Inside Tencent's office building, it was a busy scene. The employees that occasionally walked through the hallway didn't have a good expression on their faces either. Their performance continued to decline as they sensed the threat of layoffs.
Yes, QQ wasn't having a good time recently.
Ever since Future 1.0's chat function was released last year, QQ's active users had been on the decline. The QQ Project Manager's hair was almost white, but he still couldn't think of a good way to recover.
What? User stickiness? That's right, when your friends and family all used QQ, it wasn't easy to switch to another chat tool. But when your friends, family, and friends all installed Future 1.0 on their phones, and it just so happened that Future 1.0 came with a chat function, was QQ really irreplaceable?
Especially when Future Technology used a very "evil" move – Friend Synchronization Technology!
Wechat and QQ could synchronize the phone's contact list, and Future 1.0 tyrannically synchronized the friend list of both Wechat and QQ. Any user that downloaded Future 1.0, QQ, and Wechat at the same time could synchronize their friends in Future 1.0's list with one click and intelligently group them according to the user's habits.
This move made the QQ Project Manager furious, but he couldn't do anything about it. Future Technology didn't violate any laws. The copying of user consent didn't affect the normal operation of QQ in any way, and it didn't violate laws restricting vicious competition.
At least in the mobile communication software market, more than half of it was taken by Future Technology. Fortunately, QQ was supported by the PC version, but Wechat, which had always been performing well, wasn't doing so well.
The foundation that supported Tencent's empire was QQ. Every product under its banner was built on this foundation.
And now, Future 1.0 began to extend its reach to the building itself.
"Boss, Future Technology made a new move." An assistant wearing square glasses walked into the office and gently placed a document on Ma Huateng's desk.
Old Ma sat in front of the desk with a gloomy expression, his eyes never left the laptop screen.
It was an article reprinted by a news website.
closed beta begins. Future Technology invites 2000 players from all over the world to board a luxury cruise. >
In the past few days, Future Technology had been promoting virtual reality. Ma Huateng was very doubtful that Future Technology's overwhelming marketing campaign would be able to recoup the cost in the end.
He had some understanding of virtual reality technology. Although China had some achievements in the virtual reality field, compared to Microsoft and Google, there was still a huge gap.
Even foreign virtual reality MMORPG is still in its infancy. Why are you rushing to join in? What's the point? When the other party ate the meat, he could take the leftover rice and stir-fry it. Wouldn't it still be delicious? Why do we have to research and innovate? In this 1.3 billion market, copyrights were worthless.
What an idiot. Tsk tsk, he didn't know how to do business.
Ma Huateng shook his head.
Having said that, Future Technology's actions still caused a lot of trouble for Tencent. If the virtual reality MMORPG that had entered internal testing was as incredible as they claimed, it would be an unprecedented breakthrough for any "traditional MMORPG" on the PC and mobile platform.
What was troubling was that 's testing location was Pannu Islands. They didn't accept media interviews, and there were no photos leaked. Tencent had too little information.
Was it a traditional somatosensory VR device or the legendary immersive VR device? Even on the internet, there was a lot of controversy. A lot of people who claimed to be internal testers (ghostwriters) posted that it was actually a somatosensory device. But there were also people who claimed to be internal testers who claimed that Future Technology had developed the legendary immersive device.
Since there were no pictures, everything on the Godly Land was hard to fathom.
"Boss?" The assistant tried to ask.
"Are there any famous virtual reality companies in the country?" Ma Huateng sighed.
"Wanghai Lexiang Technology. Last year, they released a deepoon virtual reality device. It uses Samsung AMOLED-1080P- full HD screen with up to 75 Hz refresh rate and 120 degrees wide viewing angle. It performed well at CES last year."
"Send someone to discuss the acquisition." Ma Huateng waved his hand.
"Yes." The assistant nodded and quickly walked out the door.
It shouldn't be difficult to acquire. The domestic virtual reality industry had always been lukewarm, and the lack of popularity meant there was not much capital chasing after it. If someone was willing to pay for their creativity, they would be more than happy to turn their technology into cash.
Ma Huateng stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in his office.
Overlooking the streets of Shenzhen and his own reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window, his eyes narrowed.
[Excellent. Since Future Technology announced it is entering the era of virtual reality, then I will play with you!]
…
The Icarus Paradox referred to the companies with a monopoly position being afraid of change and unwilling to update their management, technology, and business model. This would make it difficult for them to adapt to the rapidly changing environment and lose their advantage in the new competition.
Then what was the Icarus Effect? That is, the companies that already have a monopoly position in the current market will spare no effort to use their own resources to prevent this kind of change. Just like the energy giants withdrawing investment from alternative energy development or hostile takeover of alternative energy car companies.
But Future Technology's equity structure was stable like a rock, and its operating condition was extremely good. This made many tech giants feel like they didn't know where to start.
At the same time, at the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle.
The CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, was sitting in front of his desk. He stared at the coffee on the table in silence as he listened to his assistant's report.
"… HoloLens sales in July increased by 27%."
When he heard this, he came back to his senses.
HoloLens was a holographic glasses designed by Microsoft based on the Windows 10 framework. Since its release in 2016, the market had been well received, but it was rare to see such a significant change in sales.
"… As of closing, Nasdaq's virtual reality board is all on the rise. Due to the virtual reality business launched last year, our company's stock also increased by 3%."
The 3% increase on that day is considered a significant increase for a giant company like Microsoft.
Nadella closed his eyes.
"Establish a subsidiary to operate the HoloLens project and immediately release a development announcement for HoloLens 2."
The assistant's eyes widened as he looked at Nadella in disbelief.
"But HoloLens just launched … Could it be —"
Nadella looked at the assistant and didn't say anything.
He knew what he wanted to say. Build a shell, release an announcement, and go public. This was the rhythm of looking for a buyer.
But the future of virtual reality was bright, why would they do this?
"The board won't agree," the assistant cautiously reminded.
"Don't think too much. I'm just preparing for both scenarios." Nadella stood up. "I'll explain to the board. I also need to ask for Gates' opinion."
After that, Nadra left the office, leaving the assistant with a look of shock.
The assistant stood there for a long time with the documents in his hands.
He didn't understand why with Microsoft's strength, they needed to prepare for both scenarios.
…
361 Group's office building.
"Godly Land? Virtual reality MMORPG? Interesting. "
Zhou Hongwei was amazed as he browsed the webpage on the laptop screen.
"Boss, you don't seem to be in a rush?" Standing beside the desk, his right-hand man, Zhang Jianfeng, forced a smile.
"What's the rush?" Zhou Hongwei glanced at him and leaned back in his chair. "Can this be rushed? It's been half a year and Future is almost at Version 2.0. The project team responsible for cracking haven't produced any results yet. What a bunch of useless people. "
Zhou Hongwei was furious when he thought of this.
Although 361 Group and Future Technology cooperated on projects, Zhou Hongwei never stopped cracking Future 1.0.
But just a while ago, he completely gave up on cracking Future 1.0 and disbanded the project team responsible for cracking Future 1.0. He knew that it wasn't only his company that made this decision. Future 1.0's security measures were as hard as a tortoise's shell, making it impossible for him to crack it.
He remembered at the beginning of the year, he found an old friend working at the patent office and asked him to help copy some of Future Technology's patent documents. But his old friend helplessly expressed that the patent office had tried to persuade Future Technology to quickly submit detailed technical documents and the benefits of applying for patents, but Future Technology's CEO's response was still as cold as ever.
– No need.
What a 'no need'.
How much did he look down on the programmers who worked hard to face the wall of Future 1.0?
But now, Future Technology threw out a smoke bomb of virtual reality. Zhou Hongwei couldn't help but curse in his mind, [Can't you f * cking throw out new technology slower? We haven't even cracked the previous one and you're throwing out something new. Taking such a big step, aren't you afraid of hurting your balls?]
"Boss?" Zhang Jianfeng saw the boss's face change from green to white as he tried to ask.
Zhou Hongwei took a deep breath and recovered from his daze.
"I want to hear your opinion."
Zhang Jianfeng nodded. He clearly came prepared. Seeing that the boss asked for his opinion, he immediately stated his opinion.
"There are two paths in front of us. One is to acquire an existing virtual reality technology company and see if we can use Future Technology's virtual reality craze to get a slice of the pie. The second is to let go of this opportunity since there is still a lot of room for development in the mobile and PC market. If all the capital goes after the virtual reality industry, it will be a great opportunity for us to increase our market share in the mobile and PC market. "
Zhou Hongwei closed his eyes and thought for a long time.
After a while, he let out a sigh.
"I'm leaning towards the second option."
Zhang Jianfeng let out a sigh of relief.
"I think so too."
Disregarding whether Future Technology's crazy promotion for the virtual reality MMORPG would be detrimental or not, if 361 also took such a big step, it would be detrimental without a doubt.
It was better to play it safe.
Even if virtual reality was magical, it was impossible to replace the mobile phone. Compared to the three giants of BAT, 361's strength was still far behind. Even if Zhou Hongwei wanted to compete with them, the chance of winning was not high. Capital was one aspect, technology was another. 361 didn't have an advantage in either area.
What they should do right now was not to follow the trend, but to do the opposite while the capital was rushing into the virtual reality industry and expand their mobile market share. Didn't 361 Search already challenge Baidu Search's market share? If they put more effort into this and let the big thugs compete with Future Technology, it would be better for them to play it safe.
Since because of the Lingyu Technology incident, 361 and Future Technology had a close partnership.
Zhou Hongwei sighed.
To be honest, he was unwilling to make this choice, but there was nothing he could do.
But what he didn't know was that just a few months later, he would be thankful for his choice.
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