What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 267: The Collapse of Rituals and Music (5k)

The rapid development of WeChat has made many powerful companies eager to get involved, and they are also paying attention to the response of the giant Penguin.

As a giant that started out as a communications company, Penguin internally attaches much more importance to this competition than the outside world sees, as it faces WeChat, which is taking over the 3Q public opinion traffic. Therefore, it specially selected Lu Shan to be directly in charge of the ace R&D team under CTO Zhang Zhidong.

Lu Shan joined Penguin in 2000. He once served as the general manager of the instant messaging product department. Now he is also the senior vice president of the operation platform system, and a member of the "General Office", the core power center.

Logically speaking, the fact that he took the lead showed that he attached great importance to it.

But he himself did not expect that Pony and Zhang Zhidong would have to listen to real-time reports every day.

This level of attention is truly astonishing, especially when you feel Pony's real concerns.

After two days of reporting, Lu Shan had a private conversation with Zhang Zhidong and learned that Pony's concerns also included worries about the company's organization and strategy, and President Martin Lau proposed suggestions for changes.

As long as there is change, there will naturally be advances and setbacks...

Moreover, Zhang Zhidong's secret desire to retire was not so secretive. The disadvantage of Penguin Weibo to Sina Weibo this year may have exacerbated his thoughts.

The company is big, and the leaders can’t push forward whatever they want.

Lu Shan had a good relationship with Zhang Zhidong and knew that Lu Shan had sought communication with several senior executives of Penguin Weibo in order to implement a competitive strategy for Weibo, but he was unable to push his idea forward and was only met with resistance from both sides.

Zhang Zhidong is the co-founder, executive director, and CTO, but even his slamming of the table was useless...

Lu Shan could only sigh in his heart that some of the senior officials in the General Office were indeed very stubborn.

As the company grows bigger, problems arise.

Therefore, this rare external competition and the upcoming organizational structure changes will be an opportunity to move up.

Zhang Zhidong may resign from two positions, one is executive director and the other is CTO.

Although Lu Shan holds a high position and great power within Penguin, there is still room for him to move forward, so he has consciously or unconsciously considered whether he can add more responsibilities. This time, taking the lead in developing mobile IM tools is not only a competition with external companies, but also a strategic adjustment for Penguin from PC to mobile.

If this competition performs well, mobile IM tools will surely become one of the core parts of the entire group.

Based on various considerations for the company, the team and himself, Lu Shan did try his best. After all, although he had the greatest resources, there was also a horse racing mechanism in the company. In addition to his own side, there were two teams in Chengdu and Yangcheng that were simultaneously promoting development, which should not be underestimated.

So, the safest way...

Study WeChat, become WeChat, and surpass WeChat.

This is also a competitive tactic that penguins are very good at.

After all, given WeChat’s current growth momentum, it’s fair to describe it as “very popular”.

On October 10, Lu Shan attended the development meeting again, listened to the team's analysis and learning of WeChat, and sensitively noticed that today's content was indeed very inspiring.

"From PC to mobile products, the physical media that carry them has changed. Many things are different from before. WeChat has done a great job in this regard. Yesterday, when I saw my wife registering for WeChat, I discovered a detail that we had previously overlooked."

“WeChat is registered directly with the mobile phone number!”

Wei Siyuan, the leader of the R&D team, described his discovery with some excitement, and then saw everyone's disapproving looks.

Lu Shan also had no expression. Did he only find out today that WeChat was registered with a mobile phone number?

Wei Siyuan emphasized: "I'm not talking about the mobile phone number, I'm talking about 'directly'! It's direct from the mobile phone number to the software registration! WeChat only requires entering the mobile phone number and then a verification code to become a user! There is no password protection, no nickname, no other options, just getting people on board first, and then doing other things!"

Unlike the computer and mobile phone registration of many products nowadays, WeChat registration has no complicated steps at all.

Everyone in the conference room quickly understood the key point, this is... one-click direct access!

"WeChat is simple from the inside out. This extremely short registration period not only saves them time and costs for promotion, but also makes it very convenient for users to share their content." Wei Siyuan praised, "From this detail, there is a reason why WeChat can be so popular."

