Reinventing the Millennium

After the Spring Festival, the holiday has not ended yet, and the competition between Yike and Ali has been revived due to the trend of the travel market.

Ali successfully went public and launched an offensive in many businesses before the New Year. Yike seemed to be under-anticipated and maintained a considerable degree of restraint, especially the e-commerce brand Yiguo.

On the second day of the Chinese New Year, Tmall, Alibaba's B2C brand, has ambitiously announced its own goals on the social media platform, planning to become the first B2C brand in China in the next two years.

There is no doubt that Tmall has clearly pointed its sword at Yiguo and is bound to unify the domestic e-commerce market.

As for the travel market outside of Alibaba's advantageous business, everyone is actually a little weak in the past year or so of burning money. Therefore, when the common shareholders of the three major brands proposed it, both Uber and Kuaidi were a little moved and planned to give Sun Zhengyi a face.

It is not that they must merge, but to suspend this scale of subsidies and turn to a more moderate competition.

If any of the three brands, Kuaidi, Dada and Uber, is not strong enough, Son's proposal will not be considered and they will continue to be kicked out. However, none of these three companies are easy to deal with, so the "New Year" node becomes a good opportunity.

Kuaidi and Uber both received calls from Son. According to his words, Dada is already seriously considering it, so the two companies also have the intention to ease the situation.

However, it was unexpected that Dada formally rejected Son's proposal in less than two days, and then more news leaked.

Dada's founder Wei Zhe held a meeting with some investors in Shanghai, on the one hand summarizing and reporting the development of the domestic travel market, and on the other hand expressing the company's development plan.

At present, Dada's first goal is still not to make a profit, but to continue to expand the market scale, widen the gap with competitors, and continue to increase market share.

He made it clear that Dada will continue to provide travel subsidies to users.

Son is in China, and the purpose of this trip is to strive to promote a truce between the three major brands, so he personally attended the meeting convened by Wei Zhe.

According to an anonymous participant, a fierce dispute broke out at the meeting. Masayoshi Son expressed great dissatisfaction on behalf of SoftBank, but Xiong Xiaoge and Wang Fengyi, who are also important investors, supported each other tit-for-tat.

What is even more talked about is that Masayoshi Son left the meeting in anger, and his last words before leaving were "I want to see Mr. Fang". As for whether he met Mr. Fang later, it is unknown.

From serious consideration to determination, there is almost no need to speculate that there must be a will from Yike, and even Mr. Fang himself may have asked about it.

But no matter what, capital is unwilling to retreat, and the war for travel is still ignited.

Dada has not temporarily increased travel subsidies, but after the statutory holiday of the Spring Festival is over, it is bound to continue to act.

Such a will from Dada and Yike made Uber and Alibaba frown.

Uber is better, but it hesitates because of the fierce competition in the Chinese market. Alibaba has obtained more information and noticed the changes and goals of the Yike system.

At the meeting convened by Wei Zhe, he explicitly mentioned that he would continue to integrate resources, further open up the cooperation between Mi Tuan and AutoNavi Maps, and optimize the user experience of Yixin.

Taxi-hailing and maps are naturally compatible, but independent map software often has to consider more possibilities of its own. Since AutoNavi Maps was acquired by Yike, even its originally small number of advertisements have disappeared, and it has completely become a functional department of the Yike system.

What does Yike require of AutoNavi?

Just make good maps.

As for profitability...

Yike: AutoNavi, just make good maps, I have other candidates for profitability.

Yike does not need AutoNavi's petty profits at all, but only uses it to provide better services to users and make the Yike ecosystem more attractive. AutoNavi has not lived up to this expectation, and has continuously and deeply provided technical services to companies such as Yike, Yiguo, Yixin, Mi Tuan, and Dada.

When discussing the changes in the Yike system, Alibaba highly praised the role AutoNavi is playing now.

"I have to say that the 'simple beauty' of Yike's ecosystem is really good. It is no longer a style, but has gradually evolved into the logic of doing things for many of their businesses. Amap is very simple, and the functions it provides for Yike are also very simple, which is really beautiful."

