Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 203 Independent PC Project
In mid-June, Xu Shenxue seemed busier than before, because in June and August, Zhiyun Technology will continue to release three series of new mobile phones, as well as upgraded versions of Yun Book 15 and Yun Pad 9/11.

There are many new products that need to be released, so there are also many things to do such as supply chain and marketing.

At a new round of group high-level meetings, Xu Shenxue said:

"This year is a critical year for us at Zhiyun Technology, and it is a key year for further group autonomy in the supply chain!"
"In addition to PCs, mobile phones and tablets will also enter the dual-core era. The A series and Yun Pad will use the self-developed dual-core S200 chip."

"At the same time, the above three terminal products will be fully equipped with Zhiyun's self-developed memory and flash memory products, as well as communication baseband, WIFI chips and Bluetooth communication chips. A large number of self-developed chip products have entered the supply chain, which has reduced our supply chain costs to a certain extent and ensured the reliability of the supply chain!"

“However, with so many self-developed semiconductor products installed in terminal products, how to maintain product performance and quality is also a very important issue. All departments, especially the semiconductor department, must attach great importance to it and always maintain a sense of urgency!”

"If something goes wrong, it will affect the entire group's product line. We cannot afford any mistakes!"

Fu Zhengyang, Vice President of Zhiyun Group, who is responsible for semiconductor design business and General Manager of Zhiyun Semiconductor Co., Ltd., said: "Please rest assured, Mr. Xu and all colleagues, we will do our best to maintain product performance and quality. We have designed a complete mechanism in all aspects of chip design and testing. For a chip, even if it is a low-end functional chip with a unit price of only a few dollars, we will conduct comprehensive quality tracking at the beginning of chip design, and at the same time establish a complete testing link!"

"After the chip is aborted, it will go through a complex and rigorous testing process, and the performance data will not be exaggerated or reduced!"

"In addition, the technical support center of our semiconductor department will also provide comprehensive technical support for each of our chips, and cooperate with colleagues in the terminal product R&D department to conduct various tests and adjustments!"

Xu Shenxue nodded slightly. Although the words spoken at the meeting were all clichés, this was an important meeting that determined the strategic direction of the entire group. After the meeting, it was necessary to form a group strategy based on the meeting, and then push all departments and subsidiaries to move towards the strategy.

The reason why a seemingly high-tech company has to hold these seemingly useless high-level meetings... is because Zhiyun Technology is too large.

The group now has more than 100,000 employees, more than 100 wholly-owned or majority-owned subsidiaries, and is involved in a wide range of business types.

From smart terminals to software and Internet services, to semiconductor design and manufacturing, as well as various spare parts, material research and development, etc.... Zhiyun Technology has even entered the field of plastic research and development in order to provide better plastic bodies for various smart terminal products.

Then there are a lot of underlying businesses, such as big data, artificial intelligence research and development, 4G/5G communication technology research and development, robotics technology, and a lot of other miscellaneous things.

Finally, there are a large number of affiliated companies that have made strategic investments... A large number of well-known companies in the domestic consumer electronics industry chain are basically connected to Zhiyun Technology!

In the field of screens, Zhiyun Technology is a shareholder of three domestic screen manufacturers including BOE... The shareholdings range from as high as 10 to 20 percentage points to as low as a few percentage points.

In the battery field, Zhiyun Technology has made strategic investments in three battery companies.

In the motor field, Zhiyun Technology has also invested in two companies... Well, the vibration motor is quite important and is directly related to the user feel of the mobile phone.

There are many similar investments!

In order to control and promote the overall progress of the supply chain, Zhiyun Technology has invested a lot of money in the past one or two years. It has invested more than 3 billion US dollars in strategic investments in the screen field alone, making it the largest investor in the domestic screen industry in the past two years.

Such a large-scale enterprise with great influence...is actually very difficult to manage. It is impossible to simply implement flat management like those Internet companies.

