Top of the Great Era

Chapter 2249 The sales of mobile phones determine the trend of the times
Seattle is on the West Coast, a city on the same coastline as San Francisco and Los Angeles. The two most representative companies in the IT field are of course Microsoft and Amazon.

Because the labor cost in Silicon Valley is too high, and California is getting more and more left, and the tax rate is getting higher and higher, many technology companies have moved out of Silicon Valley... There are mainly two directions.

If you go east, you go directly to New York; if you stay on the west coast, you choose Seattle.

For example, Google and Facebook have already moved to Seattle, and it is easy to hire workers. Just go to Microsoft and Amazon to poach the wall.

Zhou Buqi has long planned for Seattle.

Because the headquarters of PopCap Game Studio is in Seattle, he has been here many times.

Even Kurian reported to Zhou Buqi some time ago, saying that Ziweiyun will start a strategy in Seattle next, and go to Seattle to open a Ziweiyun branch.

The purpose is very clear, to compete with the main competitors Amazon Cloud and Microsoft Cloud for talents!

Weakening your competitors means strengthening your own strength.

Zhou Buqi just came to Seattle and went straight to Microsoft headquarters. He had a friendly meeting with Ballmer.This buddy's days at Microsoft are numbered, and while he is still in office, we should sign some big contracts with him as much as possible.

However, Ziweixing's overall valuation of UC Group is relatively high, exceeding US$50 billion.

This makes Microsoft a little tight.

Zhou Buqi wanted to promote the completion of the transaction as soon as possible, and gave some preferential plans openly, "Aster Group has two mobile phone brands, Aster and Motorola. In the next three years, all smartphones under Astar Group will Mobile phones will be pre-installed with UC browser."

Microsoft has been slow to move on mobile.

Despite Ballmer's hard work, it was really too difficult for a behemoth like Microsoft to turn the boat in the direction of the mobile Internet, and the action was too slow.

The best way is to exchange space for time, which is solved through mergers and acquisitions.

Ballmer was not very satisfied, "The sales of Asda mobile phones don't seem to be too high?"

"Why not enough?" Zhou Buqi was a little amused, "Aster is a high-end model. Samsung's mobile phone sales are very high, because Samsung implements a sea of ​​machines strategy and sells a large number of low-end mobile phones, which makes Samsung The sales volume of Samsung is better than that of iPhone and Aster. But if we only look at the field of high-end phones, there is still a big gap between Samsung and iPhone and Aster.”

Ballmer said: "There is no difference between a high-end machine or a low-end machine for software products. For UC Browser, the most important thing is the user scale."

Zhou Buqi said easily: "It's simple. Asda has completed the acquisition of Motorola. Starting from June this year, the first batch of new Motorola smartphones will be available."

Ballmer glanced at him, "Sales will be higher than Samsung?"

If it was based on Zhou Buqi's humble style in the past, he would not talk nonsense about such irrelevant things, but facing Americans, sometimes it is really impossible not to brag, "Of course! How can Samsung's brand Compared with Motorola? In terms of price, Motorola’s price is at least 20% lower than Samsung’s for models with the same configuration. In the field of low-end and mid-end phones, Motorola will sweep the market even if it gives up all its profits. It is also necessary to revive the mobile phone brand.”

Ballmer was a little touched, "Not making money?"

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "There is a company in our country called Xiaomi, do you know?"

Ballmer shook his head.

Zhou Buqi said: "If you are interested, you can study Xiaomi's model. I think this is the development direction of smart phones in the future, at least mid-range and low-end phones should be chosen this way. Just like Yahoo back then relying on the free model Just like the birth of the world, smartphones will become more and more popular and become the most important tool in the information age. The platform attributes of smartphones will exceed the attributes of commodities, and it should rely on the platform of smartphones to make money instead of relying on Smartphones are a commodity to make money. According to my understanding, this year’s new version of the iPhone may be cold in the market, and Samsung’s low-end phone business is not on the right path of development. This means that this year’s love Star's Aster high-end models will erode the iPhone market in large numbers, and Motorola's mid-to-low-end models will swallow Samsung's market in large numbers."

Having said this, Zhou Buqi blushed a little.

If Lao Ma and Lao Zhang were around, it would be immediately obvious that he was talking nonsense and fooling people.

True or not.

Such a speaking style is not his style.

If things go wrong, there must be demons.

But it doesn't matter, Ballmer is a foreigner, and his previous contact with Zhou Buqi was very limited, coupled with the cultural gap... I think Boss Zhou's words are charming, confident, and full of personal charm.

Ballmer hesitated, then said with a smile: "Do you want to consider working with Microsoft's operating system?"

