Reinventing the Millennium

Before the Samsung Electronics team arrived in Silicon Valley, Yike held an internal discussion meeting to cooperate with the other party.

Fang Zhuo has listened extensively to everyone's opinions and generally believes that cross-licensing of patents from both parties is a good thing, allowing each other to have a relatively harmonious development time.

After all, Yike Company has just entered the mobile phone industry and currently only has one mobile phone.

Samsung intends to transform the system platform and seek greater development in this era.

It would be ideal for both parties to join forces and jointly attack the inherent market shares of Saipan and WM.

To take a step back, even if Yike does not grant patent authorization and Samsung does infringe, patent litigation between both parties will be a time-consuming matter. It is better to focus on development.

After the meeting, Fang Zhuo listened specifically to the project status of the IC design department. The original Hummingbird team and Samsung still maintained smooth cooperation, and there were no special twists and turns due to the acquisition.

He set a meeting with Google and Samsung Electronics on January 18, and after repeatedly communicating with Schmidt, he believed that this would be a very constructive contact.

However, before this meeting, Fang Zhuo first responded to the invitation of Bezos, the head of Amazon, to visit the headquarters of this increasingly growing B2C company again.

Yike Mars currently has three main sales channels. The first is the operator, the second is Amazon's e-commerce channel, and the last is its own official website and a small number of experience stores.

In addition to cooperation in mobile phone sales, the growth of the Amazon app after it was launched on the Android store also attracted Bezos' full attention.

Any company must and must pay attention to the development of the mobile terminal.

Amazon, led by Bezos, thinks so.

However, when Fang Zhuo led his team to visit Amazon and chatted with Bezos about these topics, what caught his attention more was the prosperity displayed by Amazon's cloud computing services.

The last time Fang Zhuo visited Amazon, he heard Bezos mention Amazon Cloud AWS. At that time, Amazon Cloud had already begun to take shape, and Tesco established a small department to explore cloud services precisely because of what he saw on that trip. However, Because there is not much investment, there is no achievement.

This time, AWS already has hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and its development is very fast.

Bezos attaches great importance to cloud services and talked proudly about the progress. He even promoted it and took the opportunity to inquire about Google's trends.

"I heard that Google will launch its cloud computing service in April. Has Mr. Fang's Tesco already reached a cooperation intention with Google?"

Fang Zhuo knew nothing about this aspect of Google's business. He found it funny to hear such questions and rumors of cooperation. He denied it directly: "No, at least, as the president of Yike, I have not heard of such cooperation. Google will have cloud services in April? This is the first time I have heard from you, how about I call Schmidt and ask?"

"Industry rumors, casual chat." Bezos motioned to Mr. Fang not to take out his popular Mars mobile phone. "I just heard that Schmidt will be buried with Mr. Fang until he dies. I thought this kind of cooperation was real."

Rumors always go out of style.

Fang Zhuo corrected him calmly: "It was Schmidt who made the epitaph joke, but he does have a strategic vision. I believe that Google will enter this field."

"Not only Google, I heard that Microsoft is also forming a cloud project team this year." Bezos smiled.

Fang Zhuo nodded slightly and suddenly asked: "You admire the prospects of cloud computing so much, but you are not worried about my competition in this area in China."

"The Chinese market still needs to be developed," Bezos said euphemistically. "Besides, I cannot stop any company from investing in cloud services. I can't stop Google and Microsoft, and of course I can't stop Mr. Fang."

Fang Zhuo admired in his heart, this bald man is still very impressive, but this is not a matter of being stopped or not, it is a matter of attracting attention or not.

He suppressed his thoughts in this regard and finally chatted with Bezos about the Prime service launched by Amazon, which is two-day logistics and shopping discounts in the United States.

Bezos gave a very high self-evaluation: "The Prime service has brought us explosive growth in the number of users, and has once again verified the charm of innovation from the customer's perspective. It is just like the front camera of Mars."

The head of Amazon made a comparison that made Fang Zhuo particularly understandable, and it also made him explore the video for a long time with Su Wei in China based on what he saw and heard during this inspection.

There is no doubt that B2C is Amazon’s biggest label, but it is actively and firmly adding another important digital label.

Su Wei was preparing for Tesco's year-end activities in China. Suddenly, she heard Mr. Fang mention the small departments within the company, and also mentioned Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. She still felt that they were somewhat fragmented.

