my return 2002

Chapter 216 MSN Entry
On March 3th, the World of Warcraft national server ushered in the last day of the end of the closed beta, and players played on the public screen.

"Goodbye Azeroth."

"For the Horde."

This also indicates that the popularity of World of Warcraft in China, although it is only a short two-week closed beta, has already stirred up the pattern of the entire online game market in the mainland.

Prior to this, game manufacturers did not pay much attention to the playability and picture quality of the game, and they were not interested in 3D games. After all, games with poor picture quality like Legendary still made a lot of money?Why spend so much money to study 3D games?
However, the emergence of World of Warcraft made domestic players see the charm of 3D games, and let domestic players know that there are other ways to play the game besides swiping. It turns out that the game map can be so large.

After eating a big meal, players are gradually getting bored with the shoddy quality of many domestic game manufacturers and monster spawning games with no game content, which has led to a rapid decline in the online data of many games, and some even cut them in half. This is still not the case in World of Warcraft. When officially launched.

It is undoubtedly a wake-up call for the majority of game manufacturers. Blindly imitating legends without improving the gameplay and image quality can no longer meet the needs of players.

Many game manufacturers and studios have stopped their 2D online games that had already established projects, and began to explore 3D games. It is no exaggeration to say that the emergence of World of Warcraft opened the first year of domestic 3D games.

Of course, there are also individual game manufacturers whose minds are not in the game field, such as Shanda.

The poison pill plan thrown by Sina made Chen Tianqiao realize that it is basically impossible to win the control of Sina. At this time, what he needs to consider is how to get out.

Chen Tianqiao called Tang Jun over: "Go and contact Sina and tell me that I plan to withdraw, but the current stock price is definitely not good. If they want to let me leave, they must find a way to raise the stock price."

Tang Jun looked at Chen Tianqiao hesitantly, wondering if the other party was serious or wanted to test Sina's attitude.

Soon Tang Jun conveyed Chen Tianqiao's meaning to Sina in a very cryptic manner. After Sina's internal discussion, he agreed to Chen Tianqiao's conditions. After all, if the stalemate continues, it will be very unfavorable to both parties.

Shanda still has the game business to support it, holding a lot of cash flow in its hands, Shanda can afford it, but Sina can't afford it!
So Sina and Shanda jointly issued a statement that Sina welcomed Shanda to participate in Sina's daily operations, and mainly invited Chen Tianqiao to join Sina's board of directors.

Once this news was exposed, it immediately caused an uproar. Investors and the majority of netizens were shocked. Didn’t Sina put on a look before: You die, I live, don’t you?Why are you flirting now?

However, this is an announcement made on the official website of Sina and Shanda, how can it be false?So the stock prices of Shanda and Sina began to rise slightly that day.

After the photos and reports of Chen Tianqiao's appearance in Sina went viral on the Internet, the stock prices of Sina and Shanda soared all the way.

No one knew that Chen Tianqiao had started to quietly sell his Sina shares in the secondary market at this time.

Of course, this alone is definitely not enough. Chen Tianqiao owns 20% of Sina's shares, and it is definitely impossible to consume them all in the secondary market.

In order to send away Shanda, the "God of Plague", Sina had to lobby some well-connected investment institutions to persuade them to buy back Sina's shares from Chen Tianqiao.

To this end, Sina has also come up with a brand new project: Sina blog!
In fact, blogging has been popular abroad as early as 1998, but it is still a new concept in China. Sina also came up with a detailed plan to express the feasibility and bright future of Sina blogging.

This has made many investment institutions excited, coupled with the fact that Sina's stock price is in a historical position at this time, it is indeed worth buying the bottom.

So Chen Tianqiao began to gradually cash out his Sina shares, and the noose around Sina's neck was eased step by step, and investment institutions also got the opportunity to enter the market.

However, shareholders who don't know the truth are still cheering for the upcoming merger between Shanda and Sina, imagining that one day their shares will bring several times or even ten times the income.

However, in fact, Chen Tianqiao left the market with a net profit of 3000 million US dollars after fully cashing out.

After cashing out, Chen Tianqiao had a lot of cash in his hands, and the impact of World of Warcraft also made him understand that the era of lying down to make money is over, and it is too risky to rely on games alone.

It is the consensus of investors that all eggs cannot be put in one basket.

Therefore, Chen Tianqiao once again set his sights on the "Shanda Box". Because he wanted to acquire Sina before, Chen Tianqiao actually did not invest much in the "Shanda Box". That is, a team of more than 20 people allocated a sum of 1000 million. .

However, Chen Tianqiao was very dissatisfied after checking the development progress of "Shanda Box". The business focus has always been games, and there are no talents in software and hardware at all.

Chen Tianqiao immediately held a senior management meeting.

"Starting today, Shanda will focus on Shanda boxes. We need a lot of software and hardware talents. I don't care whether you recruit from the society or poach from competitors. In short, I want to see Shanda as soon as possible. Finished box."

The executives felt that Chen Tianqiao was crazy. A game company had invested so much in hardware without any accumulation.

But no one can persuade Chen Tianqiao, just like no one can persuade Chen Tianqiao to act as the agent of Legend, Shanda is only Chen Tianqiao's Shanda, and no one is qualified to point fingers in front of him.

If so, he would have been fired on the spot.

In this way, Shanda has aggressively recruited software and hardware talents, and the salaries offered have far exceeded the current market, with a general premium of 20%, and some core technical positions even have a premium of 200%.

For a while, the industry was shaken. Many employees left for Shanda's high salary, and a small number joined for the great idea of ​​Shanda Box. In this era, there are not a few young people with dreams.

