Global Monopoly of Technology

Apple headquarters, executive meeting.

"I have speculated on many scenarios, but after all, I have not speculated that the competitor is actually from the mysterious eastern country on the other side of the ocean." Jobs's voice resounded in the quiet conference room.

"Steve, are you taking it a little too seriously? The iTunes music store now almost monopolizes 90% of the digital music market, MusicSpace is just a follower, Apple has a combination of [iTunes+iPod], and [MusicSpace+???] , sorry, Bluestar Technology is just an Internet company, where is their hardware carrier?" an executive said casually, spreading his hands.

At this time, another executive who attended the meeting said: "When it comes to hardware, I have collected some information. Luo Sheng, the founder of Bluestar Technology, established a technology called Azure Coast Company last month. The company's general business projects are the design, development, sales and after-sales service of electronic products and communication information products... Maybe, they are secretly developing related hardware products to complete the combination."

"Come on, the hardware research and development capabilities of the Chinese people? NO! NO! NO!" The executive just said with a look of disdain: "Although I don't know what tricks that young Chinese boy used to make such a bastard on Wall Street. Flickering around, giving him a lot of money to squander freely, although I am also admitted that he has made some famous tricks in the Internet technology world, it does not mean that he can replicate his success in the Internet industry in terms of hardware."

The executive was full of disdain, but Jobs paid great attention to it. It is true that the gang leader Qiao really did not like it. He did not think that the Chinese people could make a name for themselves in the hardware field, but he paid more attention to Luo Sheng.

Whether it can be done or not is unknown, but one thing Qiao Gang Leader can be sure of, Luo Sheng really wants to do it.

The third executive who attended the meeting spoke, a middle-aged man with glasses, he helped his glasses and said in a hurry: "I think it is appropriate to pay attention to it. The MusicSpace music store in April It was launched on the 21st, and it has just been a week since the launch, everyone, do you know the user growth rate of MusicSpace in the past week?"

"How many?"

"About 920,000!"

"What? Are you sure it's 920,000, not 92,000?"

"I'm sure!"

When a group of senior executives at the meeting heard the affirmative answer, the audience couldn't help but be shocked. The increase in the scale of nearly one million users in a week is terrible.

After a while, the executive who exposed the data added: "I think that Bluestar Technology must attract our enough attention, it is no accident that Luo Sheng can be called [the son of the Internet] by the Silicon Valley Internet community, he is one of the few deep Entrepreneurs who have acquired the essence of Internet thinking.”

"How did MusicSpace achieve an increase of nearly one million users just a week after its launch?"

"I think there are two aspects, one is that the product itself is eye-catching, and it is best not to underestimate Bluestar Technology in terms of technology, especially in the development of Internet technology, Apple may not necessarily be stronger than Bluestar Technology. The second is to use the strong user base of their other major social platform BlueSpace to attract traffic, including the reddit website, and other advertising promotions.”

Only then did it come to light that MusicSpace is a newly launched product, and its owner, Bluestar Technology, is no longer a start-up company. After several rounds of financing, it has sufficient funds, and the financing is higher each time. Although it has not created profits so far, However, Bluestar Technology has also not had a crisis of capital chain rupture so far, and VCs are still pouring money into this company.

"Let's focus on the MusicSpace product itself,

Officially launched on April 21, the first is content. The five major record companies have given digital license downloads of 2.25 million songs, which basically include popular songs. Eminem), Britney Spears (Britney Spears), Coldplay (), Linkin Park (Linkin Park) and other 15 popular music stars or digital music licenses. "

"The key point is that the new albums of these 15 singers or groups are exclusively licensed to MusicSpace, in other words, users cannot hear the latest works of these singers on iTunes."

After speaking, the executives attending the meeting were once again shocked.

"God, are those record companies crazy? Why?" an executive said in shock, even a little dissatisfied, but more of a lack of understanding. Those record companies have always given the impression that they are extremely sensitive to copyright issues.

They will not arbitrarily authorize other people to profit from it. It is not easy to get the license from them. This time, the exclusive license is even given, and it is the new album of the popular singer. This is Apple Inc. Neither got it.

And Qiao Gang master broke the mystery in one sentence: "iTunes has monopolized 90% of the digital music market, and its voice is getting bigger and bigger, which may arouse the vigilance of record companies."

"You mean...the record industry can support another platform to compete with iTunes?"

Jobs did not respond, and he was silent and acquiesced to the same. He immediately greeted the dissatisfaction of several senior executives who attended the meeting, and greeted the five major record giants on the spot.

"Son of a b***h!!"

"Obviously, this is to support us and support a competitor in order to raise prices on the ground. It's a good calculation."

"These bastards who can't get enough food are not satisfied with taking 65% of the iTunes music store's profits."

"Without the introduction of iTunes, these damn record companies will still be tortured by pirated music now, so Napster should kill them, bastards!"

"Calm down, this is business competition, and there are only eternal interests."

After everyone vented, they felt a lot better. One yardage is one yardstick. It is an indisputable fact that Apple has made 10 billion US dollars from the iTunes + iPod combination in the past three years, and most of them are jealous.

Even if the music store shares 65% of its profits, it still makes a lot of money. iTunes drives the sales of hardware iPods, and this part of the profits goes to Apple.

As long as you calculate a general ledger, you will know that it is definitely a profitable business. Not long ago, Apple was forced to disclose the first quarterly report to the public in order to give the market confidence and increase the company's market value, and the result is exactly the same.

After the announcement of the first quarterly report, it far exceeded market expectations, driving Apple's stock price to soar. At present, Apple's market value has exceeded 40 billion US dollars, which has increased tenfold in just one year.

"MusicSpace's content issues aside, let's look at the product itself, I think this should be the most important point. MusicSpace has many innovative features, such as smart shuffle function, playlist list, Windows user synchronization, Outlook contact The function of people and calendar, adding sharing to the BlueSpace social chain, including the function of intelligently pushing daily playlists, which records listening habits of listeners and recommends similar songs, which is similar to Microsoft's Synapse music playback software but significantly higher than that. software."

They didn't even know that the music playback software Synapse was written by Luo Sheng, and finally sold it to Microsoft, and obtained the first and most critical start-up money for entrepreneurship.

Carefully study MusicSpace, Apple's executives, including Steve Jobs, were surprised to find that its user experience is very delicate, the interface of MusicSpace software is very clean and simple, and there are no advertisements at all.

In addition, the secondary page also gives each single the function of commenting and liking. Combined with the social chain of BlueSpace social networking site under Bluestar Technology, this software has more active sharing and communication attributes.

In particular, the comment function and the like function allow music lovers who are unfamiliar to each other to communicate and interact with each other through music, and resonate with each other because of their common music hobbies.

Obviously, MusicSpace software is endowed with strong Internet attributes. iTunes may only be an online music store, but MusicSpace is not only an online music store, it is also an interactive community for music lovers.

Seeing these many excellent experience functions of this software, Apple's senior executives, especially those who make products, can't help but look at it.

But at the same time, I felt uneasy for a while, because I saw the strong competitive advantage of this software indirectly. It is definitely not accidental that it can create nearly one million users within a week. It must have its excellent side to be praised. won the recognition of users.

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