Since everyone in the conference room was our own people, we admitted this very frankly. It had been two weeks since our team started the project, and we had indeed not considered a simple and crude first step like WeChat.

It does look inconspicuous, but everyone is accustomed to registering on the computer or even on the mobile phone QQ. When you suddenly see your competitors doing the same thing, you can't help but praise the beauty of "simplicity".

Products are compared.

Another person, who was listening to everyone's discussion, suddenly said, "WeChat's one-click direct access is great. Mobile phone numbers are something that all mobile phone users have, and they and we can use them, but we also have QQ numbers that they don't have. We can also let QQ numbers be directly accessed with one click, which will make it more convenient to direct traffic."

There was a chorus of approval in the conference room.

Lu Shan felt very satisfied after listening to everyone's research. This is to learn the concise spirit of WeChat, not just to transplant the reach of mobile phone numbers.

That night, when he reported the day's discussion to the two bosses, he indeed received their approval.

The next day, Lu Shan was still surprised by the new details from WeChat.

Because of its technical capabilities and team far exceeding those of its competitors, Penguin's development of competing products was expected to take only 3-4 weeks, while a product with simple functions like WeChat had already been turned upside down. It was unexpected that such a discovery could be made when its overall outline had already been formed.

According to Pony’s evaluation yesterday, this is the “taste of mobile”.

Lu Shan took this mission very seriously. He trusted his own side as always, and did not underestimate WeChat, but...

Maybe it's the inertial thinking.

Lu Shan thought about this for a day and learned that his colleagues were going to Shanghai for an event, so he decided to relax his tense mind for the past two weeks and use the short free time to re-examine the products he had developed.

On October 10, Penguin's senior vice president Lu Shan, together with Ni Feipeng, deputy general manager of the public relations department and other colleagues, flew to Shanghai to participate in Penguin's cooperation and exchange activities in East China.

Lu Shan is familiar with Liu Chang, the general manager of the public relations department. He has been paying attention to the developments in WeChat's public opinion recently and is seeking to follow the competition comprehensively. However, the public relations department has been restricted by the 3Q war and the company's competitive reputation in recent years and has not taken any effective actions.

Or, as Ni Feipeng said, "Yu Xing will be hurt. His Bai Xiaosheng has offended many people. Moreover, Renren, which started WeChat's promotion, is already planning to make a mobile IM tool. I heard that 360, which has recently given a lot of traffic, is also planning to do the same."

"Yu Xing is just relying on temporary popularity and showmanship, which will soon be boring and forgotten. Information on the Internet changes too quickly."

Lu Shan did not comment on this disdain.

He only knew that Penguin had almost suffered a disastrous defeat in terms of public relations during this period, especially Liu Chang’s press conference after the "difficult decision", which was the highlight of the disastrous defeat.

In contrast, Yu Xing's Bai Xiaosheng account has at most a few million users, plus his personal Weibo account also has a few million followers, but somehow he has created an aggressive promotion momentum.

To be fair, Lu Shan felt that Yu Xing was worthy of respect for being able to achieve this level of WeChat with the resources he had.

However, no matter how popular WeChat is, it has only developed when Penguin has no competitors, and the time left for it is only until the end of the month, which is only one week left.

After just one week, no matter how great WeChat is, its total number of users will only reach over 1000 million.

Building a technical team, polishing mobile products, entering campuses in a low-key manner, adapting to smartphones, taking on 3Q public opinion, creating a reputation of resistance, lobbying institutions for profits...all these are really impressive.

In addition to analyzing WeChat's products, Penguin also naturally evaluated the development of this startup company.

Lushanguan WeChat is now just like reading articles on your palm.

Know yourself and know your enemy. No matter how many users WeChat adds, its maximum number will be 1500 million.

In other words, if our competitor starts from scratch and is competing against a product with 1500 million users, then, given the resources Penguin has fully mobilized, and taking into account the debugging and running-in of the newly released product, how long will it take to surpass the competitor?
The internal discussion within the team is that it will take at most half a year, and the more optimistic scenario is that the threat posed by WeChat can be eliminated in 2-3 months.

Because any movement of the Penguin will bring about a chain reaction. The company has already had people communicating with IDG, Today Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and Falcon Capital. This is not a threat, but just an indication of the importance of this time.

