From knock-off old-man's electric vehicles to industrial giant

Chapter 281 Known in the martial arts world as Little Meizu

Xu Yi showed great care and concern for the staff from Meizu.

He has a strong emotional attachment to this company.

The Starry Sky system was able to lay a solid foundation thanks to the help of the Flyme team, not to mention that many of the Starry Sky in-vehicle system team members were originally from Meizu's system development team.

Meizu is currently facing a large loss of core and R&D personnel, which is essentially providing financial support to its competitors and the industry. This is exactly the kind of massive financial support that Starry Sky needs!

There's a wealth of talent there; they're invaluable in both in-vehicle infotainment and mobile phone R&D!
Not to mention that developing a mobile phone business also requires a backbone of talent skilled in operation and planning.

For Li Nan, he and his colleagues in the Meizu Blue division are losing their meaning within the company. Once the final finishing touches are done, significant optimization and layoffs are inevitable.

As for his subsequent work and business adjustments, his internal influence is also at risk of decreasing sharply with the separation of Meizu.

"Mr. Huang, we've secured the supply rights for Polaris batteries, and we happen to be in the last batch. However, Starstar has certain requirements regarding the order volume and advance payment, so we need to invest some funds in advance to build the production line."

Back at the company, Li Nan gave a separate report on the results of the supply chain communication.

Upon hearing this, Huang Zhang's face immediately darkened.

He was dissatisfied with this, believing that the OEMs, who supply batteries, have always held the upper hand in negotiations: "You mean we've been communicating for two days and haven't managed to secure any additional terms?"

“Xingchen offers the same framework contracts to the top companies. Their battery products and technologies are currently scarce in the industry. I hope you can understand,” Li Nan said helplessly.

Vivo has already proven the performance and excellence of the first-generation Polestar battery to the market. They have also studied and disassembled it, and found that its cycle life and heat generation are excellent, not to mention its energy density.

The improvements in the second-generation Polestar battery represent a significant milestone that brands aiming to break into the flagship market cannot afford to miss.

"Of course I know that the company is reducing costs and increasing efficiency. You've seen the cash flow statement, and marketing and distribution channels are shrinking. What I need isn't just understanding, but conditions that can be negotiated."

Huang Zhang, who has ambitions to make high-end mobile phones, unfortunately faced the problem of tight internal funds after the failure of the Pro 7 last year. Not to mention the cost of a battery, they turned to MediaTek because of the high cost of chips.

Although this year's flagship 16 series has switched to Qualcomm again.

Li Nan felt even more helpless in the face of such accusations. The implication was clear: he hadn't contributed anything, and given Meizu's size in the high-end phone market, they had absolutely no bargaining power. "President Huang, I truly did my best with the supply chain. Perhaps you could call President Xu to personally follow up on this matter and see if there's any further progress..."

"Alright, let's leave it at that." Huang Zhang interrupted him. "I hope you'll approach your work with a completely new attitude going forward. This year's flagship is a high-profit product, so don't use Meizu's money-losing tactics to make it."

"..."

Li Nan had no way to refute this. Meilan had been criticized a lot internally because if they sold a lot of products but didn't make money, they would be losing money.

...

The Meizu S6 is the last model of the Meizu brand. This product was planned as early as the end of last year. After finishing his internal work, Li Nan arrived at the company cafeteria for lunch in the afternoon and happened to meet Yang Yan, the president in charge of Flyme R&D. The two chatted about the battery supply.

"This battery is excellent value for money. 2K screens and high-performance flagship chips are both power-hungry devices. Relying solely on scheduling would put too much pressure on R&D and definitely wouldn't be enough to support such good battery life." Yang Yan expressed his admiration for the Polestar battery's specifications, while also secretly breathing a sigh of relief.

Due to patent disputes, Meizu had previously used chips from Samsung and MediaTek.

And this year.

After repeated rounds of negotiations, Meizu and Qualcomm finally thawed their relationship, and Meizu finally obtained a sample of the flagship Snapdragon 845.

But to be honest, the current problem is that the R&D department has a serious lack of time for system and chip debugging.

He lacked confidence in becoming the "Dragon Trainer"!
System scheduling and chip tuning are tasks that require time to develop and belong to the realm of empirical science.

In previous years, Meizu has been testing chips from Samsung and MediaTek.

There is a complete lack of information regarding Snapdragon chips.

Moreover, scheduling and debugging often require in-depth collaboration with chip manufacturers, and manufacturers with large volumes have a higher proportion of in-depth customization.

