"Have you thought it through?"

“Think it over.”

"Okay then. I support your decision. Let's part ways in peace."

There is an old residential building in Yangcheng, where the exterior walls have already fallen off a bit. No one who comes here would have thought that this would be the birthplace of the famous "WeChat" in the future.

Zhang Xiaolong is the person in charge of the R&D of Tenda's "WeChat" project and also the general manager of Tenda's R&D in Yangcheng.

As in history, facing the wave of mobile Internet, Tenda has not yet reached a complete consensus on the positioning of future mobile-based communication software.

Some people advocate copying the entire computer version of QQ to the mobile phone. The advantage of doing so is that QQ has complete functions and has established a system ecosystem, which can be used directly to compete with Qingyun WeChat.

Some people also think that QQ is too bloated and may not be able to compete in the new era. The most important thing is that QQ is too large, so large that it is difficult for the memory of smartphones of this era to accommodate it.

During testing, the R&D team found that when the entire disk was copied to the mobile phone, various strange problems occurred, which was very annoying. For example, crashes and freezes were the most uncomfortable for consumers, and the complaint rate remained high.

The two factions just started arguing endlessly, each with their own opinions and arguments, and neither side was convinced by the other.

Tony Ma didn't have much time to think about it at the time, so he simply waved his hand, asked QQ to make some simple optimizations, and then quickly launched it on the mobile terminal.

The product is good, but it is a bit large. When consumers use data traffic to download, the data traffic fees that are wasted are really painful, not to mention the slow downloading and frequent freezes.

These were the drawbacks of early mobile phone QQ, which prevented consumers from enjoying the same experience as on computers. After learning from its mistakes, Tenda decided to start over.

In this life, faced with more intense market competition, Tony Ma and the management had to bite the bullet and rise to the challenge, taking the lead in launching the QQ mobile phone to fight back, but the result was a miserable defeat.

All I can say is that there is a huge gap between the number of installed and registered users and the scale of active users of Qingyun WeChat.

Fortunately, as a company as big as Tenda, it is impossible for it not to have a backup plan.

At its headquarters in Pengcheng, the mobile QQ technical team continues to tackle research and development issues, retaining the core functions of QQ on the computer as much as possible according to the current upper limit of the carrying capacity of smartphone devices.

At the same time, the mobile phone QQ optimization team in Chengdu is also doing research and development of extreme compression optimization based on the various functions of QQ. As the name suggests, this is a research and development team.

The main task is to delete and reduce, focusing on simplicity rather than simplification. As long as it does not affect the use of mobile phone QQ, all cumbersome functions will be deleted to return the chat tool to its original purpose.

We are trying to use QQ, a mobile app that has been stripped of its impurities but retains its core essence, to compete with the leading WeChat Qingyun.

Of course, even though Tenda’s management placed 90% of its hopes on QQ mobile phones, it did not forget to reserve a third backup, namely the Yangcheng R&D company, which is headed by General Manager Zhang Xiaolong.

Completely abandon everything about QQ, start from scratch, and develop a mobile communication software from scratch.

Historically, Zhang Xiaolong lived up to expectations. Facing an unfavorable situation with strong enemies outside and competition inside, he fought his way out and used the huge computer-side QQ to attract traffic.

Even the coarse grain factory, which had a leading advantage for more than a month, was defeated.

Unfortunately, their current opponent is a cheater who has experienced the entire development process of WeChat and has always been ahead of Tengda, such as the first generation of WeChat that Zhang Xiaolong brought out in history.

It was a semi-finished product that was rushed out. The various perfect functions that people are familiar with were the functions that they slowly developed and added over the next four or five years and gradually improved.

Qingyun WeChat used a cheat code to develop many popular features of later generations in advance, without taking up as much memory as possible on customers' mobile phones and without affecting the normal use of the phones.

For example, voice chat and video chat are completely dimensionality reduction attacks in this era, crushing the competition wherever they go. It can be said that Qingyun WeChat PC users are grabbing Tenda QQ's original customers.

It would be better to say that after Qingyun WeChat was launched, the biggest victim was China Mobile Fetion, whose user base once exceeded 4 million and was about to reach 5 million.

