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Zhou Buqi was not ambiguous at all and acted immediately. Through the Chinese circle in Silicon Valley, he easily contacted Yuan Zheng, Cisco's vice president of products.

I asked Shen Xiangyang to go and meet him!

After learning Boss Zhou's plan, Shen Xiangyang frowned slightly, "I'm afraid it won't be easy to do this."

Zhou Buqi was quite confident and said with a smile: "I still have some face."

Shen Xiangyang shook his head, "No, I'm talking about technology."

"Um?"

"The technical difficulty of this kind of multi-person online video product is not low. Silicon Valley giants cannot compete with WebEx. In addition to the product level, there is also a technical gap."

Zhou Buqi didn't quite understand, "It's just an online video call, what's the difficulty?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "One-to-one point-to-point video calls are of course very easy, but every time you add a point, you need to expand the capacity exponentially. There are 3 points, and each point needs to be contacted. These are 3 connection groups. Four points are 6 connection groups, 5 points are 10 connection groups. 6 points are 15 connection groups.”

This is not a profound theory. I have learned mathematics in high school. Zhou Buqi was an honors student in high school and he could quickly understand, "Oh, it's a permutation formula. 100 points is A (100, 2)."

Sitting in the car, Shen Xiangyang couldn't help laughing, "Yes, the general logic is this. The more people in the online meeting, the connection groups that need to be established will grow explosively. But in actual processing, it is better algorithms to reduce the size and replace regular connections with instantaneous connections.”

"What about Weishu? Didn't Weishu come true?"

"That's publicity."

"What?"

Zhou Buqi had a black line on his forehead.

Shen Xiangyang said: "Weishu said that it can accommodate up to 100 people for online meetings at the same time, but this is the highest standard. If the number is too large, it will be unstable. It is more of a one-way listening function rather than two-way communication. .Now Weishu can realize two-way video conference communication of 30 people."

Zhou Buqi asked: "What about WebEx? How much can they achieve?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "A true video conference with 100 people online at the same time can achieve instant two-way communication."

Online meetings can be one-way or two-way.

One-way, one person speaks and everyone else listens.

This is very simple. For a conference call with 100 people, one person lectures and 99 people listen. You only need to establish 99 sets of relationship connections.

But if it is two-way, everyone is listening and speaking, and it is a meeting discussion, then there will be more connection groups that need to be established. It is A (100, 2) in the arrangement number, 4950 pairs of relationship groups, and the number is Too much. If you connect them all in the normal stupid way, the workload will be too much.

This requires new algorithm logic, which is based on the basic protocol of Internet connection-three-way handshake.

Shen Xiangyang explained this, "Through the Internet, any two points in the world can be connected. But this connection cannot be standing and requires an immediate connection request. One party sends a signal, and the other party receives the signal and approves it. Only after mutual confirmation can a connection be established. The video conferencing protocol for multi-person groups basically follows this logic."

Zhou Buqi suddenly realized it and slapped his thigh, "Yes! The Internet is connected to billions of people. With so many people connected point-to-point, it's just a video conference for hundreds of people. It's easy to do!"

Shen Xiangyang further explained: "It is not difficult to connect. It is more difficult to connect at the same time with fast speed, stable signal and stable transmission. A competitive product is not about being able to provide services, but about providing the best service. WebEx Our success ultimately relies on Cisco.”

"No?" Zhou Buqi was a little surprised. "Cisco only acquired WebEx in 2007, but before the acquisition, WebEx's market share had already reached 65%."

Shen Xiangyang shook his head, "Before the transaction was completed, Cisco was already standing behind WebEx. Back then, WebEx was known as the world's most innovative technology company with development potential, and was targeted by many companies. Cisco only spent 32 It was bought for US$100 million. The main reason is because Cisco has always been the backer behind WebEx in providing this kind of multi-point collaborative connection technology.”

Zhou Buqi frowned, not quite understanding, "Can we only rely on Cisco? Can't other companies? Can't we develop it ourselves?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "Let me talk about the development history of Cisco. In the 1980s, there was no Internet in the world. But computers have appeared, and many scientific research institutions and universities have very small local area networks. At that time, Stanford University There are hundreds of such LANs. But this feeling is not good. They are all students in the same university, but they can only connect in their own small LANs. Can all Stanford LANs be connected and become National Cheng Kung University's LAN? At that time, a couple of professors from the Stanford Computer Department quietly researched and finally developed a new connection protocol, and relied on this protocol to assemble a device that changed the world - a router. Since then, Stanford's All small LANs were connected, and the world's first campus network was born. The company founded by this router was Cisco."

