Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1724 Combined Service

Facts have proved that Zhou Buqi's business idea around the combination of streaming media and cloud computing is completely correct!

Not your average streaming platform, though.

A restricted-rated video website in the United States is very popular. It is said that there are nearly 100 million paying users and more than 3000 million free users.Not only is it very popular in China, but it is also very popular in the UK.

However, this kind of company has no strength, and it is difficult to open branches all over the world.

It’s okay if the number of users is small. British users directly connect to the server in the United States.

However, this website is in English, so it can target English-speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Singapore without any barriers.

When there are too many people, it is not enough.

Mainly the UK.

So they decided to create a new service for British users.If it is the past, there are only two ways.One method is to go to the UK to set up the server in person, the disadvantage is that it costs too much; the other method is to find an agent in the UK, the disadvantage is the lack of control, poor experience, and insufficient immediacy.

Now, cloud computing services are here!

This is the best solution!

In the choice of Amazon Cloud and Ziwei Cloud, they chose Ziwei Cloud.

Zhou Buqi attaches great importance to the cloud business, so he went to the London headquarters of Ziweixing International the next morning, and witnessed the signing ceremony on the spot. The contract was signed for 3 years, with an annual fee of 450 million US dollars.

The person who signed the contract was a bald man in his forties who looked very wretched.

It's fine if it's a formal website, and Zhou Buqi can still go up to say a few words and communicate in a friendly manner.However, although this kind of adult website is not illegal, it is somewhat unpopular and will lose its identity.

Zhou Buqi took a few glances, then went to the office of Harry Holt, president of cloud computing business in Europe, and asked, "Is the annual fee of 450 million US dollars a bit low?"

Harry Holt said: "It's a bit low. It is said that Amazon Cloud's asking price is 900 million U.S. dollars in annual fees. Kurian was very decisive and directly discounted Amazon Cloud's quotation by 3%. I was also shocked at the time. What he means is to sign the order first and attract users first. The data volume of the video is large, and the migration cost is high. When the three-year contract expires this time, we will seek high profits for the next contract.”

The cloud computing industry requires large investment, high technical difficulty, and high profit margins.

The net profit margin can exceed 50%!

The expenditures of the cloud computing industry mainly fall into three categories: the amortized cost of data center investment, employee salaries, and electricity bills.

The vacant servers are also left unused, the investment cost must be shared equally, and the salary must be paid, that is, the electricity bill can be spent less.The top priority is to get as many users as possible.The more customers, the lower the marginal cost.

Hearing what Harry said, Zhou Buqi suddenly understood.

It turns out that this is the big strategy of "streaming media + cloud computing" formulated by myself!
Serve a video streaming platform and win customers over at any cost!We must actively fight a price war with Amazon Cloud, and use lower prices and better technologies to attract users.

After being attracted...

hum!

From then on, people will be fish and meat, and I will be Daozu.

For example, this restricted-level video website P station has just developed, and the content is not too much. Which cloud computing platform to choose is actually the same.

This kind of website does not need too good service, because the content is so good, the tolerance of users is extremely high, even if there are some failures on the website, users can enjoy it happily.

It's not the same after a few years.

At that time, Station P will develop.

Smartphones are also common.

There are small videos taken on mobile phones everywhere.

The content on the website will grow exponentially, with dazzling data and a variety of free and paid videos, making the website's traffic even higher than Hulu and Netflix.

When the contract with a total value of 1350 million US dollars for this period expires, then Ziweiyun can really ask for a price increase.

As long as the price is not too much higher than competitors such as Amazon Cloud, Microsoft Cloud, Google Cloud, etc., it is impossible to cancel the subscription.The high cost of data migration has forced B-end users to cultivate loyalty.

Zhou Buqi said seriously: "Well, we must insist on the combined service of streaming media and cloud computing. Ziweiyun must win as many video streaming media customers as possible."

Harry Holt said with a smile: "There is also music streaming, and the scale of music streaming data is also very large. We are preparing to sign with Spotify."

"I've heard Spotify is the most popular music product in the UK right now."

"Yes, the market share exceeds 50%, and it continues to increase. Among the young people, a Spotify effect has been formed."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "How many users are there in cloud computing in the European region?"

Harry Holt said: "The scale of users is quite large, with 18 companies, and most of them are individual users and small company users. There are only more than 130 real enterprise users with long-term cooperation intentions, and more than half of them are in the UK. .”

"What does the long-term cooperation intention refer to? Sign a contract offline?"

"Correct."

"Sales and products are the soul of B-end business."

"Yes, we're trying to hire more salespeople."

Zhou Buqi then asked, "What about the income?"

Harry Holt replied: "I don't know the global data. The annual revenue of the European region can exceed 2 million U.S. dollars, and the British market can exceed 1 million U.S. dollars."

"Not much!"

Zhou Buqi frowned slightly, not very satisfied.