"Dada seems to be constantly optimizing its various aspects of experience while burning money, which is worth noting."

"What is more noteworthy is that Lei Jun's Mi Tuan is also listed by Wei Zhe as a cooperative resource for interoperability, and some people say that they have seen Lei Jun in Shanghai."

"We must see the essence through the phenomenon. Why did Dada reject Masayoshi Son? This must not be Wei Zhe's intention, otherwise, his performance when he first received the call would definitely not be the same as Masayoshi Son's optimism. So, what does Yike want to do?"

"Whether it is the taxi travel market or the group buying market, Yike does not want anything else, but just wants to ensure its 'easy payment' market."

As the person in charge of Alipay, Peng Lei expressed his views at the executive meeting. This matter is aimed at Alipay.

She continued: "Chunjiang Plumbing Duck Prophet, the current travel market is that duck. Mi Tuan is constantly expanding its business lines. What Lei Jun is doing is O2O e-commerce, and its impact on electronic payment is even higher than that of Dada." , we cannot underestimate the competitive landscape of payments this year.”

Peng Lei is very keen.

Ma Chen agreed with this keenness.

But he also expressed a certain degree of optimism, pointing out the situation faced by Yike: "There is news from abroad that a corner of the Yike system may collapse. The ice core in Luzhou is likely to be in trouble this time. This will It’s the beginning of a chain reaction.”

All the executives attending the meeting paid attention.

"Is there any new and definite news?" Lu Zhaoxi asked directly.

Ma Ren pointed to his brain and then to his phone: "Watch the news."

Lu Zhaoxi: "..."

Cai Chongxin on the other side smiled and said: "Actually, we can make some guesses based on Mr. Fang's movements. Although he returned to China for the launch of the Mars mobile phone, he has not made any plans to go abroad to participate in activities until now. It may be that domestic affairs are more important. It’s important, but many of Yi Ke’s past international activities and his habit were to go abroad.”

For example, Yike has participated in the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona in the past few years, and Fang Zhuo sometimes attended in person. However, it has been confirmed that Yike will not attend this year's exhibition.

At the same time, like Yu Hong, the co-founder of Yike who is often in charge of affairs in the United States, her job position has not changed, but she has returned to China.

In addition, there are some scattered domestic supplier news, which are said to have received inspections and orders from Yike.

Various actions like this, although there is no definite news from Washington, seem to indicate that a storm is coming.

"Yike's goal this year should not be to compete with us. Its focus should most likely be on the adjustment of its own business. Otherwise, the competition in the mobile phone market will also be very strong." Ma 伝 pointed out possible problems with Yike's strategy.

The atmosphere of this Alibaba internal meeting became less serious as everyone discussed.

At the end of the meeting, Ma Chen, Cai Chongxin and others all received the latest news from the United States, which was also related to Yike, but it was good news for it.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced the final ruling on the Qualcomm monopoly case, finding that Qualcomm violated the FRAND licensing principle of standard essential patents, violated the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Act and the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act, and determined that Qualcomm had violated the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Act and the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act. In the past, its behavior in the fields of chip sales and patent licensing constituted a monopoly.

Although there were already tendencies in the trial two years ago, the final result from the Supreme Court still caused Qualcomm's stock price to plummet, and its market value once again dropped by US$80 billion, which was a record low after it acquired Avago.

Chen Fuyang, the head of Qualcomm, quickly responded and expressed regret for the final result. The plan will be actively communicated and implemented with customers such as Apple, Yike, Hon Hai, etc., and the plan will be reached to reach a more conducive to the development of the industry. Patent licensing framework.

This almost means Qualcomm has completely admitted defeat.

Correspondingly, companies such as Apple, Yike, and Intel all welcomed the results, and labor unions such as the Mobile Application Industry Association and the Computer and Communications Industry Association cheered even more.

"China Securities News" quickly commented on this matter.

“Qualcomm’s strength in the chip field has been ended!”

"Qualcomm has always relied on its first-mover advantage in the communications field for many years to use its patent cluster forcefully and arbitrarily to gain huge unfair benefits."

