Xing Hai Technologies.
In the conference room of the executives.
The executives of Xing Hai Technologies discussed the pricing of the "Work Assistant 1.0" that was about to be launched into the market.
Let's discuss how much money we should set.
"President Chen, our Work Assistant is a 'software tool.' The hardware used is only a supercomputer with a computing speed of 100 billion Flops and a dozen cloud servers that store data. The hardware cost is still relatively low. We don't have to produce hundreds of millions of client hardware like the Little Star learning machine. We don't have to worry about being stuck."
"Yes, it's too troublesome to make hardware products. Not to mention the risk of being stuck, there are taxes in the middle, and there's also the maintenance in the later stages. It's very troublesome. The actual profits are not very high."
"Just look at Microsoft and you will know how profitable software is. Bill Gates has topped the Forbes World's Richest Man list more than 20 times. He has never fallen out of the top three. Software is more profitable than hardware," Hou Xiao Feng said.
He had long suggested to his boss to make use of the company's technical advantages to make more software products. But only now did he come up with a decent software product. He realized that huge profits came from software.
Chen Jin, who was sitting at the head of the table, nodded. It was not that he did not know that software was equivalent to huge profits. But everything had a sequence. There were too many profitable products. He could not take care of all of them.
After listening to the executives' analysis, he realized that Xing Hai Technologies' future profit focus had to be shifted to software.
Even if they did not want to shift, they would be forced to.
The Wa-wah cleaning robot introduced by Xing Hai Technologies could generally be used for 10 years.
The Little Star learning machine could be used for about five years.
The Bang Bang robot had an average service life of more than 10 years.
The product quality was so good. After harvesting this batch of consumers, it would take many years before the next batch could be harvested.
For example, there was a company in the M nation that bought hiking shoes. Their hiking shoes were of very good quality. They would not wear out even after five years. The price was also very affordable. Hence, it attracted a large number of consumers to buy them. However, this conscientious company went bankrupt after five years. The reason was that the customers' shoes had not worn out, but the company went bankrupt due to overstocking.
Although the selling price of Xing Hai Technologies' products was not low, their quality was absolutely conscientious. Hence, after the market was saturated, Xing Hai Technologies would definitely face the predicament of plummeting sales.
Fortunately, Chen Jin had considered that problem. The software tool, "Work Assistant 1.0," was Xing Hai Technologies' new profit growth point.
According to the statistics of CDSN, there were about 5 million + programmers in Z country, which was a market of 5 million users … This market was not considered small.
Programmers generally belonged to the high-income group. Those who had worked for more than three years usually earned more than ten thousand to fifteen thousand. Asking them to take out one-tenth of their monthly salary in exchange for ten times their work efficiency and a significant improvement in the quality of their code was extremely cost-effective.
The marketing manager, Li Yuan Liang, said, "Chief Chen, let's set the usage fee at $1,500 per month for the Work Assistant. If all the programmers bought it, then it would bring the company 7.5 billion in revenue every month. This is comparable to the revenue generated by the Wa-wah robot, but the net profit margin would be more than 50%!"
"1500 a month?"
Song Bo Jun shook his head and said, "Isn't this price a bit too high? Although experienced programmers can afford it, there are quite a number of beginner programmers with only one or two years of programming experience. Their salary is not very high, and they can't afford it at 1,500 a month."
"There's no need for a beginner programmer. Learn the skills for two years first. It won't be too late to buy a Work Assistant after you've mastered the skills."
"No, they won't have the chance to learn technology."
Song Bo Jun said sternly, "They'll be fired! After the launch of the Work Assistant, the efficiency of programming will greatly increase. Many companies will consider cutting costs and lay off some programmers! At least half of them will be laid off, resulting in millions of people losing their jobs. "
Li Yuan Liang's jaw dropped. Millions of programmers losing their jobs, this …
No matter how much Xing Hai Technologies pursued profits, it was impossible for them to remain indifferent in the face of so many jobs being lost.
Before launching the Work Assistant, they had to consider the impact and impact on society. They had to avoid destroying the livelihoods of too many people. Profits were secondary.
Therefore, after some discussion.
They finally came up with a better plan.
They achieved "one guarantee" and "one limitation."
That was to ensure that every programmer could afford it.
They set a limit on the powerful abilities of the Work Assistant.
