Restart life

Chapter 497 0487 [When Fate Turns, Even Heroes Are Not Free]

The companies participating in this event included not only several of China's major cloud computing giants, but also many companies that use cloud technology for commercial services.

For example, Zhou Hongwei came along, and 360 launched its so-called "cloud-based virus scanning" at the beginning of last year.

Antivirus software companies such as Jiangmin and Rising have also followed suit.

There are also companies that specialize in vertical cloud services. They only have their own immature cloud platforms, rent third-party data center space, racks and bandwidth, and then find customers to provide one-on-one in-depth customized services.

These vertical cloud service providers were an important force in the early stages of cloud technology promotion. Chen Guiliang's Rongcheng Cloud Computing Center rented some server racks to them.

In addition, hardware manufacturers also came to participate in the event, such as Yang Yuanqing from Lenovo.

We ate lunch at the hotel, with the leaders and CEOs of major companies sitting at one table.

In addition to leaders from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, there were local leaders, leaders from the Jingnan Cloud Industrial Park, and a vice president from China Telecom.

The business representatives included Chen Guiliang, Li Yanhong, Chen Tianqiao, Xiao Ma Ge, Ma Jieke, Cao Guowei, Yang Yuanqing, and Qiu Bojun.

Zhou Hongwei is not qualified to sit at this table...

The reason Qiu Bojun was able to sit was purely because he was senior and had extensive connections.

A leader from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology raised his glass and said, "Today, we have gathered many wise men, including the top leaders in China's cloud computing industry. Cloud computing is developing rapidly abroad, and we in China cannot fall behind... In particular, we can no longer fight alone; we need to unite, formulate our industry standards, and jointly cope with international competition... I toast to everyone!"

The leader took the lead in offering a toast, and everyone quickly raised their glasses and stood up.

The leader then asked what difficulties everyone usually encounters that require the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to take the lead in resolving, and he would definitely hold a meeting as soon as possible to help deal with them.

Subsequently, local leaders and leaders of the China Cloud Industry Park also spoke and toasted everyone.

The leaders are being so enthusiastic; there must be something on their minds.

Sure enough, after everyone had a few drinks, the leader of the China Cloud Industry Park said, "The cloud industry park we are building in southern Beijing is expected to officially start construction in September or October. The park consists of nine functional units, including R&D bases and equipment manufacturing centers... We hope that everyone will invest and move in. The earlier you move in, the more favorable the policy conditions will be!"

Robin Li had already discussed the matter privately and immediately stated, "Baidu will invest heavily to move into the industrial park and build the Baidu Cloud national headquarters center in southern Beijing."

Yang Yuanqing also stated that Lenovo will build an equipment research and development base in the industrial park to develop and produce core cloud computing hardware such as servers and storage devices.

Chen Guiliang then said, "Although Youke has a cloud computing center in Chengdu, it is also willing to move into the cloud industrial park in southern Beijing. In the next ten years, we will establish multiple central nodes across the country."

As for when they would move in, Chen Guiliang did not elaborate.

Anyway, let's sign the contract and acquire the land first, and then talk about it when the time is right. The industrial park hasn't even started construction yet, and the relocation of the local residents hasn't even been completed.

The CEOs of other companies are still hesitant. Their current cloud computing centers still have a large number of server racks that are idle, and it is impossible to build a second node in the short term.

They are not Chen Guiliang; they cannot foresee the future and cannot predict the rapid commercialization and popularization of cloud services in China in the next two or three years.

Therefore, they still need to observe market trends to avoid financial losses caused by redundant or premature construction.

The leaders had a very good impression of Chen Guiliang and Li Yanhong because they were the only two who were most supportive and willing to build the cloud computing center again for the Jingnan Industrial Park.

In return for the favor, the leaders will certainly give you the green light all the way.

We'll give you whatever you want, provide full support, and of course, land will be acquired at rock-bottom prices.

This is a case of "spending a fortune to buy a horse's bones," a special favor given to the first batch of companies to move in; the preferential treatment for subsequent companies will not be as great.

After finishing our business, we spent the rest of the time drinking and chatting.

The bosses sitting at this table are all competitors, and they're capable of fierce battles in various fields.

Chen Guiliang was undoubtedly the most eye-catching one.

none of them.

In recent years, he has overtaken Shanda, becoming number one in the gaming industry. He then surpassed Sina Weibo, leaving Tencent Weibo far behind. In the mobile phone market, he left Lenovo phones far behind. He also repeatedly outmaneuvered Tencent, initiating the QR code payment war and the map war. He also has a long-standing feud with Baidu…

The victims were sitting at this table, and everyone was furious with Chen Guiliang.

Cao Guowei was particularly unhappy with Chen Guiliang, as Sina Weibo was a breakthrough campaign he personally launched. However, the large investment resulted in failure, severely damaging Cao Guowei's prestige at Sina, and now Sina has no new engine for growth.

Sina may decline as a result, perhaps even faster than Sohu!
Because Sina's portal business is continuously shrinking, its news and blog services no longer have the huge traffic they used to, and its email service is practically dead. Only its finance section is doing relatively well, with a large number of investors and retail stock market participants using it.

Therefore, Cao Guowei bet on cloud technology, which has now led to the creation of Sina Cloud. Simultaneously, he is focusing on developing financial services and has officially entered the mobile payment field. However, both projects face fierce competition.