Zhou Buqi said: "No problem, Motorola can cooperate with Microsoft to launch a smartphone equipped with Microsoft's mobile phone system. If the market performs well, we can deepen the cooperation in the future."

"Ah."

Ballmer sighed secretly.

The browser business is really a headache.

Microsoft's IE browser is all about bundling, and it must rely on the bundling of Microsoft's mobile phone system to be oriented to users.However, now Microsoft's mobile phone system is obviously in the cold.

The market has formed a pattern in which Apple's iOS and Google's Android share the world equally.

This means that the IE browser has lost its source of living water.

no solution anymore.

It can only target UC browser.

Zhou Buqi said: "This year will be the year of the outbreak of smartphones, and mobile phones are the platform for mobile apps. If anyone misses this year's opportunity, he will really miss the big trend of mobile Internet. Not to mention anything else, UC browsing The estimated user growth on smartphones this year can reach 1.5 million."

Ballmer raised his eyebrows, "There are really so many?"

Zhou Buqi smiled, "It's just too much!"

Ballmer pondered for a long time, and then slowly said: "To be honest, there are some disputes in the board of directors about the acquisition of UC Browser. The acquisition of Skype last year was not very successful. Everyone is a little worried about such a heavyweight acquisition."

Zhou Buqi frowned, "What do you mean? UC Group is already in the process of splitting up, and I also helped to sell Yammer to Microsoft."

Ballmer quickly said: "I am very optimistic about UC Browser. This product can become an important supplement to Microsoft's mobile layout. But in terms of price... I think I can wait."

Zhou Buqi was not very satisfied, "When will I wait?"

Ballmer said: "In July or August, when a new round of smartphones goes on sale and the market gets feedback, we can discuss this topic further."

Smartphone sales can reflect many issues.

The low sales of mobile phones shows that the era of mobile is still early, so there is no need to worry too much, and you can take your time.

If the sales are crazy and there are a lot of sales, it will arouse the vigilance of all parties, and the mobile era will come vigorously and at an accelerated pace...

For Microsoft, this is very urgent.

They can't afford to waste time, so they must hurry up and carry out strategic challenges at all costs, so as not to fall behind the times... In this way, even if UC Group offers a high price, Microsoft's board of directors can approve it.

Zhou Buqi knew that there was some water in the other party's words, but this reason was more convincing.

Not only Microsoft, but also Baidu.

Generally speaking, summer and autumn are the peak seasons for mobile phone sales. If the sales of smartphones are very hot at this stage, with hundreds of millions of units sold...the data will be very convincing.

Not only Microsoft will get nervous, but Baidu will also be restless.

For Zhou Buqi, it is best to settle the case of UC Group this year.Next year, Ziwei Star will go public as a whole. Next year, there will definitely be no such big moves in capital transactions. We must put all our energy into the listing.

……

After leaving Microsoft, Zhou Buqi went to Baokai Game Studio.

Under Zhou Buqi's planning, Baokai's transformation has been very successful, and it has become the best mobile game studio in the world. It has launched seven or eight phenomenal mobile games.

Games like "Jeweled Array", "Swallowing Fish", and "Weird Aquarium" have long been outdated in casual games on the PC side, and no one plays them anymore.

But mobile games are different.

Changing a platform brings new vitality.

After Zhou Buqi came over, he didn't expect to see Yan Xinlei, a college classmate, and he was a little surprised, "Why are you here? Don't you go to school in Southern California?"

Yan Xinlei laughed loudly, "Come and study."

Zhou Buqi said: "You don't study at school, come here to cheat for food and drink?"

"Who cheated on eating and drinking?" Yan Xinlei was speechless, "This semester is over, I am here for a work-study program, if I go back to China, I will have to spend a lot of money."

"Oh, it's a holiday..." Zhou Buqi was a little curious, "Are you an intern here?"

Yan Xinlei said: "Barely count."

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "You're quite capable. You have a big network of connections. You've all come from Los Angeles to Seattle... You're here to pick up girls, right?"

Women in Seattle are notoriously beautiful, so when he left home in the morning, Aunt Xue warned him to be careful when he went out.Now it can be used on others.

Yan Xinlei said: "What's the matter? I'm currently participating in the production of a game. I want to promote a mobile game version. I'm the main planner."

Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "What game?"

Yan Xinlei smiled and said, "Ningbo Mahjong."

"Uh..." Zhou Buqi twitched the corners of his mouth and said angrily, "Hurry up and take part in some serious games, you'll be fooling around every day!"

Yan Xinlei said: "Okay, the mobile game version of "Vocabulary Master" is currently being developed. I want to participate, but they don't want it."

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "I'll arrange it!"

(End of this chapter)