Song Bo Jun said to Chen Jin, "Chief Chen, in the process of generating code, the Work Assistant needs the computing power of the computer. The more complex the code, the more computing power it will need.
Our supercomputer's computing power is about 100 billion times. If we divide it into 100 million portions, we can sell 100 million portions of computing power.
The price of each portion of computing power is $500 per month. If it's not enough, we can buy more. Each account can only stack up to 100 portions of computing power.
According to the calculations of our technicians, even if you only buy 1 portion of computing power, the Work Assistant can still increase the programmer's work efficiency by 2.5 times.
Buying 10 portions of computing power is basically enough for an average mid-to-advanced programmer. Only a high-level programmer can possibly use more than 100 portions of computing power.
So, if you're a beginner programmer, spending $500 per month to buy 1 portion of computing power would be enough to implement some simple functions. This is within the range of what they can afford.
If you're a mid-to-advanced programmer, you can buy a stack of computing power. You can stack one, two, 10, or even 100 portions. The more you stack, the more powerful the Work Assistant will be!
But the cost is also high. "
For example, buying 100 portions of computing power could help a programmer's work efficiency increase by 10 times. But the monthly usage fee for the Work Assistant was as high as $50,000. Instead of paying this cost, the boss might as well hire five more beginner programmers and use the Work Assistant for all of them. Many people working on a project at the same time would definitely be much faster than one expert.
As the quality of the code generated by the Work Assistant was very high, there was not much difference between recruiting beginner programmers and recruiting mid-to-advanced programmers.
This prevented the embarrassing situation of a large number of beginner programmers possibly losing their jobs. Of course, due to the general increase in work efficiency, it was still unavoidable for some programmers to lose their jobs.
Xing Hai Technologies could only try to control the impact to a small extent.
Chen Jin nodded. "It's decided then! I don't want the bosses of IT companies to think that the Work Assistant is cheaper than programmers. I want them to know that programmers who can use this tool are more valuable! But … "
"If the wave of programmers losing their jobs is still unavoidable, Xing Hai Technologies will build multiple software centers and recruit tens of thousands of programmers to make domestic operating systems, special effects engines, office software, and industrial software. If others don't make these software, Xing Hai Technologies will do it! On one hand, it will fill in the gaps in these fields. On the other hand, it will absorb a batch of unemployed workers. It's killing two birds with one stone. "
"President Chen, you're very thoughtful."
Song Bo Jun nodded. "We have too many gaps in the software field. If there are IT companies in the country who are willing to fill in these gaps, the number of programmers in the Z nation will have to increase by another 2 million. Now that the Work Assistant has been launched, if there are programmers who don't want to lose their jobs and love programming, then it's a pretty good choice for them to fill in the gaps. The shortcomings in the Z nation's software field that no one is willing to fill in will no longer be unfilled."
An appropriate amount of unemployment had turned out to be a good thing.
All the executives nodded in agreement.
The pricing standard for the "Work Assistant" was set just like that.
The launch date of the Work Assistant was set for the 22nd of March. All programmers could download the "Work Assistant" client and pay for computing power.
However!
On the 20th of March.
Google released the latest version of Android 12. From this day onwards, the era of the free Android system ended. From now on, every new device that used the Android system would have to pay a certain fee to Google.
Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, explained, "Collecting a certain fee is to make better products and to bring a better experience to the users!"
The Z nation's companies and netizens generally felt that this was within their expectations.
"Google has been clamoring for fees for two years. Now that the boots have finally landed on the ground, the wolf has finally come."
"No matter how much the licensing fee Google charges for each device, our phones, tablets, smart homes, and all our Android products will have to increase in price."
"Even Android, which claims to be forever free and open source, has fallen. Is Google really short of money, or are they going to start harvesting us because we, the fat sheep, have grown up?"
"Eh, why isn't Xing Hai Technologies in the Z nation's list of authorized enterprises for the Android system? Instead, Xing Hai Technologies is included in the list of prohibited authorization?"
"Google is prohibiting Xing Hai Technologies from using the Android system? Judicial proceedings will be filed for illegal use! "
"In other words, the Little Star learning machine cannot be installed with the Android system and can no longer be sold?"
"Why is Google doing this?"
The Z nation's netizens were very surprised and angry.
…
"Oh, is Google suppressing us?"
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