Restart life

Chapter 445 0435 [Huawei, ZTE, and Meizu Fully Join the Partnership]

In the 2009 Forbes China Rich List, Wang Chuanfu ranked first, and his cousin ranked fourth.

Ma Huateng ranked seventh, and Li Yanhong ranked fourteenth.

Chen Guiliang has officially broken into the top 80!
The Forbes list also includes information such as gender and age. Among the many older people at the top of the list, it is really eye-catching to suddenly see "Chen Guiliang, male, 24 years old".

In 2007, Forbes listed Yang Huiyan, a 26-year-old woman, as China's richest person. This was already astonishing at the time—a 26-year-old woman being China's richest person.

Ultimately, Yang Huiyan's assets came from family inheritance. She was simply born into a good family.

Chen Guiliang, on the other hand, made his fortune through his own hard work. Although he is still far from being the richest man, it is commendable that he has broken into the top 80 at such a young age.

Rongcheng.

A group of local entrepreneurs were having a gathering when Bian Jingsong greeted them with a mobile phone, beaming: "Come and try this, it's hard to buy now. I only managed to get more than ten HarmonyOS A1 phones by pulling strings."

A newly joined entrepreneur asked, "Does Mr. Bian know that Chen Guiliang?"

A Chengdu real estate developer laughed and said, "Mr. Chen is Mr. Bian's prospective son-in-law. We've met twice already."

"President Bian has excellent taste in choosing a son-in-law!"

"No wonder Mr. Bian's new development is next to that cloud computing center. Turns out they're all from the same family."

"I was shocked when I saw the Forbes rich list this year. At 24 years old, I was ranked in the 70s. I thought he was another heir to some family."

"The Forbes list is inaccurate; you should look at the Hurun list. But that young Mr. Chen is ranked over 80th on the Hurun list; he's really impressive for his young age."

"I had only heard his name before, and knew he was involved in websites and games. Later, I learned he was in the mobile phone business. I saw him on the cover of this issue of 'China Entrepreneur' the other day. He's really solid in business. From university until now, he's never made a mistake in his investments. He's a natural-born boss!"

"..."

Bian Jinsong smiled throughout, only occasionally saying a word or two, and seemed quite comfortable being flattered by these people.

The real estate industry had emerged from its slump, and in the summer of 2009, Chinese housing prices suddenly skyrocketed. This was the year with the largest increase in housing prices in China, bar none!

Many real estate companies went bankrupt due to broken capital chains, but as long as they survived that downturn, the surviving real estate companies are doing very well.

Following Chen Guiliang's advice, Bian Jingsong not only acquired the riverside area surrounding Youke's Rongcheng Cloud Computing Center, but also won two plots of land adjacent to the small forest.

Moreover, the cost of acquiring land at that time was not high.

With the completion of the first phase of Youke's cloud computing center, several related companies have gradually moved into the surrounding area. Chengdu continues to attract investment, aiming to develop the area into an information hub in Southwest China, and an increasing number of high-tech companies are signing agreements to move in.

Even if Bian Jinsong does nothing, he can still make a fortune by reselling the land.

Currently, Bian Jinsong is building two communities at the same time: a multi-story riverside residential community (with a few villas) and a high-rise residential community next to a small mountain forest.

"Do you guys use Weibo?" Bian Jinsong asked.

The Weibo wars were fierce in the first half of the year, and most entrepreneurs had heard of them. However, the majority of them were not interested in social media.

Now, I'm using a SIM card to experience the HarmonyOS phone, which comes pre-installed with ByteDance's Weibo app. Bian Jinsong encouraged me to register a Weibo account for everyone.

Everyone had a great time.

Some people even treat Weibo like QQ, chatting with friends about private topics on the spot, thinking that only by adding each other as friends can they see the messages.

Don't think it's outrageous; this kind of situation happens quite often.

Even two years later, there are still officials who have just registered on Weibo and think it's similar to QQ. A street office director in Guangzhou was having sex on Weibo, and a bureau chief in another prefecture was flirting on Weibo.

"This phone is awesome, it's so easy to use! Weibo is also great."

"How come the screen on the HarmonyOS phone is clearer than my iPhone's?"

"Do I have to download and install all these things from the app store to use them?"

"..."

The veteran entrepreneurs were still unfamiliar with the new technology.

Bian Jingsong's gifting of a HarmonyOS phone is seen as setting a new trend in the industry.

They were actually more concerned about the bet between Chen Guiliang and Rong Xiuli. The news that Rong Xiuli had published a notice in the newspaper admitting defeat had spread throughout the Chinese business community in the past few days.

It's gone viral!
A bet made in the mobile phone industry has become the talk of the entire business community.

Regardless of their business acumen, business owners all relished talking about this bet. They would always bring it up during business discussions or gatherings, and unanimously admired Rong Xiuli's willingness to accept defeat.

The "Iron Lady" who built Tianyu into the top-selling domestic mobile phone brand published a notice of defeat to a young man in his early twenties. That takes immense courage!

Rong Xiuli's actions, instead of being ridiculed, brought her and Tianyu great prestige.

Of course, Chen Guiliang, as the person involved, became well-known to all the bosses in China as a result.

I had only heard of Chen Guiliang's name before, but now I know exactly what kind of business he does, and he always succeeds in whatever business he enters.

