The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 139 Days in New York
To be honest, Anxi felt a little regretful, leaving Nokia's executives behind to come to the newly established Matrix.

In his opinion, many of Zhou Xin's demands were beyond his comprehension.

He couldn't understand just adding a linear motor to the mobile phone, because the physical keyboard itself has a pressing feel.

With the addition of a linear motor, the feel of the buttons will be better, and the double feedback brought by the touch will be more refreshing.

But you must know that the space in the mobile phone is very small, it is difficult to put so many things in it.

The linear motor can be simply understood as a vibration function. As early as 1984, Motorola installed an ERM vibration motor in the personal pager they launched at that time.

Later, the common button vibration feedback in smartphones was brought by a horizontal linear motor, which is currently a new technology.

No mobile phone manufacturer has tried it yet.

Zhou Xin said: "Because we have physical 26-letter keys, our mobile phones will be larger than ordinary mobile phones, so we can also squeeze in more functions.

Unlike other phones, we just didn't add much. "

Zhou's newly designed phone resembles a product from BlackBerry's heyday, the BlackBerry 9900.
There are 26 letter keys in total, and it also has four function keys and a touch screen about the size of the keys.

This button-sized touch screen can be slid to control the up, down, left, and right of the selection button.

For Matrix, from hardware design to operating system design, this is a systematic project.

The hardware is only the foundation, and the operating system and the services on it are the soul of this phone.

Knowing what will happen in the next two years, Zhou Xin predicts that the phone will be launched by the end of next year at the latest. After its launch, it will be able to capture the "decisive moment" through the camera function in September 2001.

He couldn't guarantee that officials in Washington would use Matrix. Zhou Xin had to find another way if he wanted to take the same explosive approach as BlackBerry.

"What do you think of this feel?" Zhou Xin said after picking up the engineering machine and pressing the physical button.

Although Anxi thinks this is an unnecessary function, he has to admit that adding a linear motor to the physical buttons will definitely make a qualitative leap in the typing experience.

Originally, there was a feeling of stuttering in the physical buttons, but after adding the horizontal linear motor, the stuttering feeling became a refreshing feeling brought by pinching bubble wrap.

Zhou Xin continued: "You also think this feels great, right?
Including our internal engineers, after making the engineering machine according to my vision, everyone likes the pressing feel very much.

I know your worries. From the earliest days, you felt that mobile phones should not be so big, and 9 keys are enough. Why do we have to find another way to make 26 keys. "

Anxi, as a veteran of the mobile phone industry, has his own views on this issue: "Yes, boss, I think it is better to use 9 keys for mobile phones than 26 keys, because past experience tells me.

9-key or 12-key mobile phones are better than 26-key mobile phones in terms of sales volume and user feedback.

It’s not that Nokia has never launched a 26-key mobile phone. Since the earliest Nokia 9000, there have been voices in our company who think that 26-key mobile phones will be the mainstream, and 9-key mobile phones are simply heresy.

But the facts after the product launch tell us that 9 keys is the mainstream, and 26 keys is heresy.

Moreover, there are discrepancies between the opinions of internal engineers and the needs of actual users.

Our engineers are only a small part of the consumer group. When we were at Nokia, we thought the products were good from engineers to testing and then to products. As a result, there was neither word-of-mouth nor sales after they were introduced to the consumer market. have happened. "

Zhou Xin also has his own explanation for this: "Why did the 26 keys not succeed before, because users do not have the need for high-frequency typing.

I can proudly say that before Matrix, mobile phones were communication tools, and people used mobile phones just to make calls.

They don't need to send too many messages, it's just to reply a text message to others when it's not convenient to call, so the need for typing is very little.

But for our Matrix, the built-in application will determine that users have a lot of typing needs.

Typing needs determine that the 26-key design will be more popular. "

Zhou Xin paused and said, "Anxi, we need to reach some level of consensus.

That is, the mobile phone is not just a mobile phone, it will sooner or later become an entertainment terminal model. When you were at Nokia, you promoted Quora to become the default application of Nokia mobile phones. You should have a deep understanding of this point.

When a user can read Quora through a mobile phone, even if he finds it inconvenient to use his mobile phone to answer Quora questions, will he still need to use his mobile phone to comment on the answers?
In this way, is there more demand for typing on mobile phones than before?