The annual revenue of the cloud computing business in Europe is about 2 million U.S. dollars, and the global market is about 5 million U.S. dollars.

This is too little!
You know, in order to promote the development of Ziwei Cloud's business, Ziwei Star International has issued 25 billion US dollars in bonds, all of which have been invested in this field.

Harry Holt saw that the big boss was not happy, so he quickly explained: "In the past few years, the prospect and development trend of cloud computing have been doubted by the industry, so the promotion effect is very poor, and many companies are unwilling to try. It is the first year of cloud computing, and the data is not beautiful enough, but I can guarantee that the cloud computing business will give an amazing growth rate data.”

Zhou Buqi asked, "How much will it grow next year?"

Harry Holt swears, "There will be at least a 100% growth rate."

"100% growth rate?"

Zhou Buqi shook his head.

This year's revenue of $5 million, even if it grows by 100%, is only $10 billion.Ziweiyun's investment budget for next year will still exceed US$20 billion.

Perhaps the amount of investment should be moderately controlled.

The growth rate of the market cannot keep up, and too much short-term investment will cause a lot of waste. Maybe we should choose the long-term solution.

Seeing that the big boss was still a little unhappy, Harry Holt changed his style and played with the frame of reference, "Amazon Cloud has invested more than 40 billion US dollars in Europe in the past five or six years, which is twice as much as ours. In terms of income, there is almost no difference between Ziwei Cloud and Amazon Cloud.”

"Oh?"

As soon as Zhou Buqi's eyes lit up, his expression relaxed.

Harry Holt heaved a sigh of relief, thinking that this bet was right, and said with a smile: "Compared with Amazon Cloud, Ziwei Cloud has many advantages, such as more service items, more big-name partners, less fees, and technology. Strong, stable operation. I heard that Amazon Cloud went down again in France last month, and was protested by more than 20 important customers.”

"Why is that?"

"Amazon Cloud's largest customer is Amazon's own e-commerce platform. Last month, Amazon launched a promotional event in France with a lot of traffic. High concurrency squeezed too many resources of Amazon Cloud, causing other users on Amazon Cloud to Services are limited and there are accidents due to congestion."

"Ha ha!"

Zhou Buqi was very happy.

I feel somewhat proud in my heart!

The core framework of Ziweiyun was developed by a team led by Dr. Wang Jian in China. Although after Kurian came to power, he formed a team with stronger technical strength to upgrade and transform Ziweiyun technically. The direction and underlying architecture haven't changed much.

One of the most powerful technical advantages of Ziwei Cloud developed by the team led by Dr. Wang Jian is the ability to handle high concurrency.

This is because when Xiaonei.com is doing intramural group buying, millions of college students across the country will stand guard in front of their computers and rush to buy.This is not a big deal. Last year, Ziwei Cloud provided technical support for Taobao’s “Singles’ Day”, with tens of millions of concurrent users.

Ziweiyun took care of everything calmly.

However, in developed countries such as Europe and the United States, the population size is not so large, and there are not so many centralized network activities, so such high-concurrency technology is not needed at all.But once there is a need, the Amazon cloud will collapse.

Zhou Buqi said that if Ziweiyun can keep an eye on Amazon Cloud, if they stare at Amazon Cloud to death, Ziweiyun will definitely achieve brilliant results in the next few years!

It's a pity that Harry Holt's level is relatively low, and he doesn't know much about higher-level things.

After Zhou Buqi decided to go to the United States, he had some exchanges with Kurian on the cloud computing industry. The development trend of Ziwei Cloud seems to be better than that of Amazon Cloud, which is very satisfying!
From this point of view, the appointment of Kurian is really incomparably correct.

It was noon soon, and Zhou Buqi refused the work meal.

The English meal is really terrible.

It's better to go back to the ward of the hospital. Aunt Xue cooked delicious Chinese food in the kitchen, and went back to have lunch with my parents.After lunch, Zhou Buqi will go out in the afternoon to the "Little Silicon Valley" in the DC area.

Ziweixing International wants to buy a 10-story office building here, as the London headquarters of Ucgram, radiating the whole of Europe.Two floors will be set aside in the office building to be leased to Spotify.

Spotify is doing very well now, and the best market is the UK market.

It is planned to use the UK as a springboard, to communicate with the US market, and to look at the European market at the same time. The founder of Spotify also came, and I went over every week to talk to him about launching a new round of financing.

At the gate of a theater in Hoxton, DC, Zhou Buqi's car stopped.

Zhou Buqi lowered the car window and saw Jiang Shuying wearing a white chiffon shirt and black pleated skirt outside the window, standing on the side of the road looking up.

She wore a beige British-style lady's hat on her head, which not only showed an elegant temperament, but also had a sense of fashion.

"Little Ginger!"

"Ah! Mr. Zhou!"

Jiang Shuying cheered, her eyes moistened with joy.

(End of this chapter)