Fetion can only carry out simple information exchange and send text messages offline. Its core competitiveness lies in saving expensive text message charges rather than its own strong technical capabilities.

The various functions of Qingyun WeChat completely crush Fetion. Not only that, after reaching cooperation with the three major operators, WeChat obtained the authorization of mobile phone number address book.

It can fully achieve all the functions that Fetion can involve, and it is even more perfect.

As expected, Fetion was defeated and almost crushed out. With a large number of users switching to WeChat every day, I believe that within two years, it will become an insignificant dust in history.

Zhang Xiaolong was in charge of developing the Tenda Ticket Project (Ticket to the Mobile Internet), and after the R&D team worked overtime and tirelessly, the first generation of products was successfully developed in November 10.

Then, as expected, he was disliked by the entire Tengda.

What the hell? Bald has nothing, but it costs a huge amount of money to make a ticket to a new era, and it carries the hopes of countless people.

The result is a small wooden canoe that relies on human paddling?
Qingyun WeChat is limited by the hardware limitations of current smart terminal devices, and although it has not been developed into what it is today, at least the prototype is basically complete, and the user experience feedback is very good.

Moreover, a number of mature products such as micropayment, direct link, mini program platform, and Moments are being tested one after another, which is almost equivalent to a complete aircraft carrier battle group.

Zhang Xiaolong expressed despair about this.

Because Qingyun is cheating!

Now everyone in the industry knows that Qingyun Group recruited technical teams in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and the United States as early as October 2009 to secretly develop Qingyun WeChat.

Up to now, WeChat has been developed and polished for more than a full year and two months.

How long did it take for Zhang Xiaolong's team to be transferred from the QQ mailbox project to the initial completion of the ticket project and launch the new product?
All in all, more than a month.

Tenda has never been known for its technology. To have achieved this in such a short period of time can only be attributed to the fact that Zhang Xiaolong himself and the technical team he leads are strong enough.

He is like an outlier within Tenda, one of the few who has established himself by relying on his technical strength.

And now, this outlier has also begun to back down.

Zhang Xiaolong didn't know that the person in front of him was the nth R&D core member of the team that he had personally approved and sent off.

"Now that you have thought it through, let's just part ways amicably. I will help you make things clear with the group, and there should be some compensation."

The resigned technical developer expressed his gratitude from the bottom of his heart, "Thank you Mr. Zhang for your cultivation and care over the years, but the company~ Alas, it is meaningless to say these now, goodbye."

"It's easy to leave without seeing him off."

Zhang Xiaolong was very tired. In September, QingCloud WeChat began to gain popularity in Southeast Asia, and the company set up a research and development agency specifically for mobile products.

But before they could produce any results, Qingyun Group took action on both the computer and mobile sides, catching the group off guard.

The ticket plan was still in the verification stage, but the company's management was forced to use QQ on their mobile phones to deal with it. Most of the resources were diverted to it, leaving little for the ticket plan.

But he did not give up. After refusing Mr. Ma's offer to transfer him back to the mailbox project, he led his men to launch a desperate attack on the boat ticket plan.

Fortunately, they succeeded and produced the first generation product in just over a month.

Unfortunately, even though some of the functions of Qingyun WeChat were borrowed during the research and development process, it still did not reach the other party's level. The first generation of tickets and Qingyun WeChat seem like products from two different worlds.

As expected, the company announced that it would abandon its plan to start a new ticket business and began to fully promote the mobile phone QQ optimization project. It also split the personnel of the ticket project team and added them to the above-mentioned departments.

The company's president Liu Zhiping and board member Zhang Zhidong personally talked to him, hoping that he would let go of his burdens, go back to continue to lead the email project.

But Zhang Xiaolong didn't want to give up. He was determined to make mobile instant messaging software a success!
But Qingyun WeChat was like a ghost, always getting ahead of him in everything, and perfecting it bit by bit into what he had imagined. It was like seeing a ghost!
"Sadly, it's all over."

Faced with the departure of yet another core technical personnel, Zhang Xiaolong did not complain, but only felt regretful. If the group had taken it seriously earlier, it would not be facing the passive situation today.

