associates defaulted to the computer version of ID Talk; when that was unavailable, they used this secure line.
In any case, the person most shocked by the launch of Time Warner Nextcom was none other than Gerald Levin, the former chairman of the old Time Warner. He still retained the title of chairman, but the newly created position of general chairman above him had effectively demoted him to second-in-command. Naturally, Remington had assumed the role of general chairman of Time Warner Nextcom. He had not relinquished his vice-chairman title at the ID Group either. Thus, on the ID Group’s organizational chart, Yoo Jae-won stood at the apex, with Remington and Choi Kang-wook directly beneath him, overseeing all affiliates. And now Time Warner Nextcom had appeared as a new entity.
“How are the artists responding?”
“Most are reluctant to embrace digital distribution. The majority seem to be complying only because their contracts require it. A few were drawn in by the 7:3 revenue split, but they remain a tiny minority.”
Napster, the world’s first music-sharing program, had not yet appeared. Even so, musicians’ perception of digital music was abysmal. Yoo Jae-won had aggressively blocked warez sites, and the FBI was diligently investigating operators who profited from copyright infringement, bringing them before the courts. Yet new illegal-sharing sites sprang up faster than they could be shut down or prosecuted. The resulting copyright violations translated directly into declining album sales. Consequently, far more people in the music industry resisted the idea of ripping CDs to create digital files. Sony Music had even gone so far as to develop copy-protection technology for music CDs, and other labels were following suit.
Yoo Jae-won could sympathize with their mindset, but only up to a point. There was no doubt that digital music would eventually eclipse physical albums. Rather than being swept aside by that tide, his master plan was to seize the position first.
“It’s only like this at the beginning. In a few years, everything will change. Once the renewed contracts are signed, send the artist list straight to Korea.”
“Of course. The files are transmitted the moment the contracts are signed.”
The reason he wanted the list sent to Korea was that the conversion of existing CDs and reel tapes into digital files was being handled there. ID Group’s Korean subsidiary did not perform the work itself; instead, it outsourced the task to IT companies along Teheran-ro. Even minor contracts like these were a lifeline for those firms. With the KOSDAQ market in ruins, any guaranteed revenue—even for simple tasks—was invaluable.
“Reach out to other record companies as well. New releases may be difficult, but for albums that have been out for several years, digital distribution is far more profitable.”
“I’ll make that case strongly.”
A record label’s revenue depended overwhelmingly on new releases. Older music sold only to a handful of dedicated fans, and even that limited demand was fragmented across stores with varying stock levels, making actual sales difficult. Converting to digital files dramatically improved accessibility. Moreover, various events and discounts could generate new purchasing power. Next Music’s advantages did not end there. In the digital realm, music had become a genuine culture for teenagers and twenty-somethings. By leveraging this fact in Korea as well, Next Music was finally expecting its first profits this year—thanks in large part to the idol and fandom phenomenon.
Korea had already produced a considerable number of first-generation idol groups, and they had cultivated fiercely devoted fans—groups the old media dismissed as “fast-soon” fanatics. The greatest challenge for any idol fandom was getting their group onto the music charts. In Korea, weekly music-show rankings mattered most. By incorporating the Next Music chart into the ranking methodology, the company could now target the crucial teen and twenty-something demographic.
“Also, once Next Music is finished, we’re planning to launch a VOD business using the film library. Please have Warner Brothers and the broadcasters prepare digital remastering technology and digital conversion workflows.”
“VOD?”
“Video On Demand. A service that lets users watch any video they request, whenever they want. No need to visit a video rental store—just sit at home and watch the movie, TV show, or drama you feel like seeing.”
The ADSL technology that Nextcomcast had commercialized first had originally been developed for VOD. Infrastructure limitations had prevented its realization at the time, but with today’s mature IT capabilities, it was finally feasible. In particular, the set-top boxes belonging to former Nextcomcast subscribers had been fully replaced with digital models specifically designed so that new services could be delivered through simple firmware upgrades.
Yoo Jae-won intended to use these set-top boxes to offer a service allowing subscribers to order and watch any film or broadcast program from Time Warner’s library on demand. Internet bandwidth had already reached the point where high-definition video could be streamed in real time, and server technology had advanced accordingly. He planned to deploy cache servers across North America and Korea in the near future; once that infrastructure was complete, millions of simultaneous viewers would no longer cause buffering.