Although Zhou Buqi always modestly says that he is a technical novice, he has worked with a group of world-class scientists for so many years, constantly asking for advice and learning, and his understanding of technology has long surpassed that of ordinary technical engineers.

He immediately understood the extended logic in Shen Xiangyang's words.

Technologies are all connected!

The role of a router is to connect many personal computers to each other and transmit information to each other. From a technical perspective, it is exactly the same as multi-person video conferencing.

The router was invented by Cisco, and Cisco has led the industry to develop step by step, constantly introducing more and better multipoint connection protocols, so that the world can truly be connected through the Internet.

To this day, Cisco is still the leading technology giant on the Internet, and has been leading the development of the times in the fields of routers and switches. In this field, their technology is certainly the best.

The success of WebEx depends not only on excellent product design, but also on the support of the best technology. Cisco has the best technology.

No wonder a number of Silicon Valley giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Oracle have launched similar products but cannot compete with WebEx. There is a technical gap here.

Zhou Buqi asked worriedly: "So you think, even if we recruit Yuan Zheng, it will be difficult to compete with WebEx? Because of Cisco's underlying technology?"

Shen Xiangyang shook his head, "That's not necessarily true. There are many ways to implement technology. Google and Microsoft products have chosen different technical routes. Therefore, we must be prepared. First, recruit Yuan Zheng After that, it will take a long time to develop new technologies. Weishu’s current multi-person video conferencing technology is far from meeting the standards. Secondly, even if we develop new technologies that can meet the standards, they will be at the level of Microsoft and Google at most. It can’t be compared to Cisco. In this field, Cisco is the rule maker and a participant, and no one in the world can compare with them.”

Zhou Buqi has decided to do this, so he will not give in and hums: "The level of technology cannot determine the quality of the product, and even the quality of the product cannot determine the user's choice. Users only choose what they want to choose. , mainly depends on the product's operation strategy. Cisco's technology is good, but hasn't the router market been beaten to death by Huawei? Don't be afraid of them!"

Shen Xiangyang smiled, "Yes."

He is an executive, and his duty is to make one thing clear so that the big boss can make a choice without information gaps. As for how to choose, there is not much science and logic to it. It mainly depends on luck. To put it nicely, it is the “inspiration” of entrepreneurs.

Boss Zhou has made a choice, and Shen Xiangyang will definitely support it. He nodded and said: "Know yourself and the enemy, and you will win every battle. WebEx was led by Yuan Zheng, and he can best understand the shortcomings of WebEx in product operations."

"That's right!"

"It's relatively easy to dig him out."

"oh?"

Zhou Buqi's eyes lit up.

Shen Xiangyang said with a smile: "I met him twice, and he complained a lot about his work at Cisco. He was originally responsible for all the collaborative office software under Cisco, but many of his ambitions were unable to be realized and he was hampered. too much."

Zhou Buqi said: "Good thing!"

"There may be a non-compete agreement."

"Don't be afraid!"

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, very proudly.

Now that you've decided to do it, you can't care about the cost of recruiting people.

A non-compete agreement is not a prohibition. Fair competition in the market requires that no company prohibits employees from joining another company. Even if a contract is signed, it is invalid.

However, it can be transformed into a transactional relationship. It was Cisco's promise of benefits to Yuan Zheng, requiring him to sign a professionalism agreement, promising that once he left Cisco, he would not be able to work in related industries for a few years.

It is equivalent to spending a sum of money to buy his time in the next few years.

This is a transactional relationship, not a mandatory relationship. Since it is a transaction, you can choose to trade or not. It's easy to deal with. If you give up the benefits provided by Cisco, you don't need to fulfill subsequent commitments. The part of the benefits given up will naturally be paid by Ziweixing International.

There is always a price to pay for poaching people.

It can also be seen from Shen Xiangyang's words that Yuan Zheng himself also intends to leave Cisco, so the "liquidated damages" will be even lower, and maybe he can also recruit people for free.

In his previous life, Yuan Zheng gave up everything at the end of this year, resigned and left Cisco, called a few friends, and founded a new multi-person conference video company in 2011 called Zoom.

It took a few years to crush its old employer, WebEx, and become the dominant player in the industry. After listing, the stock price soared, and the market value once reached 150 billion US dollars.

Zhou Buqi had never heard of Yuan Zheng and Zoom before, but it didn't matter. He believed that the strategic direction he had formulated was correct. Whether he could succeed in the future would depend on good luck.

Yuan Zheng is a Chinese, he and Ziweixing International should be a family!

It seems like good luck!