……

In late January, Huawei announced that it had joined the HarmonyOS camp and would develop capacitive screen phones based on the HarmonyOS system.

ZTE then announced its participation. These two companies had been locked in a fierce rivalry for a long time; whatever Huawei did, ZTE would immediately follow suit.

ZTE is currently pursuing a two-pronged approach: collaborating with Orange to develop customized Android phones in Europe, while also developing HarmonyOS-based smartphones in China.

To clarify, Orange in 2009 was merely a sub-brand of France Telecom.

It wasn't until 2013 that France Telecom became completely synonymous with Orange—integrating all its other sub-brands.

The reason for this was that during the economic crisis, France Telecom carried out sweeping reforms, which led to the suicide of 35 employees within a year.

Public opinion was in uproar, France Telecom's image was severely damaged, and it was forced to accelerate brand integration to revamp its image.

Once the company name is changed, we can confidently face the public: France Telecom drove 35 employees to their deaths, what does that have to do with Orange?

This year, different brands under France Telecom have partnered with Meizu and ZTE respectively to manufacture mobile phones. One uses Meizu's self-developed operating system, while the other uses the Android system.

After Huawei and ZTE joined the HarmonyOS camp, Chen Guiliang immediately flew south.

First, we invited Wang Chuanfu to dinner to thank him for opening an additional production line for HarmonyOS.

Secondly, we should talk to Huang Zhang and try to bring Meizu over as well.

"Mr. Chen, hello!"

"Haha, Mr. Huang, we meet again."

The two shook hands warmly and walked together toward the company's meeting room.

After sitting down and exchanging a few pleasantries, Chen Guiliang said, "Apple has officially sued HTC. Have you heard the news?"

Huang Zhang nodded: "I've heard about it."

Chen Guiliang cautioned, "Meizu should also prepare early. Apple hasn't sued Meizu yet because HTC poses a greater threat to Apple."

Huang Zhang said, "The Meizu M8 has already avoided Apple's gesture controls."

Chen Guiliang said, "But the Home button is suspected of infringing on Apple's patent. My three-button design is quite good, and Meizu can use it freely, as the patent licensing fee is very low."

Huang Zhang said, "If Apple can be found guilty of infringement with 'Home', then Apple is being far too domineering."

"Don't you think Apple is domineering?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Huang Zhang remained silent.

Chen Guiliang said, "Join the HarmonyOS camp. If you continue to fight alone, you won't be able to build an application ecosystem."

"I'll think about it some more," Huang Zhang said, not giving a definitive answer.

Without Chen Guiliang's HarmonyOS, Huang Zhang would have switched to developing the Meizu M9 using the Android system in two or three months—unable to build an application ecosystem and forced to succumb to the market.

Chen Guiliang did not want to see this situation. He hoped that all domestic brands would use the HarmonyOS system so that they could resist the invasion of Android.

Nokia is going too far, purging Symbian's management team and dragging the Symbian Foundation into doing nothing.

This divisive approach led brands within the Symbian camp, such as Samsung and Sony Ericsson, to release more Android devices. At this point, it was clear to everyone that the Symbian camp was nearing its end.

Chen Guiliang was right again!
A few months ago, Chen Guiliang appeared on CCTV's "Dialogue" program and declared that the Saipan Foundation would dissolve sooner or later. At the time, most people did not believe him and even ridiculed Chen Guiliang.

They're all silent now.

Supporters of Chen Guiliang posted everywhere, saying that Chen had cultivated innate Taoist techniques and could predict the future with a simple calculation.

In Huang Zhang's heart, he actually greatly admired Chen Guiliang.

Huang Zhang has been reviewing the situation for the past two weeks, recalling his first meeting with Chen Guiliang. Chen Guiliang wanted to use Meizu's operating system for his phones and even advised him to open-source the Meizu system.

At the time, Huang Zhang thought Chen Guiliang was there to freeload, wanting to use Meizu's operating system to make phones without putting in any effort. He resolutely refused to give up his hard work.

Huang Zhang finally understood that Chen Guiliang had been thinking about the application ecosystem for a long time, but he just couldn't understand or see it clearly.

If I had agreed to open up the Meizu system back then, we should be called the "Meizu camp" now!
Unfortunately, it's too late to regret.

Huang Zhang couldn't help but scrutinize Chen Guiliang closely. This man was terrifying; he had actually foreseen the current situation a year or two in advance.

Chen Guiliang had even seen through Nokia's intentions long ago.

Faced with such a formidable figure, Huang Zhang couldn't even feel jealousy or resentment—the difference in their strategic vision was too great.

Chen Guiliang continued, "Tianyu, Huawei, and ZTE have all joined the HarmonyOS camp. If Meizu continues to go it alone, it has no future. Besides, you're using Microsoft to develop the Meizu system, and Microsoft charges exorbitant fees. It's better to join the HarmonyOS camp, pay a basic membership fee, and then pay additional fees based on membership level. The more membership fees you pay, the more influence you have in the foundation."

At this point, Meizu is in a worse situation than in another timeline.

Because Tencent reassigned the team that developed the Meizu version of QQ to develop the HarmonyOS version of QQ, Meizu users are still unable to use QQ.

Every day, users rant and rave in the Meizu community.

After chatting for an afternoon, Huang Zhang said, "Meizu's next phone will use the HarmonyOS system."

(End of this chapter)