And when there are more and more similar applications, is the demand for typing more and more vigorous? The 26 keys are based on this logic.

I know that the 9-key mobile phone can be made thinner and more convenient to carry, but the 9-key loss is the functionality of the mobile phone as an entertainment terminal.

We can sacrifice lightness and portability to a certain extent for functionality. "

After Matrix was established and the company's employees were in place one after another, Zhou Xin spent most of his time commuting between Berkeley and Matrix.

Because it is only Matrix that he needs to pay more attention to. The products that Zhou Xin needs are too advanced now.

If a consensus cannot be reached, it is absolutely impossible to achieve the effect Zhou Xin wants.

NewPay has Peter Thiel staring at it, and the business model and company operations of Riot Games are already very mature, so he doesn't need to pay too much attention to the situation of these two companies.

On the eve of the launch of Matrix's first keyboard at the end of October, Zhou Xin went to New York again.

"Newman, congratulations. You are the fastest person I have ever seen to become a billionaire. After this handover, you should be the man with the most cash assets in the world."

Time Warner's final payment for Quora's acquisition has finally arrived after a lengthy process.

After Time Warner acquired Quora, its market value has been rising all the way. Therefore, both investors in the US stock market and the major shareholders behind Time Warner are willing to complete the handover of the final payment as soon as possible.

In this time and space, Time Warner has no risk of being acquired by AOL. Instead, Time Warner is now discussing whether to acquire AOL.

They belonged to have tasted the sweetness brought by the acquisition of Quora.

Before acquiring Quora, Time Warner was the remnant of the old era, and the new era did not carry their boat.

Who would have thought that a plane would be sent directly to them, and they would tell their former traditional media colleagues that I would not go to the new era by boat, I would go directly by plane.

In an era without Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and ins, Quora is simply a blow to the current Internet products.

Based on the good foundation built by Zhou Xin, Quora has attracted the most users and a group of users with the highest quality, so that other competitors cannot be compared with Quora at all.

Quora has formed a snowball effect. The more high-quality content, the more paying users, the more formal users it attracts, and more high-quality content will be born.

Zhou Xin smiled: "I regret seeing Time Warner's market value soaring all the way. I feel that I should accept the proposal of swapping shares."

This is just polite talk on the surface.Compared with Time Warner's stock, money can bring more value to Zhou Xin.

NewPay has always wanted to open up the European market. Time Warner is more anxious than NewPay. Only when the European market opens up electronic payment permissions can European users pay for Quora content.

Now they have a large number of European users, but the revenue generated by these European users is completely incomparable with American.

After investigation, it was found that it was caused by the inability to pay through NewPay in Europe.

Therefore, Quora's income in Europe comes entirely from the income generated by official European users answering questions, and the answers are listed on Quora's gold selection, and they spend this part of their income on Quora.

Jerrell said: "If you want, we can facilitate a private placement of Time Warner shares to you, anyway, you are now holding tens of billions of dollars."

Zhou Xin said: "Forget it, I have spent too much money recently, you should know that I will hold a product launch event in New York this time.

The first product of my Matrix will be released soon, and we will have a series of products in the future. "

Jarrell nodded: "I heard that this is the first time you have held a product launch event in New York, including the official website of Matrix.

Judging from the pictures on the official website, I have the urge to buy such a cool keyboard.

It's good to be young, you will have various ideas and try them out. At my age, I just want to stay at Goldman Sachs until I retire, and I have no idea of ​​going out for a living. "

"Goldman Sachs is such a good company. When I first came to Berkeley, if you told me that I could work for Goldman Sachs in the future, I would be very happy.

Jarrell, I will send you an invitation later, if you have time, you can come to my product launch event. " Zhou Xin said.

Jarrell said, "Okay, no problem, I'll definitely be there."

Jarrell thought to himself that he had never heard of a manufacturer holding a launch event for a keyboard.

In his impression, the products that usually hold a press conference must be like computers, game consoles, or operating systems.

He had never heard of keyboards. There was no special brand of keyboards.

Jerrell went on to say: "Newman, when will NewPay conduct A round of financing, we would like to participate in NewPay's A round of financing."