When she started hearing about poaching people from Microsoft China, she suddenly realized that the man across the ocean was serious.

"The domestic demand for cloud services does not seem to be that high. Our department at Tesco will just study it first. The most important thing at the moment is to do a good job in e-commerce." Su Wei advised.

She basically understands what cloud computing services are, but looking at the country, there is really not much demand for them.

"Internet companies that need to process a lot of data, right now I feel like there are only Penguin, Taobao and Tesco." Su Wei thought briefly and added another company, "Baidu should also need it."

Therefore, Tesco's slow investment and development means that it is not too late to start and gradually increase the amount.

Su Wei is very concerned about the company's budget because she senses that domestic e-commerce competition is intensifying.

Fang Zhuo can understand what Weiwei means. When it comes to cloud computing in China, the other three companies she mentioned just now are the only ones that take this seriously. Penguin's Ma Huateng and Baidu's Li Yanhong have both made disparaging remarks.

What "cloud computing is old wine in new bottles" and what "cloud computing is very advanced".

Even they are like this, let alone others?

However, what is interesting is that Ma Huateng and Li Yanhong both have technical backgrounds, but Ma Chen is a complete layman.

Perhaps, in such a relatively cutting-edge field, laymen are better able to break away from the limitations of a technical perspective and make decisions from a developmental perspective.

"Yigou is needed, and Yike is also needed in the future, including medical science and Sina. There can also be some linkage. Let's do this. The four companies will share the investment in this matter and spin off Tesco's current cloud computing department." Fang Zhuo was The attention aroused by Bezos cannot be easily subsided. "Yigou's budget is tight. You can first let Yike invest more, and then this thing can be done."

Su Wei hesitated for a while and said, "What's the budget? When can it be commercialized?"

"It depends on the situation. I'll ask the person in person before telling you." Fang Zhuo replied.

What's the budget?

When can it be commercialized?

These two questions...

This is exactly the question Wang Jian, deputy director of Microsoft Research Asia, heard.

Amazon's cloud computing is very good, Microsoft is setting up a team, and Google will launch cloud computing services in the first half of the year.

In this way, the trends of global giants were not only perceived by Fang Zhuo, but the head of domestic Alibaba also noticed the situation and soon planned to set up a team to research cloud computing.

Ma Chen fell in love with Wang Jian, a native of Lin'an, and personally went to the capital three times to discuss and recruit people.

On the last trip, he left two issues: budget and commercialization and expressed his stance. He was very optimistic about the prospects of cloud computing and was willing to make huge investments.

Wang Jian was motivated.

Although he is good at Microsoft Asia Research Institute, he is not involved in Microsoft's internal cloud computing project. Alibaba is also a listed company. If the other party is really determined, he will naturally be able to make great achievements.

However, just when Wang Jian was carefully sorting out cloud computing and planning to give Ma Chen a rather formal reply, he received a call from Yi Ke Fangzhuo, who wanted to make an appointment to talk about cloud computing.

It’s not that Wang Jian hasn’t considered the domestic situation, and he even had the idea of ​​forming a team of his own. However, such a project requires huge investment. From a glance, only Alibaba is sincere in this regard.

He didn't expect that as the Chinese New Year was approaching, a new group would arrive.

Especially, this is Mr. Fang.

"Professor Wang, I'm in Silicon Valley, and I can't go back because of the Yike Company matter. I went to Amazon two days ago. I think cloud computing is a very interesting thing. We can talk when I return to China after the year." on the phone. Fang Zhuo paused for a moment, "Or, my private plane just arrived in Beijing at noon, and I can have it take you to Silicon Valley, and we can go shopping on Amazon together and chat in person."

Wang Jian's heart was pounding.

It’s not because of the sincerity of flying back on a private jet, but because you can go shopping at the world’s leading Amazon.

It’s understandable that Mr. Fang is busy. Yike Mars is selling so well, so he must be busy with business.

He agreed to chat in person, but also slightly delayed his reply to Alibaba President Ma.

The stakes are high and comparisons are normal.

Wang Jian took leave from Microsoft Research Asia and planned to see the new situation.

On the evening of January 17, Wang Jian got on Mr. Fang’s private plane.

"This is the legendary Qingzi Hao."

With this thought in mind, the vice president of Microsoft Research Asia flew to Silicon Valley to find out.