Even in previous years, there was a possibility of failure for "How to Train Your Dragon," so Yang Yan was extremely apprehensive about the actual application of this chip.

The "powerful performance, excellent screen, and long battery life" triad is almost impossible for flagship phones.

In today's mobile phone industry, if two of these conditions are met, then there will inevitably be a shortcoming.

Meizu has had its share of battery life issues in the past.

During the most painful year, my household registration book was dug up and used to hurl insults at me on Weibo for more than ten pages. The bitterness I endured is beyond words.

With the Polestar battery, Yang Yan's anxiety about battery life and power consumption during research and development has been greatly alleviated. This large battery—it came at the perfect time!!

"It's good that you think that way. President Huang thought the battery supply was too expensive and that the Meizu system's supply chain had too much cash flow expenditure in the past, so he gave me a lecture." Li Nan said with a wry smile and a slightly bitter tone.

"Now that Meizu Blue is gone, I don't think there's much point in doing anything further."

He was originally in charge of leading product marketing, but now Meizu has a new head of flagship marketing, Yang Zhe, who has been parachuted in, making his position within the company quite awkward.

As soon as these words came out.

Yang Yan fell silent for a moment. The internal atmosphere and Huang Zhang's aggressive strategy led to significant conflicts at each board meeting, and internal disputes were always present.

"So, have you decided whether to stay or leave? What are your plans for the future?" He sensed Li Nan's intention to back down and asked bluntly.

“I had the idea of ​​starting my own business and tinkering with some gadgets before, but after visiting Xingchen, I had a very good impression of Mr. Xu there…” Li Nan said after a moment of contemplation. He is a digital enthusiast, and his interest in mobile phones, computers and various peripherals is innate. He originally had the idea of ​​leaving home to start his own business and planned to develop in this direction.

But after visiting the stars, his resolve began to waver.

"President Xu? Isn't Xingchen a car manufacturer?" Yang Yan was taken aback!

Li Nan nodded: "Yes, but Xingchen is interested in developing a smartphone centered around new energy vehicles, which is a new direction for the future. I think it's quite innovative..."

Yang Yan didn't know what to say, feeling that the matter was very abstract.

The two swordsmen were eating and talking when Bai Yongxiang, one of the three swordsmen, came over with his plate. Upon seeing the two, he sat down and joined the group chat.

Bai Yongxiang is one of the core founders of Meizu Technology and serves as its president, responsible for the company's internal operations. However, since the major failure of the Meizu Pro 7 model last year, he has been completely sidelined and faded out of the core decision-making group.

"What are you chatting about so excitedly?"

"Let's talk about the future, let's talk about ideals..."

"Uh, are you really leaving?"

"There's no point in staying here with this business; we might as well go outside and take a look."

……

Li Nan's indifferent attitude.

Bai Yongxiang was slightly shocked, but then, as if he had thought of something, he sighed and said, "Yeah, it's fine... I'm tired too."

Li Nan's eyes lit up: "How about we go together?"

Bai Yongxiang hesitated. Based on their conversation, he felt that it was somewhat unreliable for Xingchen, a car manufacturing company, to establish a mobile phone business.

But Meizu's current core decision-making team has not reserved a place for him.

"I'll take a look next time I have the chance. New energy vehicles are a novel direction. I heard that Xingchen's car system is made like a mobile phone system, which is very innovative and creative."

Bai Yongxiang neither agreed nor disagreed.

Since the failure of the Pro7, he was disheartened and even considered retiring.

The two of them turned their attention to Yang Yan, whose research and design of the Flyme OS system can be considered the soul of the system. Whether it is the system's aesthetics, visual interaction, or the research and development of software and hardware collaboration, the system of the past few years has been developed under the leadership of Yang Yan. The fact that the Flyme system can find differentiation in the homogeneous market and create a "small but beautiful" image today is also inseparable from Yang Yan's dedication and hard work.

"Why are you all looking at me?" Yang Yan asked, feeling uncomfortable under their gaze while eating her noodles.

As one of the three musketeers, it would be a lie to say that I'm happy with my job now.

Huang Zhang has been under internal pressure for a long time. He's even being stingy with chip R&D, switching chip suppliers three times in three years. Who can withstand that?

After hesitating for a moment, he finally let out a long sigh.

"At least..."

Let's finish polishing this generation too.

　The amount of information I need to research across different industry chains has increased again; it's not that I'm deliberately being lazy...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)