Reinventing the Millennium

JD.com’s dilemma suddenly became clear after a brief meeting and a day of fast-paced acquisition negotiations.

Jingdong is gone.

Naturally, there is no dilemma.

Liu Qiangdong stayed up all night, and the next day he basically reached an agreement with the fast-moving Tesco team.

Then, when he saw what he saw, almost all the employees of his company looked happy.

Liu Qiangdong sighed and sent the Tesco people out.

"Mr. Du." As he saw the group of people getting on the bus, he suddenly remembered something. He had been talking about prices and employee benefits, and he didn't even ask Yike about his arrangements, "What work should I be responsible for?"

He felt that Yi Ke had not considered this in detail in a short period of time.

Unexpectedly, Du Yuhu, deputy director of Tesco, replied: "If nothing else, Mr. Liu, you will be responsible for part of the construction and development of Tesco Logistics. You need to build the market reputation of our logistics and pay more attention to the treatment of logistics employees." ."

Liu Qiangdong was stunned and even a little at a loss.

logistics?

I have never dealt with such content at all.

He asked in shock: "Mr. Du, did you ask me to go to logistics? Is it a mistake?"

Du Yuhu was also a little confused in his heart, but said with a half-smile on his face: "This was appointed by President Fang."

Liu Qiangdong fell silent.

Du Yuhu looked at the acquired non-staff soldier in front of him and asked, "Mr. Liu, are you having any difficulties?"

Liu Qiangdong frowned and wanted to state his reasons, but when he raised his head slightly, he saw Mr. Du in front of him sizing him up.

He said calmly: "There is no difficulty."

Du Yuhu raised his eyebrows, shook hands at the end and said: "Communicate more, communicate more. I wish Mr. Liu all the best in his work at Tesco."

Liu Qiangdong shook hands silently and watched the group from Tesco board the car and leave.

Compared with the booming e-commerce, logistics work sounds more logistical and more deserted, especially the treatment of employees.

Think about it. Compared with Tesco and Yike behind it, JD.com can only be said to be unknown. What important work can be arranged after this acquisition?

Liu Qiangdong did not return to the office.

He squatted on the roadside and lit a cigarette.

Logistics is logistics, and logistics is logistics. I have never been exposed to e-commerce before. This thing has only been in China for a few years, and every aspect needs to be explored. Even if it is gold, it can shine.

Liu Qiangdong finished smoking a cigarette, stubbed out the cigarette butt vigorously, spit, got up and walked back.

At most I complained about my bad luck and never doubted my talent.

…

Flights from Beijing to New York.

Xiong Xiaoge sat next to Fang Zhuo, chatting about Tesco's acquisition of JD.com, and asked about the arrangement he heard next to him.

"Why did you let that Liu Qiangdong do logistics work? Why do you care about employee treatment? You don't think about anything?"

Fang Zhuo replied: "He has suffered hardship and knows what it is like when others suffer hardship. This stage of logistics and express delivery is quite suitable."

Xiong Xiaoge couldn't help but laugh and said: "They have finally made a prototype of a B2C project. The sparrow is small, but you just send it to the frontier?"

"Warehousing and logistics are the foundation." Fang Zhuo said disapprovingly, "Besides, the work can be adjusted."

Xiong Xiaogepin said something interesting: "You think highly of him? Is there anything surprising about him?"

"Didn't you just tell me the reasons?" Fang Zhuo asked back.

Xiong Xiaoge said confidently: "There are definitely other reasons."

"Old Xiong, do you know me very well?" Fang Zhuo sarcastically asked, "What reason do I need to train talents? Or do you think that only those with glittering work resumes like Wang Wei can be promoted?"

Xiong Xiaoge said "Hmm": "That's not true. I think Mr. Su from Yike and Peng Lei from Alibaba are both very powerful. They were both teachers in the past. Rapidly growing companies are very training. "

Fang Zhuo ended the topic with a nod.

Xiong Xiaoge still marked Liu Qiangdong in his mind, wanting to see how he would perform in the future.

Afterwards, he took out the Android company information that he had already reviewed and planned to talk about the serious matter this time after reviewing it again.

After watching for a while, Xiong Xiaoge couldn't help but be distracted and chatted again. He saw Mr. Fang playing with two identical watches.

"Mr. Fang, do rich people spend money this way? Do you have to buy the same thing like this when buying a watch?"

Fang Zhuo shook his head and said, "It was a gift from a friend."

Xiong Xiaoge analyzed: "This gift is a Rolex, and the same style... it must be a female friend."

Fang Zhuo put the watch back on his wrist without comment. He forgot the numbers of different watches.