Yoo Jae-won and Remington continued discussing Time Warner Nextcom’s future strategy for another thirty minutes before ending the call.
“I feel a bit sorry for Remington.”
These days, Remington’s tone had grown noticeably less deferential, yet he remained someone who followed Yoo Jae-won without reservation, so their conversations flowed smoothly. Only at the very end had they touched on personal matters; the bulk of the call had been strictly business. Besides, the person Remington had to deal with was no ordinary opponent.
In the twenty-first century, digital music services and VOD were commonplace, highly profitable cash cows. Once established, their market position was extremely difficult to dislodge. Yet even for such a secure business, countless vested interests had to be navigated before it could be launched. Fortunately, Yoo Jae-won had acquired the massive media company Time Warner far earlier than expected, giving him the foundation to begin. While the timing was still earlier than originally planned, the technological acceleration he himself had triggered meant that internet infrastructure in North America and Korea was already comparable to the early 2000s. Now was the time to press forward without looking back.
April had arrived. Some poet had called April the cruelest month, but in Korea the description was not poetic—it was literal. President Jeon Myeong-heon’s administration had taken office brimming with hope, yet that hope remained only a seed. With the full onset of the IMF regime, Korea still felt locked in the depths of winter. Corporate restructuring had accelerated. At the beginning of the year, conglomerates had merely offered voluntary retirement packages; by April, they had begun genuine restructuring, sending a bitter wind through the economy.
The Jeon Myeong-heon administration was doing everything in its power to ensure that corporate restructuring did not end with simple mass layoffs and cost-cutting, but instead became an opportunity to fundamentally reshape the economy’s constitution. However, its war with the media meant these efforts received little attention. After the passage of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, favorable articles about the administration had become scarce in the daily newspapers. From now on, journalists would find it difficult to even get a proper meal when they went out. Receiving cash, goods, meals, or drinks worth more than ten thousand won—whether tangible or intangible—would result in fines. The fines started not at a few tens of thousands of won, but at several hundred thousand. If the solicited amount exceeded ten million won, the minimum penalty was imprisonment.
That was not all. Along with the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, measures against false or fake news had also passed, and these provisions proved surprisingly powerful. The clause requiring newspapers to publish a correction of equal length and in the same location as any false report had only been discovered after the fact, further fueling controversy. Because the anti-corruption law had dominated attention, the media had been blindsided by the correction requirement. Previously, even when a story was wrong, papers could simply tuck a tiny correction into some obscure corner and move on. They could publish glaring errors and face no real consequences. Now the law prevented that. Corrections had to appear at the same size and in the same position, forcing newspapers to confront their own mistakes publicly.
Although a four-month grace period meant the rules were not yet in effect, newspaper companies reacted as though they were about to be shut down. Bureaucrats who had long maintained close connections with journalists and used them whenever convenient also belatedly voiced their concerns. Yet public support for the administration remained solid. Memories of being deceived by the newspapers’ manipulations were still fresh, and public anger had not cooled. If anything, the media’s refusal to accept reform while demanding sacrifices only from the public struck citizens as the height of selfish arrogance.
Still, an even more formidable bill awaited: the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, or Gongsucheo. This law targeted not only journalists but the entire Korean establishment, and even voices within the ruling party had begun to question it. President Jeon Myeong-heon had postponed visits to neighboring countries, declaring there would be no compromise and vowing to push the legislation through. A major confrontation was now expected during the regular April session of the National Assembly.
While Korea moved at such a frantic pace, Yoo Jae-won was enjoying a rare stretch of leisure. Android 98 had been successfully released, and development of new products and services was proceeding smoothly. Still, he did not remain at home all the time. After finishing his preparations for an outing, he left the house accompanied only by his most trusted bodyguard, Greg.
“Where to, sir?”
“San Francisco International Airport.”
Going to the airport did not mean he was flying somewhere far away. He was going to meet someone arriving by plane—his childhood friend and one of the few computer prodigies he had long had his eye on, Yeong-sik.