"Qualcomm's approach is to only produce chips. If the chips only sell for $10, and the chips are used in mobile phones, and the phone eventually sells for $600, then 5% of the entire phone needs to be paid as a patent fee, even if the phone also includes Screen, camera, memory, GPS and other functions.”

"A true joke widely circulated in the industry is that a certain operator executive met the global CEO of Qualcomm on an occasion and gave him advice: I think the way you collect patent fees is very unreasonable. In the future, cars will need to have The communication module realizes the Internet of Vehicles. If Qualcomm chips are also used in BMW cars, do I have to pay you 5% of the entire BMW sales price as a patent fee? "

"The then Qualcomm global CEO Jacob thought for a moment, nodded, and gave his answer, 'Theoretically, this is the case.'"

"Today, Qualcomm no longer has such a strong dominant position."

“Qualcomm’s original business consisted of chips and patent licensing, with the latter providing most of the company’s profits. Now, although it has acquired Avago, the patent licensing profit model has been subverted, which will inevitably give rise to Its future development poses great challenges.”

“The cases of YiKe Inc. and Apple v. Qualcomm Inc. will inevitably become a benchmark in the global patent market and have enlightening significance!

In addition to media outlets such as China Securities Journal pointing out the significance of this matter, the party involved, Yike Company, also gave a somewhat unexpected formal response regarding the application of the law.

"We are very pleased to see that the patent exhaustion principle is becoming clearer and more consistent globally. Due to the differences and complexities of different market development stages around the world, the patent exhaustion system has always been controversial."

"The US market previously avoided issues such as 'international exhaustion' and 'absolute exhaustion' in patent exhaustion in Article 28 of the TRIPS Agreement."

"Our lawsuit with Qualcomm this time successfully promoted the application of these two basic principles of patent rights in the US market, which will surely better promote industry development and product innovation."

"We will soon have new consultations with Qualcomm on patent licensing issues, and are willing to have healthy interactions with all partners inside and outside the industry on patent issues."

Many media have praised YiKe's response and its efforts over the past year.

The New York Times used "YiKe Inc., Apple Inc. v. Qualcomm Inc." as the title, describing the entire process of Qualcomm's establishment of monopoly hegemony and the end of hegemony.

It believes that the "Qualcomm case" has gone through the circuitous process of the federal district court recognizing "absolute exhaustion" and denying "international exhaustion", the circuit court of appeals simultaneously denying "absolute exhaustion" and "international exhaustion", and then the Supreme Court simultaneously recognizing "absolute exhaustion" and "international exhaustion", which has greatly encouraged the confidence of the industry and the outside world in the US market.

The media, labor unions, industry representatives, and the three parties involved have all voiced their opinions, and almost all of them have accepted the end of Qualcomm's monopoly. However, former Qualcomm CEO Jacobs was deeply saddened by this.

"Chen Fuyang ruined Qualcomm!"

"Yi Ke ruined Qualcomm!"

"Fang Zhuo directed a power grab and conspiracy against Qualcomm, and Qualcomm's efforts and hard work over the past 20 years have all gone to waste!"

"Chen Fuyang is just a vicious Trojan horse implanted by Fang Zhuo in Qualcomm!"

"Intel is an accomplice, Huaxia Antitrust is an accomplice, Chen Fuyang is an accomplice, and those shareholder institutions are accomplices! You have ruined Qualcomm together!"

As the current CEO of Qualcomm, Chen Fuyang can accept the final ruling, media criticism, and internal dissatisfaction, but he can't accept the accusations from Jacobs.

He gave a strong response immediately.

"If Qualcomm had not acquired Avago, wouldn't the situation it faces now be even worse?"

"Jacob is slandering Qualcomm's efforts to create a new situation and smearing me and others."

"According to his logic, since Yi Ke is the murderer, who made the decision to cooperate with Yi Ke?"

"It's you, Mr. Jacob, it's you!"

"If according to your logic, Qualcomm is destroyed, then it's you who destroyed Qualcomm!"

"However, the old Qualcomm has been destroyed, and the new Qualcomm will surely grow with the efforts of the management and all employees!"

"I have confidence, and all Qualcomm employees have confidence too!"