Being surpassed by competitors is a terrifying thing. Now even the testing of the latest version requires queuing up, and he is not taken seriously. His own ideas are not respected, and the group's top management only wants him to go back to host the email.

There are people out there who are specifically looking for talent, and all these things make him very exhausted.

"Mr. Zhang, have you heard that the project team responsible for implementing the ticket plan is going to be disbanded?"

Ren Ping, deputy general manager of Yangcheng R&D department, pushed the door open and couldn't wait to tell him a explosive news as soon as they met. His attitude was very subtle, neither one of relief nor relief.

There was no decadence of shattered goals, but rather a nonchalant attitude. "You are fine now, you can go back to lead the email project, which has a bright future. As for me, haha."

"Old Ren, you want to leave too?"

Zhang Xiaolong is not stupid. Doesn’t he know what the people he lives with day and night are thinking?

Ren Ping did not hide it from him, "A Southeast Asian Internet technology company invited me to be the technical director, still doing my old job, responsible for the overall optimization of the communication software.

I have already submitted my resignation application. As you know, non-compete agreements are mainly aimed at domestic competitors and are not very binding on overseas companies. "

At this point, he asked tentatively, "Boss Zhang, it seems that the company has completely given up on us. Some people from the project technology department have been transferred away, and some have resigned. There is no hope.

It seems that you are very unwilling to give up. If you have the opportunity to go abroad to make a similar product, would you be interested?"

Zhang Xiaolong shook his head and said, "Don't persuade me. I know that what you call going abroad is actually going to Qingyun. But it's okay. They also have room to play in the Southeast Asian market.

There are many Chinese people there, and even if we can only take over this market, it will be enough to gain a foothold.”

“We knew we couldn’t hide it from you, so we didn’t hide it. After all, many of you have been with you since the early 2000s, and we’ve been with you all the way.

But I have to be fair, the company has paid attention to it over the years..."

"Okay, I've said it many times, I won't leave. My life ideals can only be realized here."

Zhang Xiaolong interrupted the other party's lobbying. He had received calls from Qingyun Group more than once, the earliest of which could be traced back to October 09, when Qingyun had just begun to emerge in China.

The other boss used his hometown status to get close to him, and his words and deeds all meant to invite him to the Magic City. Not only did he promise a high salary, but he also offered company stock options as an incentive.

However, he did not agree. Thinking about it now, he feels a little regretful. It is not that he regrets not going, but that he should have agreed to go and take a look. In this way, he would have known that Qingyun was developing WeChat in advance.

It wouldn't put the company in such a passive position now.

Ren Ping came with a special purpose, but no matter what he said, Zhang Xiaolong remained unmoved. When he wanted to continue speaking, the office phone rang.

After Zhang Xiaolong took the call, he seemed like a different person, and his spirits began to improve significantly. "Okay, Lao Ren, I won't keep you here, let's part ways in peace. By the way.

Find some time to have a meal with me before you go abroad. Maybe in two years, you guys will be transferred back. Then you will be opponents. I wonder what the situation will be like.

But just come on, Tengda is not afraid of the challenge."

After that, he called his assistant, arranged the work, and drove directly to Pengcheng...

Unfortunately, the task that awaited him was not to turn the tide and resolve the crisis, but Tony Ma announced the bankruptcy of the boat ticket plan in front of him, and he had to come forward to assist Rongcheng.

We will make thorough optimization based on QQ on mobile phones, and then introduce new products, so as to use the lightweight QQ on mobile phones to deal with WeChat.

He didn't know that just as he was on his way here, the Tengda board of directors held an emergency consultation meeting.

Tony Ma's original idea was to use Qingyun WeChat's existing data to force shareholders to agree to increase capital in advance and issue a batch of bonds to the market to raise funds.

Only with money in hand can we better cope with the challenges of competitors.

Another purpose was to abandon Koukou and find another way out with the boat ticket plan as the core.

Unfortunately, it is only half successful.

To this day, the shareholders behind Tengda are completely furious. No one expected that after Qingyun gave WeChat the function of means of production, it would be able to bypass the supervision of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and complete a counterattack.

In the final analysis, it is about Qingyun App Store's review of Tenda QQ. The higher-ups gave both sides a fair shake, with Qingyun using the excuse that Tenda QQ was suspected of excessively collecting user information.

