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The next day, Zhou Buqi and his team went to Munich and visited the operations center of Lufthansa's IT infrastructure department to learn more about the situation.

Kurian also discussed some technical issues with their chief scientist.

What Zhou Buqi paid attention to was a flat world map on the wall of the headquarters.

There are many marked areas and routes on the map.

After the introduction, the lines marked with black pens are their fiber optic road map, which are all in continental Europe; the circles marked with red pens are their offices around the world, there are about twenty or thirty, almost all in Europe; The points marked by the yellow pen are their partners, and there are many of them. They are densely packed in Europe, and almost all in Asia, North America, South America, and Oceania.

Lufthansa is the fourth largest aviation giant in the world. The top ones are all from the United States. Lufthansa represents Europe. The demand for outsourcing in the IT field in the aviation industry is extremely high, basically similar to that in the banking industry. Lufthansa is able to use its superior position in the industry to win many orders.

These surveys are part of the normal process.

Zhou Buqi takes a quick look at the flowers.

To be honest, he didn't think Lufthansa would dare to cheat Ziweixing International by falsifying data on this transaction. People have already stated that after selling the IT infrastructure department, the acquirer will take over Lufthansa's outsourcing orders. This is a long-term cooperative relationship.

In the final analysis, it is his absolute control over Ziweixing International.

He can play his cards against the rules.

You can do whatever you want, extremely flexible.

In contrast, listed companies cannot.

It's a coincidence that Zhou Buqi encountered two things while doing research here.

First, we got the latest news that the American IT giant Hewlett-Packard is also involved and wants to take action on Lufthansa's business.

Second, IBM has officially launched action.

IBM has deep-rooted relationships in Germany. German IT giant SAP was founded by three engineers who resigned from IBM. The most important engineer was Mr. HP.

Zhou Buqi's movements were very fast.

IBM is not slow either!

Even IBM is faster. They have sent a professional team of 20 people to the operations center of the IT Infrastructure Department in Munich to officially conduct due diligence on this department!

IBM's team happened to meet Zhou Buqi and his entourage.

This made Boss Zhou unhappy. He publicly criticized the Germans for their "lack of sincerity" and then went to the airport to prepare for Berlin. That's where the IT Infrastructure Department's data center in Germany is located, with 15,000 servers deployed. Let's go there and do some research.

After getting on the plane, Zhou Buqi snorted coldly, "Who said Germans are old-fashioned? They also have a lot of tricks!"

Kurian smiled and said, "After listening to Hannah's words yesterday, I knew that Mr. Maya Huber's skills were not bad at all."

Both Ziweixing and IBM want to acquire Lufthansa's IT infrastructure department.

This is normal.

However, the teams from both sides actually ran into each other!

This is very abnormal.

The Germans have such a rigorous work style that it is almost impossible for them to make such childish process planning mistakes. There is only one explanation, they did it on purpose!

Mr. Maier Huber deliberately arranged the two parties together to intensify conflicts and competition!

Zhou Buqi hummed: "That's good. At least we can be sure that what Ms. Hannah said last night was right. Mya Huber is very anxious! He is more anxious than us!"

Kurian nodded and frowned: "It's just that IBM is in trouble! They are so fast that they actually started due diligence earlier than us."

"Well, everything that doesn't comply with the process has problems!"

Zhou Buqi asserted.

IBM's response was so strange. They did the right thing to do their due diligence, but they responded too quickly. At least we should first negotiate with Lufthansa to discuss the specific intentions and cooperation framework, and then IBM's board of directors will approve it.

After this set of procedures is completed, it is due diligence.

Lufthansa's IT infrastructure department has more than 1,400 people. It claims to have invested US$2.5 billion in the past ten years, and its business is distributed all over the world... This is too complicated. If you want to investigate all the situations clearly, you need to send a relatively large professional team. It takes a team.

The cost of this due diligence team is at least several million dollars.

So generally speaking, due diligence will occur at the end of the acquisition case, and then due diligence will be done after everything has been discussed. If the investigation results are consistent with the various reports given by the other party, we will proceed further and complete the acquisition.

If due diligence is completed, the two parties have different intentions and the acquisition is terminated, it will cause a lot of waste.

IBM is obviously not following common sense.

Zhou Buqi had some guesses, "IBM probably has some internal information just like us. They are also scrambling for time and want to complete the transaction within 2 months."