Zhou Xin said: "The main thing is that I don't lack money now, even if it's financing, I've got the money alone.

However, it is also a good thing to have Goldman Sachs to take risks for me. I will go back and study with the NewPay executive team. If I want to conduct the next round of financing, I must call you. "

From Jarrell's words, Zhou Xin sensed that there must be some good news about electronic payment in the near future.

Because according to his understanding, Goldman Sachs has obviously started to tighten in the Internet field recently, and they have not invested in new Internet projects for more than half a year.

Including judging from the third quarter report, Goldman Sachs has successively reduced its holdings from many Internet companies, and even withdrawn from the list of the top ten shareholders.

That is to say, Goldman Sachs knows the existence of the Internet bubble and realizes that the bubble is about to burst, but still wants to participate in NewPay's next round of financing.

Zhou Xin thought about it carefully, and there is a high probability that Europe will open up restrictions on the electronic payment field, and Goldman Sachs, as the world's top investment bank, got the news in advance.

"CAAS was officially established today, and I am very glad to see so many guests here today."

The establishment of CAAS was chosen on October 10, and the establishment ceremony was held in New York. Both Huaguo and American sent people to attend.

At the meeting, Hu Zhengming was the first to speak as the chairman.

Zhou Xin sat side by side with Li Yanhong in the audience, and he asked in a low voice: "Robin, how is Baidu developing recently?"

Li Yanhong also joined as the first batch of members after hearing the news of the establishment of CAAS.From his complexion, Zhou Xin could clearly tell that the other party had been enjoying himself recently.

Of course, in front of Zhou Xin, Li Yanhong is still very humble: "The recent development is good, our current hit rate in the field of search engines is comparable to that of Google.

Yahoo is not a search engine at all. They are the first generation of search engines, and their technology is quite backward.

At present, the only search engines that are smart enough are us and Google. From a purely technical point of view, we are more mature than Google.

Plus we serve Quora, which makes us even more famous than Google. "

Speaking of Quora, Li Yanhong sighed: "Since Time Warner took over Quora, recently Jimmy and Larry have gradually been marginalized.

I heard that Time Warner is considering replacing Quora's built-in engine with Google, and Google is actively promoting this. "

If Zhou Xin is still there, he will never make Google bigger, even if he is one of Google's shareholders.

However, after Quora changed hands, why should others allow Baidu to continue to be Quora's built-in search engine?
Zhou Xin comforted: "This is something beyond my control.

The main thing is that I don't have any shares in Quora now. If I step forward, it may have the opposite effect.

Wait, in fact, don't worry too much, Baidu already has users, and its reputation has already started.

Subsequent users rely on accumulation.

How did you develop the advertising distribution system I told you before?
After the development is completed, the next round of financing will be led by me. You can find a few companies to follow up with the investment. This way of sharing risks is also helping you find some resources. "

Why do you need financing after the development of the advertising distribution system, because the advertising distribution system means that you need a marketing team and a customer service team.

You need to find manufacturers who place advertisements, and you need customer service to connect web pages and manufacturers.

More importantly, the search engine will continue to lose money until it finds a stable profit model.

Servers, bandwidth, these all cost money.

Li Yanhong said: "The internal test is no problem, and I expect another round of large-scale testing will be fine."

Zhou Xin chatted with Li Yanhong briefly, and waited for Hu Zhengming to finish speaking. He was the second to speak on stage.

As a founder member and executive director, and also has his own halo, it is normal for Zhou Xin to go up and say a few words.

Zhou Xin still attaches great importance to his status as the executive director of CAAS, because this is another kind of Tongzhan value, and it is always right to stack a few more layers of buffs.

"CAAS was officially established today, and the audience is full of big bosses. When I knew that I was going to speak a few words, I was very scared in my heart, thinking that I didn't have the qualifications."

　Today, due to work reasons, there is only one update, 4k words.

　　In addition, let me talk about the matrix brand in the previous chapter, which cost 5000 million. I wrote this figure because Motorola had already made two series of mobile phones around this brand in 1999, so I estimated this price. After everyone’s reaction, I changed it. It became 2000 million.

　　In addition, the follow-up will speed up the progress. Although there are only 4k words today, the progress is at least 8k!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)