Qiu Bojun and Chen Guiliang are not really competitors. Although Chen Guiliang poached a top executive from Kingsoft to lead cloud technology research and development, it was Qiu Bojun who shut down the Kingsoft Cloud Lab. Now he has been reinstated.

The decline of Kingsoft's games had little to do with Chen Guiliang; it was Qiu Bojun who made a complete mess of things.

So Qiu Bojun and Chen Guiliang were having a lively conversation: "Youke's 'Future Era' has already surpassed 'Fantasy Westward Journey' in peak concurrent users, right?"

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Maybe it's exceeded? I haven't been paying much attention lately."

Chen Tianqiao remarked, "We surpassed that last year."

"Shanda's Dragon Nest is really fun. I even played it for a while last year," Chen Guiliang said.

Chen Tianqiao said, "We have been operating this game for the long term and have been cracking down on cheating very hard."

Chen Guiliang said, "Shanda will definitely be able to operate it well. I'm a long-time Shanda player. The first online game I ever played was 'Legend of Mir.'" Ma Jieke interjected, "Back then, everyone was envious of Shanda. Making 'Legend of Mir' was like robbing a bank."

"Robbing a bank is nowhere near as profitable as running a legendary business," Chen Guiliang said.

"Hahahaha!"

Everyone laughed when they heard this.

Chen Tianqiao remarked, "At the time, it definitely felt like making money faster than robbing a bank."

The hero does not mention being brave.

Chen Tianqiao is no longer a hero; he now particularly likes to talk about the old days.

In recent years, Shanda has made reckless investments everywhere, pouring out billions of yuan. Most of these projects have failed, or are on the verge of failure.

Shanda's revenue has been rising, but its net profit has been declining.

Shanda's net profit for the first fiscal quarter of this year was only around 2000 million RMB.

The second-quarter financial report has not yet been released, but Chen Tianqiao doesn't know how to announce it. Because Shanda's net profit for the second quarter is very likely to be less than 100 million RMB…

Such a large conglomerate, and its net profit in a single quarter is less than 100 million RMB!

No wonder Chen Tianqiao is preparing for a grand delisting.

After the banquet, Chen Guiliang approached Chen Tianqiao privately: "Chairman Chen, is Qidian.com willing to make a move?"

"Impossible!" Chen Tianqiao refused without even thinking.

Chen Tianqiao has spun off Shanda Literature and wants to list it separately in the United States. It has already entered the IPO application stage.

Unfortunately, Ma Jie's Alipay incident has made Shanda Literature's IPO review difficult, and the company is currently resubmitting its application repeatedly. It is estimated that it will ultimately fail.

Chen Tianqiao felt like strangling Ma Jieke to death!

Chen Guiliang then asked, "How about I acquire Shanda Literature as a package deal at a premium? Apart from Qidian.com, Shanda Literature's other websites don't make much money."

Chen Tianqiao said, "This is not negotiable. I have no intention of selling."

"We can talk about it another time. If you ever want to sell, Mr. Chen, please let me know first." Chen Guiliang never expected to succeed on his first try.

This shows that Shanda was not short of money at this time, and had not yet declined to the point of having to sell Shanda Literature.

Just wait patiently.

Shanda has many other things to sell.

For example, selling poorly performing games to other game companies—Tencent was very willing to take over, and successively acquired the operating rights to several old games from Shanda.

Selling various non-performing assets would be enough for Chen Tianqiao to sustain himself for a long time.

Chen Tianqiao changed the subject: "I heard that 'Oracle Era' is also a hit in Europe?"

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "League of Legends made a mistake in its operation in Europe, which inexplicably forced players to play my game. I can only say that I'm pretty lucky."

Sigh, Chen Tianqiao thought to himself.

Because he remembered those two lines of poetry: When fortune smiles, heaven and earth lend their strength; when luck turns, even heroes are powerless.

When he was at the peak of his career, everything he did went smoothly, just like Chen Guiliang is now. But once his luck ran out, every project he undertook failed.

Shanda Innovation Institute, in particular, took too big a step and ended up tearing its own horns.

The direct reason for Shanda's sharp drop in net profit this year is that it invested too much last year.

Shanda Innovation Institute claims to employ 500 scientists, including many top researchers, and has advanced dozens of projects within a year, covering almost all cutting-edge fields such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things, mobile Internet, and artificial intelligence.

The direction is all right, but most of them are ahead of their time. Doing so many at once means there's only investment but no return.

Chen Tianqiao was planning to cut projects, but he felt that all of them were very promising, and for a moment he didn't know which one to cut.

To put it bluntly, the root cause of Shanda's rapid decline was Chen Tianqiao's reckless actions.

His vision was too far ahead, but he forgot about the path he was on.

Chen Tianqiao asked, "Do you want the mobile phone team? I'm planning to cut Shanda's mobile phone division."

Shanda is indeed making mobile phones, and has already launched its first one.

Sales were dismal; we're losing a fortune.

Chen Guiliang shook his head: "HarmonyOS Technology's mobile phone R&D team is not short of people for the time being."

Chen Tianqiao didn't say anything more. Since Chen Guiliang had no intention of taking over, he planned to sell Shanda's mobile phone division to Wu Ying.

(End of this chapter)