Internet companies do not have such complex industrial business lines and organizational structures. They basically focus on a core product, and then do some R&D projects and develop some software functions. They have a lot in common, so a flat management model can be used for management.

Even the company's CEO can directly interfere with the most detailed functions and write code together!

But for an enterprise of Zhiyun's level...the software and Internet business is just a minor business unit.

Under the software Internet business, there are a large number of software projects, in addition to the core APP store.

There are also various miscellaneous software and Internet services, such as the mobile office suite developed by Zhiyun, video and image processing tools, Android developer tools, tablet system conversion tools, etc.

Zhiyun is even developing some relatively low-level database software systems to support its own data center.

The revenue of the entire software and Internet business is only about 20 to 30 billion US dollars... This level is considered a large company in other Internet companies, but in Zhiyun Group, this scale is too small and has little presence.
I still don’t make as much as selling chips.

Software and Internet business is only a minor business type in Zhiyun Technology. Its main purpose is not to make money, but to provide supporting services for its own smart terminal products and the entire industrial chain.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have come up with a bunch of development tool kits that are directly open to the public for free use by other manufacturers. These things are time-consuming and laborious to use, and they are directly given away for free to others... Ordinary software manufacturers who do these things are fools.

However, Zhiyun Technology is doing these things to help software manufacturers reduce R&D costs and develop various APP software better and more conveniently to better adapt to their own smart terminals.

Development tools don’t make money, but smart terminals do, and the entire ecosystem also makes money... Zhiyun charges channel fees!

The above are just software and Internet businesses... In addition to these, there is also an equally large-scale semiconductor design business and a typical heavy asset and high-tech semiconductor manufacturing business.

Its product line covers almost all types of chips needed for smart terminals, from low-end functional chips to highly integrated mobile phone SOCs, as well as memory and flash memory.

The main feature is a complete package!
As multinational technology giants, they want to do everything themselves... and they have a huge number of smart terminals to digest, support and cultivate.

This is a unique advantage of multinational giants, which ordinary chip companies cannot learn. The only one who can compare with Zhiyun in this field is the four-star company next door!

Zhiyun Semiconductor is even developing traditional PC CPUs and GPUs...

Some special companies want a completely independent and secure office computer from the main core hardware to the operating system and even functional software!

Looking at the current domestic companies, the only one that has the ability to do this is Zhiyun Technology.

So Zhiyun Technology actually has a purely independent computer project. Of course, it is only in the early stages and is working on the CPU and operating system. The CPU is a bit difficult to make, but it is not particularly difficult, because this kind of purely independent computer does not need to consider any ecological issues, it only needs to meet the office needs of specific companies.

After Zhiyun came up with the 'YUN instruction set', it made this instruction set open source. What needs to be done next is to slowly tinker with this instruction set and then design the corresponding CPU chip.

This project actually also provides Zhiyun Technology with a good opportunity to enter the PC industry.

When you don’t need to consider the ecology at the beginning, many obstacles are not obstacles!

When computers are developed, they will be used by certain industries first, and then everyone will use the YUN instruction set system. Will the companies that provide software services also have to use it? Otherwise, how can they provide services?
Once the company uses it, the employees must follow suit. Step by step, it will slowly develop.

Although it is difficult to achieve the level of mainstream society, at least we can create a small-scale, special office-oriented ecosystem.

Zhiyun Technology’s ambitions are not big. It would be great if it could create a computer system with a small ecosystem.

----

Each business department is large in scale and has many projects, so sometimes Xu Shenxue himself can't figure out how many projects are under development.

Not to mention taking charge of these projects personally.

What Xu Shenxue does in his daily life now is to hold small high-level meetings, review and approve some documents, and formulate strategies for the company's development.

After the high-level meeting, the next development direction was finalized, and Xu Shenxue focused his work on the release of the S11 series of mobile phones.