However, when he actually arrived in Silicon Valley, Wang Jian did not meet Mr. Fang immediately. Instead, he spent a long time after catching up on jet lag and studied Amazon's information before meeting the schedule of the richest man in mainland China.

January 19, afternoon, Conference Room 1, Yike Silicon Valley Research Center.

Wang Jian was reading the AWS information and evaluation that was sent again, and heard a rush of footsteps.

"Samsung is really stingy."

"Every time I see Samsung, nothing good comes out of it, and that's true of Schmidt. I bet Samsung is definitely more anxious about Android!"

Fang Zhuo complained about the three-way talks with Google and Samsung.

Schmidt still wanted to try his best to promote Samsung to join PRO, but Lee Jae-yong was not interested at all. Instead, he was very interested in the important patents in Yike's hands and wanted to get a long-term package license.

Fang Zhuo took a look and thought, this can't work. Isn't this what he did to Sony Ericsson?

He is not willing to authorize it for a long time and plans to discuss it every two years.

The mobile phone industry is turbulent. The past two years have been the most intense period of change. Samsung still has important chips such as screens, storage, and chips. Yike's patents may be useful for cooperation at some point. It is not cost-effective to license them all. .

Lee Jae-yong, who has not seen him for a long time, is much more mature and experienced and firmly disagrees with the two years.

As the leader of the Android system, Schmidt can only coordinate on both sides, but the effect is not great.

"If it doesn't work, let's talk about it. We'll talk about it after we go back and celebrate the New Year."

Fang Zhuo put the document on the table, complained to Yu Hong about the last sentence, grinned at Professor Wang Jian who was looking at him, took two steps, clasped his hands and said, "I don't know how Professor Wang is resting. I met this annoying guy two days ago, and I’m really obsessed with him.”

Wang Jian heard Mr. Fang's complaint and knew it was business, so he asked curiously: "Does Samsung also use Android?"

"Well, does Professor Wang know about the news that Nokia is going to turn Symbian into a wholly-owned subsidiary?" Fang Zhuo was not sure how much outsiders paid attention to the news about mobile phone companies, and simply explained, "Samsung and Sony Ericsson are not very willing. After playing with Nokia, Android is a good choice to try.”

He smiled and said: "Some things just have to be willing to try, and our Mars has done a good job."

Wang Jian felt that Mr. Fang had something to say and started to mention cloud computing.

He thought for a moment, nodded, and asked simply: "When will we go to Amazon to see it?"

"We can leave at any time until we reach a simple conclusion with Samsung." Fang Zhuo was also very straightforward, and asked for information about potential competitors, "Professor Wang, I don't know if anyone else in China is interested in cloud computing besides us at Yike. of?"

Wang Jian thought that Mr. Fang had heard some rumors. After all, a business figure like him had a wide network of contacts, and he might have had direct communication with Ma Chen.

"Alibaba is very interested in cloud computing. I haven't heard of other companies in China yet."

Fang Zhuo said with a smile: "We at Tesco actually have a small team of 10 people working on this aspect. It was originally set up inspired by Amazon. It doesn't do much. When I met Bezos this time, I was deeply impressed. If it’s not enough, I immediately decide to catch up.”

He doesn’t shy away from being inspired by Amazon.

I also learned about cloud computing in the past two days and found that this concept was proposed earlier by Google. They published an article and talked about HDFS (distributed file system), MapReduce (parallel computing), and Hbase (distributed database), laying the foundation for The development direction of cloud computing.

Amazon was the first to test the waters and developed best.

Wang Jian was a little surprised and confirmed: "Does Tesco already have a cloud computing department?"

Fang Zhuo handed over a report document and said: "Only some simple storage services have been studied."

Wang Jian was even more surprised when he heard that there were still results. He took the document and read it quietly.

When he came back to his senses after reading, there was a cup of coffee in front of him, and Mr. Fang was chatting in a low voice with the famous strong woman Mr. Yu.

"Professor Wang, how are you?" Fang Zhuo asked.

"There is indeed a big gap with Amazon." Wang Jian considered.

Fang Zhuo said with a smile: "It's a bit difficult to compare such results with Amazon, because only a small amount of investment has been made."

Wang Jian has a different opinion: "If we want to do cloud computing, if we don't benchmark against Amazon, then who should we benchmark against? If we don't compare with Amazon, what's the point of doing this?"