Xiong Xiaoge said in horror: "Mr. Fang, you are wearing watches given by different girlfriends like this now. I can't even think about what will happen to you in the future."

Fang Zhuo said angrily: "Zhou Xin, Zhou Xin, Zhou Xin, do you know, is he a female friend? He went to Xiangjiang and bought me a watch during the Chinese New Year. Mr. Xiong, Mr. Xiong, are you satisfied?"

Xiong Xiaoge fell into self-doubt and made repeated mistakes. Did she really not understand Mr. Fang?

He quieted down and returned his attention to the company materials.

When the passenger plane left the country, Fang Zhuo took the initiative to talk about his goal this time, and by the way, he talked about his deeper purpose.

"Android was established in October 2003, and it's been 17 months now. They are building a mobile operating system. I think this and Yike's mobile phone project can complement each other. The founder of this company, Rubin, yes……"

Xiong Xiaoge listened and hurriedly interrupted: "Wait, wait, Yike wants to do a mobile phone project??"

"Yeah." Fang Zhuo nodded, "Rubin is..."

Xiong Xiaoge couldn't let this key point slip away so easily, and interrupted again: "Why does Yike want to make a mobile phone? This field is a bit big, and the competition in the mobile phone market is quite fierce."

Fang Zhuo looked at Lao Xiong's bright eyes and knew that there was no way to continue the discussion until this point was settled. He had no choice but to start with "news about competitor Apple's mobile phone project" and declare that Yike's project was a defensive counterattack.

By the way, he also talked about his previous trip to Japan, mentioning Sony's sensor technology and Sharp's capacitive screen research.

"Rubin is..."

"Wait! Wait!! Not only make a mobile phone, but also a full touch screen phone??" Xiong Xiaoge interrupted again and asked in disbelief.

Fang Zhuo nodded helplessly.

Xiong Xiaoge felt that he should sell all the stocks in his hands quickly.

He commented as cautiously as possible: "It doesn't sound like a wise decision."

"Otherwise? Will we surrender to Apple or sell our shares and run away?" Fang Zhuo asked rhetorically.

Xiong Xiaoge said decisively: "Sell the shares and run away."

Fang Zhuo: "?"

"The world is wide when you sell the shares. Bingxin doesn't have to go to all the trouble to deceive us venture capital investors. If you sell the shares, Tesco can have a lot of development funds. If you sell the shares, this, this is simply... What a divine hand!" Xiong Xiaoge became more and more excited as he spoke.

Fang Zhuo said calmly: "I just like to deceive venture capital investors."

Xiong Xiaoge called the stewardess.

The beautiful flight attendant came over, knelt down, looked at the first-class passengers, and asked, "Sir, what do you need?"

Xiong Xiaoge pointed at Mr. Fang next to him: "Please throw him down."

The stewardess was at a loss when she heard this.

Fang Zhuo waved his hand and complained: "Old Xiong, why are you disturbing other people's work?"

The stewardess was signaled to leave.

Xiong Xiaoge calmed down, looked through the materials, and said, "I still think your decision is not wise. If you go by what you said, you want to challenge Nokia."

In today's mobile phone market, no one can ignore Nokia.

"There is a problem with Nokia's mobile phones." Fang Zhuo explained, "It is also related to the Android company we are going to inspect this time. Nokia's mobile phone system is not smart enough."

Nokia's mobile phone system is Symbian, now known as smartphones.

Xiong Xiaoge took out his mobile phone and felt that it had complete functions.

"Nokia occupies the largest market, but its mobile phone system is not versatile enough." Fang Zhuo talked about Symbian, "Symbian has brought difficulties to both mobile phone manufacturers and software suppliers."

Xiong Xiaoge listened attentively.

"Like Symbian, its UI layer is left to mobile phone manufacturers, and the applications written for it by software vendors are not compatible with other mobile phones." Fang Zhuo gave an example, "For example, some Sony models use the Symbian system. Software that works on Sony Symbian won't work on Motorola."

Sony and Motorola both have some models based on Nokia's Symbian system.

This results in software vendors being able to develop only for specific models.

"Just change it. Can't Nokia just change it?" Xiong Xiaoge asked.

"Nokia doesn't seem to be making much movement. Moreover, although JAVA can be 'write once, run anywhere' cross-platform on the server and desktop, Java ME is still not very good in the mobile field." Fang Zhuo shook his head.

In order to avoid being easily fooled, Xiong Xiaoge simply took out a pen and recorded the key points.