Some people even think that if WeChat’s capital chain is cut off, it may disappear like a shooting star in a month or so.

Lu Shan was sitting in the car on the way to the event, thinking that WeChat's headquarters was also in Shanghai, and suddenly said with emotion: "Now that I'm in Shanghai, I want to meet Yu Xing."

Ni Feipeng, the deputy general manager of the public relations department, asked curiously, "Is Mr. Lu here with an acquisition mission this time?"

He was a little surprised that Lu Shan suddenly came along. Lu Shan shook his head: "No, WeChat is too expensive. If we can have 10 million users and give a discount, maybe we can talk. But I think Yu Xing is a really good person. If he is willing to come to Penguin, he will have room to display his talents."

Ni Feipeng joked: "Yu Xing specifically asked Mr. Liu to go and talk, but he knew that Mr. Liu was in charge of mergers and acquisitions."

After joining Penguin, Liu Chih-Ping mainly worked on investment, mergers and acquisitions, etc.

Lu Shan did not respond, as he felt that there was something inappropriate behind this kind of teasing.

Ni Feipeng tactfully changed the subject and talked about his recent war of words with Yu Xing.

There is not much time left before the company's products are put on the market, so they naturally need to be preheated. The public relations department took into account that Yu Xing has a very good reputation on the Internet, so Ni Feipeng volunteered to bring him down.

It's not that Yu Xing is without his share of criticisms, be it his frequent actions on Weibo, his occasional news on Bai Xiaosheng, or his recordings of promotional programs, all of which are incompatible with the traditional perception of a company founder.

Therefore, "showmanship", "hype", "grabbing traffic" and so on are all descriptions that can be guided.

Normally, people are used to being gentle, courteous, frugal and modest, and they like and recognize Confucian businessmen.

In other words, Yu Xing is too jumpy, which can gain him recognition from a group of traffic stars, but will also make him disliked by another group of traffic stars.

Ni Feipeng was talking about his work and simply summed up Yu Xing's situation: "He is the kind of person who has lost his sense of propriety and music."

Lu Shan nodded slightly, thinking that the word was quite appropriate.

As the car was about to arrive at the destination, Ni Feipeng asked one last question: "Can we go to WeChat today? Mr. Lu, do you want to meet Yu Xing?"

Lu Shan shook his head: "Forget it, we'll see each other again if we're lucky enough."

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Penguin's East China cooperation and exchange activities began. In addition to strengthening Penguin's regional influence, a major thing this time was to set up a mobile application laboratory and increase investment in mobile Internet.

Although Penguin has been in turmoil recently, there are still many guests on the scene. Watching the fun online is one thing, but in reality there are benefits.

"That's Ni Feipeng, right? Are you sure? Who's next to him?"

At the edge of the conference room, Yu Xing asked Liu Jiankai curiously.

"The one next to him is Lu Shan. Strange, I don't see Lu Shan in the event schedule. He... that..." Liu Jiankai is very familiar with the executives of the giant. "He is the senior vice president in charge of WeChat's competitive product development. He ranks about 11th or 12th in Penguin."

As soon as he spoke, he saw Yu Xing's eyes light up, and he was frightened: "Hey, Mr. Yu, pay attention, what do you want to do?"

Liu Jiankai looked at Song Yufeng and Zhong Zhiling, who were called by Yu Xing to come together this time, and dissuaded and warned them: "Boss Yu, even if you beat up the Penguin people, you can't stop its competition, and it will only make people laugh at you."

Yu Xing smiled and said, "What are you thinking about? I originally wanted to talk to Ni Feipeng in person, but since Lu Shan is here, it's even better. There is no one more suitable than him."

Liu Jiankai frowned and asked, "What on earth are you going to do?!"

"I'm not doing anything. Penguin's product will be released soon. I'm afraid it will be a replica of WeChat. We will have to use version updates to enter the market next." Yu Xing said.

Liu Jiankai wondered, "What are you afraid of? As long as WeChat has useful features, Penguin will definitely replicate them!"

"I'm not afraid of it being replicated, I'm afraid it will be replicated too easily. Every time it is replicated, it has to come with some cost, and it also has to help us spread it." Yu Xing said naturally, "So, let's do some public opinion first."