It has been slow to allow download access on mobile phones, and to date, mobile phone QQ is only allowed to run the old version on Qingyun Electronics' smart terminal devices.

This version is extremely bloated, takes up a lot of storage space, has a slow download speed, and provides a very poor user experience. It is a temporary update released by Tenda to respond to the threat posed by Qingyun WeChat.

As expected, it was disliked by the market, and Qingyun found a loophole and only released this one out of so many versions (it was almost impossible not to release it at all). Of course, Tenda did not agree.

They immediately complained that Qingyun was abusing its dominant market position, discriminating against others and engaging in malicious competition.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had to step in urgently to coordinate, but Wu Yibin and Guo Xinyi refused to give in. How could the smartphone users that Qingyun Electronics had worked so hard to develop be given to Tenda at a discount?

If it is not allowed, users who are accessing the Internet (including mobile networks) for the first time will be forced to give up even if they have heard of QQ due to download traffic fees and poor user experience.

It is impossible for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to turn a blind eye to such a blatant violation. Qingyun Electronics would rather give up the pre-installed software service and conduct an equal review, resulting in various Qingyun software can only be downloaded through the app store.

Anyway, Qingyun has a huge offline promotion service team, so it doesn’t have to worry about losing to Tenda in the competition, as for the latter’s latest QQ version.

Sorry, we will continue the review, and after 7-15 days, we will find a reason to send it back, asking the latter to make the rectifications before trying again. This will go on and on, and if it drags on for two months, it will be too late.

It is not new that Qingyun is incompatible with QQ. Tony Ma has no bargaining chips in his hands and no basis for negotiation. He may have to wait for the market share of Bulk Grain Factory and Bird Mobile Phone to increase.

Only by using the hardware services of friendly alliance companies can Qingyun be forced to make concessions.

Therefore, based on the current situation, shareholders are willing to spend money to attract users, invest in related industrial chains, and establish a product ecosystem to compete with Qingyun.

But starting over, overturning the QQ on your phone and starting over?
Sorry, what investors want to see is an investment that achieves breakthrough in the short term, rather than pinning their hopes on a product that lags behind QingCloud WeChat by more than half a year.

Zhang Xiaolong was struck by lightning and was dizzy for a long time. He couldn't even hear Tony Ma's next instructions.

It was not until Liu Zhiping loudly asked him what kind of support he needed from the group regarding going to Chengdu to take over the QQ optimization team.

He was awakened from his trance, feeling extremely bitter. He opened his mouth to retort, but didn't know where to start.

"Perhaps, leaving with Ren Ping and the others is the best option?"

In his life, he must succeed in doing something he sets his mind to. From the day he graduated from school to now, he has been working in the email industry for more than ten years. He has experienced low points, but also achieved financial freedom by relying on email.

Although he has been using mobile QQ for less than two months, he has already fallen deeply in love with the product and has secretly vowed to make it a success. The boat ticket plan is like his child.

But now, the company wants him to give up for practical reasons.

Give up ideals and compromise with reality?
He can't.

Tony Ma didn't care about all this because he felt more frustrated than Zhang Xiaolong.

Seeing Zhang Xiaolong lowering his head and not speaking, he became a little angry, "Why, do you have any objections?"

Zhang Xiaolong smiled bitterly, "Boss Ma, is there no other way? I can work harder."

"How hard?"

As the company's president, Liu Zhiping is very familiar with the situation of Yangcheng's R&D department. "Half of your team has already left. If you don't change, I'm afraid you won't be able to keep the remaining half."

When any strategic goal fails, the project team participants will be the first to bear the brunt, and subversive chaos will inevitably occur, and their personal prospects, future development, etc. will suffer fatal effects.

Even Zhang Xiaolong himself has been exiled to Chengdu in disguise.

Zhang Xiaolong said firmly, "I don't want to go to Chengdu. I want to complete my ferry ticket plan."

"impossible!"

Tony Ma suppressed his anger and said, "If you don't want to, then go back to be in charge of the mailbox project. However, canceling the ticket plan is a collective decision of the board of directors and cannot be changed."

Zhang Xiaolong was confused, "Do we really have to go this far?" (End of this chapter)