"Now, in addition to Symbian, Microsoft also has a system that requires its authorization to use, and BlackBerry also has its own platform, which can only be used with its own mobile phones." Fang Zhuo recounted, "If you want to build a new mobile phone, you either have to work hard. Either customize the existing system or spend a lot of money to get a license.”

Xiong Xiaoge was still puzzled: "Then...how can this Android give you confidence? Make you optimistic?"

"The situation of software development is a problem that has been noticed by the industry." Fang Zhuo did not answer immediately, and followed the logic above, "Many manufacturers are trying to solve it, such as Texas Instruments, which has developed an open platform based on the Linux OS kernel."

"Open platform? This sounds like it solves the problem." Xiong Xiaoge noticed this progress, which sounded different from the mutual closure of systems such as Symbian.

“What TI is good at is making hardware, so it built an open platform but used its brains on hardware modules.” Fang Zhuo said with a smile, “If you want to use TI’s platform to make Linux mobile phones, it will take a lot of money. You spend money to buy components recommended by TI, go through about 40 middlemen, and then you can get a brand new Linux phone."

Xiong Xiaoge understood: "It is open, but not completely open."

"Android is different. What Android wants to do is a complete open source mobile phone platform solution." Fang Zhuo said, "For this reason, it is another huge improvement."

He continued: "If Android succeeds, then we only need a system to build devices, instead of buying, licensing, and building modules to make mobile phones like TI."

Xiong Xiaoge pointed out the problem: "The success of Android in the sense you mentioned does not entirely depend on how good its technology is and how open the system is. No matter how open it is, it must have mobile phone manufacturers willing to use it. Mr. Fang, even if If you invest in Android, you also face the difficulty of selling it to the industry."

He thought for a few seconds and confirmed: "Yes, Mr. Fang, this difficulty level will probably be very high and it will cost you a lot of energy. Even so, you may not succeed."

"This is a matter of business ecology." Fang Zhuo smiled slightly, "As I have talked with Mr. Ni of Changhong, liquid crystal technology is destined to build a more complete business ecology than plasma."

"The development of Android companies takes time, perfection takes time, and promotion takes time. Is this something that Yike can accomplish?"

Xiong Xiaoge thinks not.

Yike's current business is players + music. It is conceivable how difficult it is to lobby well-known mobile phone manufacturers across borders.

Once this work, which involves a lot of energy, goes wrong, if Apple will launch a mobile phone as Mr. Fang said, Yike will face a bad chain reaction.

In this case, it seems more reliable to find well-known manufacturers to customize the system.

Fang Zhuo asked and answered himself: "The construction and promotion of the business ecosystem cannot be completed by Yike, just like LCD technology requires many upstream and downstream manufacturers. Old Xiong, do you remember the question I answered the day before yesterday?"

Xiong Xiaoge recalled it, and it should be the question of whether he could still eat.

Fang Zhuo said: “The endorsement of feasibility by giant companies can help us judge whether the choice is correct to a certain extent.”

He listed information that was not available in the information Lao Xiong read: "Android was initially positioned as a camera operating system, but now it is a mobile phone operating system. Samsung, HTC, and Google have all negotiated investment matters with Android companies."

Xiong Xiaoge nodded seriously. In other words, Mr. Fang was not crazy and randomly found a technology company that claimed to subvert the industry. He had identified a company that was short of money and was recognized by a well-known company.

The thoughts in his mind turned around and he said: "From the perspective of building a business ecosystem, can I understand it this way, first invest and get shares, and then let Android companies reach cooperation with giants, and everyone can promote it together?"

In fact, Fang Zhuo wanted to be more worry-free.

He nodded: "The one who knows me is Old Xiong."

Fang Zhuo asked expectantly: "So, just invest the money you want to invest in potatoes into this. How much can you pay?"

Xiong Xiaoge pointed out five fingers.

Fang Zhuo calculated it and nodded: "It's okay. I'll put together another five million dollars. After all, we are investing, not acquiring."

Xiong Xiaoge said solemnly: "Fifty thousand dollars."

Fang Zhuo was stunned.

He said in disbelief: "Half a million? When you invest in Tudou, you only want to invest half a million? Or did you change your investment budget when you heard me talking about Android Company?"

Xiong Xiaoge said innocently: "It's only five hundred thousand. How much does a start-up project on Tudou.com cost?"

Fang Zhuo called the stewardess and pointed at the old bear.

"Please throw him down."

The stewardess asked gently this time: "Sir, why?"

"He owes me four and a half million dollars and is unwilling to give it to me." Fang Zhuo replied seriously.

The flight attendant now knew that the two were joking, and she made a gentle joke to Xiong Xiaoge: "Sir, you can't refuse to pay the money you owe."

Xiong Xiaoge: "..."