Kurian said solemnly: "If this is the case, IBM will definitely relax restrictions during due diligence to speed up the process. If IBM can overcome this obstacle, then they are really likely to become a strong sponsor of our acquisition." opponent."

Zhou Buqi remained silent.

Kurian was a little worried and said earnestly: "This IT infrastructure department is really important to us. Their data center can solve the trouble caused by the slow construction of our cloud data center in Europe; they Our outsourcing business is also a powerful channel for us to connect to B-side customers in Europe and even around the world; fiber optic business... This is really important and urgent for the cloud computing industry!"

Zhou Buqi agreed with his analysis and said categorically: "Well, we must complete this acquisition!"

Kurian breathed a long sigh of relief.

As long as the big boss is determined.

However, with IBM's participation, once competition starts... the transaction price may be uncontrollable.

Fortunately, Zhou Buqi's thinking was very clear, "No matter what, this deal must be completed."

This is strategy!

IBM's acquisition of this IT infrastructure department can only be regarded as a business supplement; Ziweixing International is different. Once the transaction is completed, it will not only expand the business, but also serve as a strategic supplement.

However, Zhou Buqi did not intend to make too many concessions in terms of interests, saying: "We will negotiate with Lufthansa according to the established guidelines. The price will exceed 1 billion euros, but not too much."

"This..." Kurian glanced at him, "I'm afraid that the price is not competitive."

Zhou Buqi said calmly: "If it's Oracle or HP that cares so much, we're really in trouble. IBM...it's a coincidence. I really have some tricks to control IBM!"

"How about IBM?"

Kurian was stunned for a moment, not quite believing it.

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "Just go and contact Lufthansa, I'll take care of IBM! Judging from the scene that Mai Yahuber made this morning, he obviously wanted to use IBM to create pressure on Ziweixing , to increase the transaction price. Ignore him and do it according to our rhythm. We have reason to believe that under the same circumstances, Lufthansa will definitely choose Ziweixing instead of IBM."

"By the way, there's one more thing. There's been shocking news in Silicon Valley recently, related to Microsoft."

"Microsoft's press conference?"

"No, it was Microsoft software architect Ray Olds who left."

"What's wrong?"

Zhou Buqi had never heard of this person.

Kurian said seriously: "He may be the best programmer in the world and the successor of Bill Gates."

Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft, but he has never been a strategic or business decision-maker. He mainly does some technical work.

Why is Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, still doing this relatively low-level job?

Because he felt that no one was qualified for this job and he had to do it himself.

Later, in 2005, Ray Oz finally agreed to join Microsoft, which made Bill Gates sigh that "Microsoft can be saved." Then Bill Gates officially retired and devoted more of his energy to charity, and the part of the technical field he was in charge of was handed over to Ray Oz.

However, Ray Olds and Ballmer had irreconcilable conflicts.

Ray Olds believes that the development of cloud computing should be strengthened and the focus should be on deploying cloud software services. However, Ballmer firmly believes that there is still a broad market for local software and has been reluctant to invest maximum resources to promote the development of Microsoft Cloud.

Zhou Buqi could tell what he meant, "You want to invite him over?"

Kurian said: "He is an authority in the field of collaboration software. Our MicroNotes and Evernote are actually almost Internet-based products that imitate Lotus_Notes. Notes is the software he developed, and was later acquired by IBM at a high price. ”

"IBM..."

"Yes, IBM. However, Notes is a traditional software, and our Evernote is an Internet product. A large part of the market taken away by Weishu and Evernote belongs to Notes. However, from a purely technical perspective, even after passing After all these years, Notes remains at the forefront of collaboration product technology."

Zhou Buqi asked: "We can't do it?"

Kurian said: "But it must not be as good as what Ray Oz did. For example... the encryption system in the collaboration process, this is too important to us. You are in China, I am in the United States, our video conference, It must be protected by a foolproof encryption system. The same applies to Weishu, including cloud computing, databases and other fields, all of which are online collaborations."

Ziweiyun cannot handle a senior executive of this level. Ziweixing International Group must come forward. Provide the position of chief architect or chief software architect and let him build a better and more excellent Internet collaboration platform for Ziweixing. This is the soul of cloud computing.

Zhou Buqi said simply, "No problem, I will talk to Lu Qi about it later. In the future Internet society, collaboration will become more and more important, and there is nothing wrong with making efforts in this direction."