Liu Jiankai didn't quite understand.

Yu Xing just shook his head and didn't explain anything more.

In fact, it is not that complicated. It is just a matter of seizing a moral high ground first.

When the event presentation started, unexpectedly, Lu Shan did not speak. Instead, Ni Feipeng talked about Penguin's brand and its emphasis on and investment in mobile technology on the stage.

According to the plan, this event will last for quite a while.

Yu Xing didn't have the patience to listen to his opponent's self-praise in its entirety.

When Ni Feipeng finished his story, Zhong Zhiling, who had moved to the front, raised his right hand high, indicating that he had questions to ask.

Ni Feipeng hesitated for a few seconds, and seeing that Zhong Zhiling looked honest, he asked, "Does this friend have any questions?"

"I heard Mr. Ni talk about Penguin's emphasis on mobile, but I am confused. There is a software called WeChat in the mobile communication market now, and it has gained millions of users." Zhong Zhiling said here, and then changed the subject, "I especially want to know what Mr. Lu thinks of Penguin's competition in the mobile communication market?"

Lu Shan didn't expect that the problem would turn to him.

Ni Feipeng also didn't expect this. He looked at Mr. Lu with an inquiring look and handed the microphone to him.

Lu Shan's mind has been full of WeChat in the past two weeks. This time it is a rare opportunity to communicate with the outside world. Originally, he wanted to walk into the campus to see the situation of competitors here. Now he is still interested in answering questions.

"I believe that mobile Internet is the real Internet. Both usage time and traffic volume will increase more than 10 times compared to PC. Therefore, we attach great importance to competition in this area."

"From PC to mobile Internet, this is not just a simple extension, but also requires innovation..."

Lu Shan talked about his thoughts mainly on mobile Internet and secondly on the strength that Penguin has accumulated in the field of communications.

However, just as he was getting into the mood, a loud voice suddenly rang out.

"Boss Lu! I have a question!"

Yu Xing, who moved to the front, spoke very loudly, and he took the microphone that Song Yufeng had brought so that everyone could hear his voice.

At the same time, Zhong Zhiling's mobile phone also started filming.

Lu Shan was confused by the interruption, but Ni Feipeng next to him suddenly recognized who was in front of him.

He pointed at Yu Xing: "Hey, you, you, Yu Xing, what do you want to do?"

Yu Xing loudly stated his purpose for the second time: "Boss Lu, I have a question!"

Ni Feipeng felt something was wrong and was already raising his hand to signal to maintain order at the event.

When Lu Shan heard the identity of this person and saw that Yu Xing was indeed young, he was quite calm. He stopped Ni Feipeng's actions and asked, "Mr. Yu, right? What's your question?"

"It's not a problem, it's a request." Yu Xing said loudly, "Boss Lu, you just said so much about Penguin's strength, and Boss Ni just said a lot about Penguin's reputation, so, on behalf of WeChat, I would like to make a request, please don't imitate our software functions to make products, okay?"

Lu Shan's heart skipped a beat, as he was still studying how to replicate WeChat yesterday.

He opened his mouth, considering how to respond to such a request.

"Mr. Lu, even if the front is the same, if new functions appear in the back of our product, can Penguin not follow suit? Is that okay?" Yu Xing took a step back, his voice still loud.

Lu Shan held the microphone, finding it difficult to respond to such a straightforward question.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Ni Feipeng knew that Mr. Lu could not bring himself to speak against his will in public, so he immediately said, "Yu Xing, please stop making trouble. Mr. Lu will not answer questions today."

As he stepped down to drive Yu Xing away, he signaled General Lu to withdraw first.

Lu Shan was hesitant, but when he heard Yu Xing's questioning, he temporarily stepped down.

Zhong Zhiling and Song Yufeng protected the boss on the left and right, while Yu Xing in the middle chased Lu Shan and asked, "Boss Lu, is this okay? Please, is this okay?"

Lu Shan remained silent and unable to respond. He only heard the righteous requests from behind.

The one who asks for help is not humble at all, while the one who is being asked flees in panic.

Lu Shan walked faster and faster, with only one word echoing in his mind: rituals and music are ruined, rituals and music are ruined, Mr. Yu, why are you like this?

(End of this chapter)