Top of the Great Era

Chapter 2951 Mergers and Acquisitions

It’s still not our turn to talk about Facebook, because Ziwei Cloud’s CEO Kurian is here again.

Ok!

It’s also an acquisition!

Kurian wants to spend $5 million to $6 million to acquire a very powerful German startup in the SaaS field, which is mainly engaged in the direction of enterprise collaborative office.

Zhou Buqi was helpless about this. "If I remember correctly, Ziweiyun has acquired 7 companies this year, right?"

Kurian coughed and said seriously, "You remembered it wrong. To be precise, it should be 9."

"How about taking a break?"

Zhou Buqi started joking.

There is no doubt that Kurian is the undisputed leader in the cloud computing industry, leading Ziwei Cloud to achieve unimaginable results.

Last year, he was selected as the "Best Manager" internally by Ziweixing International. His performance this year is equally good. Ziwei Cloud's market share has firmly surpassed Amazon Cloud, and it has launched full-scale attacks in multiple fields.

Seeing his hesitation, Kurian smiled and said, "According to our preliminary estimates, this year, Ziwei Cloud's revenue reached 45 billion US dollars! Compared to last year, it increased by 400%!"

"How did you do it?"

Zhou Buqi knew that Ziweiyun's performance was amazing, but he didn't expect it to be so exaggerated.

This is a really great performance.

  Can Zheng Xiaoli win the Best Manager of the Year award this year?

This is really worrying.

Kurian smiled and said, "Ziwei Cloud's products all have a trial period in the early stages. Some are free for three months, some are free for six months, and some are discounted for one year. The groundwork has been laid, and this year many users' free and discounted periods have passed, so it's time for a good harvest."

Zhou Buqi asked: "How does it compare with Amazon Cloud?"

"Amazon Cloud?" Kurian didn't care. "We surpassed it last year! What else does Amazon Cloud have besides e-commerce? Ziwei Cloud covers all aspects. Our market share is at least five or six points higher than Amazon Cloud. The gap may increase next year!"

Zhou Buqi asked: "Which is more popular, the government cloud or the Amazon cloud?"

The U.S. government is also moving towards cloud computing.

When choosing a cloud platform, they basically turned to Amazon Cloud, and it was difficult for Ziwei Cloud to gain any benefits from this market.

Kurian said unhappily: "Damn politics! They are interfering with fair competition in the market!"

Zhou Buqi was mentally prepared and said with a smile: "Ziwei Cloud's early layout is so good, and I have taken the lead in helping you win the major directions of games, streaming media, social networking, and AI. Even without the government cloud, it can still develop well."

Kurian nodded. He certainly knew the contribution of Boss Zhou.

If it weren't for the solid foundation that Boss Zhou laid for Ziwei Cloud in the early stages through investment, strategic cooperation, corporate mergers and acquisitions, etc., allowing Ziwei Cloud to cover many areas of the Internet industry, he would not have achieved what he has today.

What is even more shocking is that Mr. Zhou’s judgment on the technical route is to choose the technical direction of reducing cloud service latency. From the perspective of the current cloud computing industry structure, it seems to be extremely correct. Lower network latency will provide a better experience than Amazon Cloud.

The technical direction of Amazon Cloud is energy saving and power saving...the cost is reduced, but the product competitiveness is surpassed by Ziwei Cloud.

Kurian said: "The total scale of the global cloud computing industry this year is about 150 billion US dollars, and Ziwei Cloud's total market share exceeds 30%! Next year, I will strive to reach 35%!"

"Don't be careless about this." Zhou Buqi shook his head, "Don't forget, Microsoft will be entering the market soon!"

"Hmm?" Kurian raised his eyebrows. "Do you have inside information?"

Zhou Buqi said: "You haven't heard?"

"I don't know." Kurian was a little puzzled, then he reacted and opened his eyes wide, "Could it really be my old friend?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, that's him! Now we have basically determined that the person who will replace Ballmer as the new CEO of Microsoft will be Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft Cloud."

Kurian is of Indian descent, and so is Nadella.

Indians are united in Silicon Valley.

There are small circles.

The two most famous leaders in the small circle are of course Kurian and Nadella. Although Kurian said that he is his "old friend", in fact, the two have always been fighting overtly and covertly for the status and voice in the Indian community, and their relationship is very bad.

Sure enough, after hearing that Nadella would succeed Ballmer as Microsoft's CEO, Kurian's smile suddenly disappeared and his good mood was gone.

Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft, and he is only the CEO of Ziwei Cloud, a subsidiary of Ziweixing International.

This is inferior to others!

Zhou Buqi said: "After Nadella takes office, Microsoft's next strategic focus will definitely be on cloud computing. Microsoft Cloud's market share is still very low now, because Ballmer doesn't pay much attention to it. But it will be different in the future. Microsoft Cloud will be a very important competitor. In fact, Microsoft Cloud's long-term potential and threat are greater than Amazon Cloud!"