Fang Zhuo was slightly startled and gave his answer: "I am considering that this cloud computing can be used by E-commerce, Yike, Sina, and Medical University first. If possible, Bingxin can also be involved in the cloud computing chip business."

Wang Jian was also stunned. He didn't expect that there would be such a cloud computing chip.

When Yu Hong saw this, she smiled and said, "Professor Wang, just listen to this. Fang always holds the ice core in his hand. Whether he can use it or not, it doesn't depend on him, it depends on you."

She continued: "There is nothing good about Mr. Fang, only a little good. He respects the judgment of professionals and professional teams."

Fang Zhuoheiran: "This is called taking the initiative to expand big customers. If we don't have customers, we will create them ourselves."

Different from the information Wang Jian is seeing now, more information he has seen also involves future judgments such as server chips and dedicated data chips.

When cloud computing is in front of us, Fang Zhuo's first reaction is to weigh the resources at hand. This field is led by Amazon, and now Microsoft and Google are about to enter. They are at the forefront of the world, and the corresponding chips must be new. direction.

Perhaps, it can be used as a reference for ice cores to increase added value and profits.

"I have also heard of Mr. Fang's ice core, and I admire it very much." Wang Jian said sincerely.

Mr. Fang has heard many anecdotes, but there is only one thing that no one can fault, the founding and development of Bingxin.

Fang Zhuo smiled and continued to chat with Wang Jian about what he saw and heard in Amazon.

After such a description, he put the topic on track.

"Since Professor Wang is interested in cloud computing, and the country is a wasteland waiting to be explored, this is a good time for the Fengyunji meeting, and Yike is very eager to have the professor join us."

Wang Jian was silent. Although the conversation was good, it was too fast after only a short while.

Ali's horse has been to the capital three times, but he has not agreed to it yet.

Seeing that Professor Wang was silent, Fang Zhuo asked directly: "Professor Wang, I have always been quick to talk to others. I am firmly optimistic about this field. If you have any concerns or conditions, we can talk openly and honestly."

He added: "Or, whatever treatment Ali offers, I can definitely satisfy it here."

"It's not about the salary." Wang Jian said hesitantly, "Mr. Ma came to the capital to find me. He and I also had a good deal, and Ali is also willing to invest."

Fang Zhuo frowned, ignored the first half of the sentence, and asked: "The budget for cloud computing is also an issue we are considering. Since Professor Wang has mentioned it, then just tell us the budget you need for this project."

He doesn't need to know about Alibaba's input.

But Wang Jian needed to say this as a reference or a reason for rejection. He hesitated for two seconds and said, "Mr. Ma told me that he is willing to invest 1 billion every year in cloud computing."

This is the biggest reason why he plans to reply to Ma Min in the near future. The project requires money!

After Wang Jian said this, he saw Mr. Fang's frown tightening, and he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. The investment of 1 billion per year was just an investment. Commercialization and profits were temporarily unpredictable, and it was inevitable that he would be disappointed. People hesitate.

Fang Zhuo turned his head and asked Yu Hong a few questions in a low voice.

Then, he met Professor Wang's gaze and nodded: "Mr. Ma is willing to invest 1 billion a year. This number is indeed relatively large. We need to sell 330,000 units of Yike Mars to make up the budget."

330,000 units?

Wang Jian was confused for a moment. How many units has Yike sold now?

"326,000 units." Yu Hong corrected.

Fang Zhuo nodded: "326,000 units, Yike will need at least 6 days to sell this budget."

He stood up, stretched out his right hand, and said with a smile: "Professor Wang, let's do this. Give me another 7 days, and I will try to ask the company for more budget. How about that?"

Wang Jian couldn't help but stretch out his hand, this... if Yike is given 7 days...

He suddenly had a sense of déjà vu as if he were bargaining on the street. Did he shout too much?

"Come on, Professor Wang, let's have dinner together tonight. I actually have a layman's guess about the integration of cloud computing software and hardware, and I want you to correct me." Fang Zhuo shook hands in time.

After Wang Jian shook hands, he felt a moral and etiquette agreement had been reached. He hesitated for a few seconds and finally agreed with one word: "Okay."

Well, it’s just sitting on the Qingzi account, browsing Amazon, talking about project budgets, eating and chatting about cloud computing.

I will continue to think about it and will not accept Mr. Fang so quickly.