This year's Zhiyun S11 mobile phone, in addition to regular upgrades and updates, has two major hardware changes: dual-core SOC and network model screen.

SOC is no longer mentioned. As for the network model screen, last year Zhiyun Technology was still criticizing Fruit's network model screen, saying it was just a marketing concept and a money-making scam.

But this year, if nothing unexpected happens, Xu Shenxue will have to brag about this visual model screen at the press conference... If you want to ask Xu Shenxue whether he will be embarrassed, the answer is definitely not!
As for product marketing and promotion...it's basically like this. When you don't have something, you belittle your competitors, and when you have something, you start bragging about it.

As for what I said before, I'm sorry, I have a bad memory and don't remember.

And except for a very small number of technology enthusiasts, professional trolls, and users of the other brand... no one would care that Zhiyun criticized the Vision model screen last year.

At least Zhiyun mobile phone users will never care... Even if they care, Zhiyun Technology's publicity department has already found an excuse for them: the 3.5-inch video model of the fruit, is that a video model? That's all rubbish...

Don't compare it with my 4.3-inch or even 4.7-inch retina model screen. If you insist on comparing, it's just forced fraud...

They also said that the previous visual network model was not mature enough and Zhiyun Technology looked down on it. It is only now that it is mature that it will be used. What Zhiyun Technology cares about is not temporary leadership, but to make things to the extreme before putting them out for users to use.

Well, basically, just spread out all the clichés and that’s it…it will even further arouse users’ sense of pride.

Ji Chenghe is very good at doing this kind of thing.

----

While Zhiyun Technology is preparing for its new product launch in June, domestic and foreign mobile phone manufacturers have also been busy, especially a number of domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been very active recently.

In the office of Liuhe Investment, Ji Chenghe, who had just flown back from the United States, found Xu Shenxue with a survey report on the domestic mobile phone industry.

"Mr. Xu, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been rising rapidly in the past six months, especially the four companies of China Cool Alliance. They have started to rise from the mid- and low-end markets. Their growth momentum is very fierce, and their sales are climbing steadily. They have begun to threaten Vicoo Electronics."

"After these domestic manufacturers have established a firm foothold in the mid- and low-end markets, they will certainly continue to try to impact the high-end mobile phone market. They will also do what the traditional international mobile phone manufacturers are doing. This is an inevitable choice based on business development!"

"In addition to these traditional mobile phone manufacturers, there is another potential competitor that deserves attention, that is the rice company founded by Lei Jun. Although this rice company is still a startup, it is now quite famous. And according to the information collected by the intelligence department, the operating strategy they adopt is very peculiar, and they will take the route of extreme cost-effectiveness!"

"We have received accurate information. They will hold a press conference for new products in August or September, and the phone will definitely use Qualcomm's 8X60 chip!"

"I'm afraid this will have a certain impact on the existing mid- to high-end market!"

"In addition, many domestic mobile phones and mobile phones from international manufacturers are expected to be equipped with this 8X60 chip!"

"Starting from the second half of this year, the competition in the mobile phone SOC field will be very fierce!"

"As far as I know, Qualcomm has been looking for mobile phone manufacturers around the world for strategic cooperation and support since last year."

"After a gap arose between us and Qualcomm, although we signed a new round of strategic cooperation and purchased two of their dual-core custom chips, Qualcomm also accelerated its pace of supporting other mobile phone manufacturers!"

"They have found many mobile phone manufacturers abroad, and they have also found many in China. Most of the new flagships released by domestic manufacturers this year will use Qualcomm chips!"

"A considerable number of mid- and low-end mobile phones also use their chips. Although we have also launched the S100 series chips to the market, our market share is still relatively small. Many mobile phone manufacturers are still concerned about us!"

"Just like why we have never purchased chips from Sixin, not only because we are worried about aiding the enemy, but also because we are worried about supply being cut off due to commercial competition in the future!"

(End of this chapter)