Kurian said: "As long as you support me, Microsoft Cloud will never have a chance!"

"Isn't that enough of my support for you?"

“I’m going to Germany to acquire this startup.”

"Uh……"

Zhou Buqi is a bit powerless. Different people have different business operation styles.

Some people are particularly averse to mergers and acquisitions and prefer to do it themselves; some people like mergers and acquisitions and are strong and overbearing in their style.

Kurian is the latter.

What he is best at is maintaining his business's leading edge in the market through a series of dazzling corporate mergers and acquisitions. As he said, this year he has led Ziwei Cloud to complete 9 acquisitions.

The total scale is not too large, only about US$10 billion.

But these continuous mergers and acquisitions really feel like an industry devourer.

This reputation is not very good.

When large companies continue to acquire small companies and startups, it will stifle creativity in the market.

In fact, after coming to Ziweiyun, Kurian has become more restrained.

When he was in charge of development and enterprise software business at Oracle, it was really excessive. It was common for him to initiate 20 to 30 mergers and acquisitions a year. Oracle's market monopoly was basically achieved through mergers and acquisitions.

The significance of mergers and acquisitions is not just to see that other people’s products are good and then buy them for my own use.

There are too few mergers and acquisitions of this type.

The main purpose of mergers and acquisitions in Silicon Valley is to target talent.

I saw that the other party's products were good, and I thought that the talents in this small company were very good. Since I couldn't poach them, I simply bought the other party's company, so that I could use all these talents.

There is a more cruel motivation for mergers and acquisitions, which is to kill potential threats.

If you find a startup company in the market that can threaten your own products, don't hesitate to acquire them before they grow up. After the merger and acquisition is completed, decisively abandon their products.

Spend money to buy peace.

In fact, this trend was not popular in Silicon Valley in the early years.

This started in the late 90s.

  The first person to start this trend was the famous Bill Gates. (In fact, Bill Gates was the front desk, and the one who really managed Microsoft and led this strategy was Ballmer, who came from a business background, but everyone blamed Gates.)

This kind of atmosphere has led to the emergence of numerous super giants in Silicon Valley today.

You know, before the 90s, Silicon Valley was a place where all kinds of flowers bloomed and it was full of innovation and creativity.

Various small start-up companies can also easily challenge many industry giants.

As soon as Apple was born, it beat IBM half to death.

If the current trend were prevailing, IBM would have acquired Apple long ago.

The big PC companies of the time, such as Compaq Computer, quickly went out of business because they were too compliant with Silicon Valley's "innovation ethics" and too soft-hearted, which led to their own downfall. If Compaq had been like Bill Gates earlier, and had continuously "eliminated" those small companies and startups that were potentially threatening through mergers and acquisitions that hurt others and benefited itself, Microsoft might have been swallowed up by Compaq earlier.

If Yahoo had killed Google early on, it wouldn't have ended up in such a miserable state.

After 2000, the trend of mergers and acquisitions began to surge in Silicon Valley.

The market competition is fierce.

The opportunities for small companies and start-ups to succeed have been greatly reduced, and the innovation of Silicon Valley has been greatly weakened... The resulting market effect is that large technology companies face fewer and fewer challenges, their scale is getting bigger and bigger, and they have become unshakable super giants.

  Kurian is a big fan of the merger and acquisition style!

Ziweixing International's other businesses may only initiate 2-3 mergers and acquisitions in a year. Ziweiyun, led by Kurian, is about to initiate its 10th merger and acquisition case.

Because the amount involved in the case may exceed US$5 million, it must be approved by Boss Zhou.

Zhou Buqi couldn't refuse, as the company's performance and resume were there for everyone to see. "What kind of company is this? Do you have to acquire it?"

Kurian said: "It's a German startup that developed an office collaboration software."

“Like Weishu?”

"Correct."

"That's it..."

Zhou Buqi became cautious now.

  From this point of view, it really should be acquired!

If the product is good, you can continue to use it; if the product is not so good, the worst that can happen is that you just close down.

Europe is developing a digital single market, and Weishu must play an important role and penetrate the European market. We can’t let this German startup company take advantage of it and make a name for itself.

We must act in advance and nip it in the bud!

Kurian said: "Europeans don't like to use the same corporate products as Americans. Europe has a sense of aristocratic superiority and looks down on the cultural desert of the United States. Weishu is very successful in the United States, but it is not very successful in Europe. Buy this German company, modify their products, use Weishu's architecture and engine, and promote them in Europe as a German original."

Zhou Buqi made a decisive decision and said, "The task must be completed before January 1. If it cannot be completed, then wait until the second half of the year to make the acquisition. Don't let it affect the company's IPO!"

"No problem! It won't take until next year, it can be done before the end of the year!"

Kurian is confident.