Back To 1995

   Chapter 319 Blood Capital

  ICQ is in a state of loss. Whether it is Silicon Valley venture capital or Wall Street institutions, it is equally clear, but they are also staring at ICQ.

   Regardless of loss or loss, as a pioneer in the Internet instant messaging industry, ICQ, which has tens of millions of users, is now the most dazzling cub in the Internet industry.

In the current Internet industry, it is something to worry about in the future. Now Silicon Valley and Wall Street are most concerned about traffic and users. Which website has the most traffic and the most users is the darling of the Internet, and Yahoo is like this. .

   And ICQ is also a leader among them, with 20 to 30 million users, and the daily active users are terrifyingly high. The ICQ community has become a new platform for countless young users to show themselves.

  Even if you lose some money now, countless venture capitalists and institutions are watching ICQ, waiting for it to start financing. Even if ICQ loses money, it can be recovered after listing. Yahoo has proven this...

"Currently, ICQ's debt has exceeded US$310 million. It is expected that by the end of the year, ICQ's loss and debt will reach more than US$400 million. In order to cope with the possible competition, ICQ needs to raise more than US$300 million to US$500 million. !" Irene said to Song Yang.

The acquisition of Xue Leshan and Blizzard, and a series of activities, ICQ spent more than hundreds of millions of dollars. Of course, Song Yang and the American Investment Foundation cannot pay for ICQ all in cash, basically from the bank. borrowed.

   With the current hot market situation on the Internet, the bank is not worried about ICQ not repaying the money. Song Yang's current signboard is still quite loud.

Even those banks on Wall Street wish ICQ to borrow more money, but they can't afford it, so they can justifiably reorganize ICQ and send it to the market, I'm afraid they will earn more than several times, so for ICQ's loan, The bank's side is now responsive, and like a snowball, it has directly rolled into a debt of several hundred million dollars.

When Song Yang heard what Irene said, he naturally understood what she meant. Wesley and other executives also looked at Song Yang. Financing ICQ was just a gimmick. As long as the news was released, there must be a venture capital company. , rushing to invest, these debts are actually not much pressure.

In fact, Irene was asking Song Yang when ICQ would be listed. Once the financing starts, in the current form of the Internet industry, it will definitely be listed within a year or two, and venture capital companies cannot wait. In ten or eight years, even if it is Amazon, it has been a loss for more than ten years, but it is also a loss after going public. If it dared not to go public, Bezos would have been bombarded by people in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. .

   Seeing that everyone in the conference room, including Irene, looked at Song Yang eagerly. Song Yang understood that Wall Street and Silicon Valley were probably waiting for news from him.

   "You can start financing for ICQ," Song Yang thought for a while, and finally said in response to the expectations of Irene, Wesley and others, "Let ICQ be listed by the end of next year at the latest!"

Listed in the most frenetic period of the Internet in America, with the size and scale of ICQ, it must be touted wildly, it is impossible to be as tepid as a double-click, and when the Internet bubble burst, not to mention that the stock price has doubled a hundred times. , it is conservative to double it dozens of times, but it is estimated that in the next ten years, this crop of leeks will be cut...

In addition, Song Yang also needs to consider that in the instant messaging industry, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc. will all enter, and the competition will become more and more fierce. It will be too late to change.

   Hearing that Song Yang agreed to let ICQ start financing and proposed a listing plan, all the executives sitting in Irene's office couldn't help showing excitement on their faces, and Irene and Wesley were no exception.

   Those who enter the Internet industry now, for what, not fame and fortune, get rich overnight, and realize the freedom of wealth, otherwise, who would want to enter this industry!

   "ICQ has been updated to version 4.0. Technically, ICQ is definitely ahead of its peers!"

Like other websites, ICQ has been continuously updated since its launch. Versions of various sizes have been updated more than a dozen times. There are not too many new features, but a bunch of bugs have been fixed, at least you don't have to worry about the crash when you use it. The machine is ready, as long as it can be used, it is considered qualified at this time.

Wesley, who is in charge of technology and holds the title of "Father of Instant Messaging" in Silicon Valley, said at this time, "Now there are other Internet companies who are tentatively contacting ICQ and want to obtain ICQ's technical authorization! "

There are many Internet companies that want to enter the instant messaging industry, including previous forum websites, as well as websites such as ClassMates, OpenDiary, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Netscape, etc., are also secretly preparing their own instant messaging software. .

   But still the same sentence, ICQ has too many patents, including emoticons, fonts, screenshots, P2P online transmission, groups, and more than 200 patents in the field of instant messaging and social networking.

To put it bluntly, just like when Nokia fell, Nokia fell, but with thousands of mobile phone patents in its hands, Apple, Samsung and other mobile phone brands still make hundreds of millions of donations to Nokia every year. For the patent licensing fee of the US knife, if you have nothing to do, you can sue Apple and other companies and get a compensation fee.

   The current ICQ can also achieve this step. Even if ICQ loses its dominant position in the social industry in the future, it can still rely on patents to allow other peers to pay ICQ tolls!

  Companies such as Microsoft and Netscape are tentatively trying to obtain patent authorization from ICQ, and it is too difficult to bypass ICQ for redevelopment.

However, this situation cannot continue forever. If you want to rely on patents to keep other competitors out of the door and put it in the current Internet industry, it is still a little unrealistic. It is really urgent. Well, Microsoft is an expert in this game.

   Even, several peers such as ClassMates and OpenDiary have begun to imitate some of the functions of ICQ before they have obtained the patent authorization, which is actually a sign.

   "Try to hold back the instant messaging products of Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL. You can license some patents to other companies until ICQ goes public!"

  Song Yang said to Wesley and others that this is to use patents to cut off the leeks of Microsoft, Yahoo and other companies, and use patents to delay the development of instant messaging products of these companies and let ICQ go public ahead of schedule.

In the Internet industry, the rule of 28 is also prevalent. Once ICQ has an advantage, the rest of MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, etc., it is not impossible to catch up with ICQ, but it is not so easy. White labor.

   (end of this chapter)