However, this kind of behavior has also caused dissatisfaction among many companies, and some business owners even said sourly that Chen Tianqiao: This is doing charity.

But Chen Tianqiao didn't take it seriously at all, he still went his own way, and even told the media: At present, the treatment given to talents by many companies is too low. Shanda wants to break down this industry barrier and give talents due respect.

There is no doubt that Chen Tianqiao's remarks have also established a good image of him in the minds of the majority of migrant workers.

"Chen Tianqiao is crazy!" Zhu Jun even ran to Inspur Technology and said sourly to Shen Lang.

Shen Lang joked, "Have you received a lot of resignation reports recently?"

"Can you please stop being so direct? Don't tell me that you guys from Inspur Technology didn't resign!" Zhu Jun rolled his eyes.

Shen Lang shrugged and pointed out the window: "As you can see."

Zhu Jun didn't realize that there were a few vacant seats, so he couldn't help asking curiously, "How did you do it?"

Since Shanda began poaching people with high salaries, the Internet industry has become a hard-hit area, especially Internet companies in Shanghai. Some small companies and even entire project teams have directly packed up and left.

Shen Lang said with a smile: "The salary after Shanda's price increase is only about the same as what I usually give to my employees. Why do you want to change jobs?"

Well, you win, Zhu Jun smacked his lips, the one in front of him is the king of papers!
"By the way, you didn't come to me today just to complain about Chen Tianqiao, did you? If so, your goal has been achieved, and I'm still busy." Shen Lang made a gesture of invitation.

Zhu Jun said angrily, "Why can't I come to your place for a cup of tea?"

"Hey, make your own tea there." Shen Lang pointed at the tea table.

After Zhu Jun was defeated, he honestly explained why he came.

"Actually, this is the case. The closed beta of World of Warcraft is quite successful. I want to hear your opinion on whether it is possible to directly conduct the public beta without deleting files like Jian Yujianghu."

Shen Lang rolled his eyes at him: "We are competitors now, it would be nice not to trip you up, and you still expect me to give you advice?"

"Don't say, you are all shareholders of Ninetowns."

Shen Lang thought for a while, and yes, the more popular World of Warcraft is, the higher the stock price of Ninetowns must be, which is convenient for him to cash out and leave the market.

"Well, it's for the sake of money." Shen Lang said sternly: "The open beta without deleting files is not applicable to all games. First of all, regardless of whether the internal beta or the public beta, in addition to detecting bugs, the biggest role is to Promote it, let players play the game for free, so that they like the game and are willing to pay for it.”

"Although World of Warcraft is well-known among the player community, very few people have actually played this game, and don't forget, the current configuration of domestic Internet cafes can run World of Warcraft smoothly, and there can be two out of 20 Internet cafes Wanjia is good. If World of Warcraft really becomes popular, as many players as possible must experience this game and fall in love with this game. Once an Internet cafe cannot run World of Warcraft smoothly, players will choose to go to Go online at other Internet cafes.”

"Only in this way can Internet cafe owners have the motivation to upgrade their computer configurations, thus forming a virtuous circle."

Zhu Jun suddenly realized when he heard the words. In fact, he had been worrying about the computer configuration of the Internet cafe before, and arranged a lot of promotions to promote World of Warcraft, but the effect was very poor. The owner of the Internet cafe was not willing to update the computer hardware just for a game.

"Beyond that, didn't Blizzard ask to spend more than 1000 million U.S. dollars a year on the promotion of World of Warcraft? You can take this opportunity to carry out a wave of publicity in conjunction with the World of Warcraft public beta," Shen Lang reminded.

"Well, it makes sense." Zhu Jun left satisfied.

Shen Lang looked at his back and smiled. With World of Warcraft promoting the update of computer hardware, when [Zhu Xian] is promoted in the future, it will also reduce a lot of resistance, which can be regarded as a certain degree of mutual benefit.

After Zhu Jun returned, he immediately took action. First, he announced the time for the public beta test of World of Warcraft, which was scheduled for April 4. He also cooperated with Coca-Cola, and even invited the popular girl group SHE to endorse it.

Once the news was released, countless Warcraft fans cheered and spread the word. Players at this time are so simple, if they like a game, they will be obsessed with it.

Unknowingly, time came to April, and Microsoft suddenly announced that MSN was officially stationed in the mainland.

Undoubtedly, this is a major earthquake for the entire instant messaging software industry. Although there have been rumors that MSN will enter the mainland, those are just rumors, and now "it" has finally come.

At this time, the situation of instant messaging software in the mainland is actually not clear. QQ is undoubtedly the leader, accounting for more than 60% of the market share, followed by Fetion, which relies on mobile, accounting for 15% of the market share. YY, as a rising star, relies on Game users also account for 13% of the market share, and the speed is not surprising.

There are also other Internet companies such as Sina, Sohu, and NetEase, all of which have launched instant messaging software business, but the market share is relatively small.

Originally caught in the quagmire of fierce competition, and now such a heavyweight player suddenly came, it naturally caused shocks in the entire industry.

Naturally, Penguin is the first to bear the brunt. As a leader in instant messaging software, Penguin is very clear that Microsoft did not let MSN enter the mainland market for the sake of those three melons. The second in the industry?Does not exist, MSN is to replace the position of the leader of QQ, and even drive out all instant messaging software, and become the only one.

Penguin headquarters, even at night, the meeting room is still brightly lit.

Brother Xiao Ma glanced at the executives present with a stern face.

"Starting today, all executives will cancel their vacations, and those who are on vacation will come back immediately. I need to know every step of MSN, even if it is just to update a few KB of content!"

None of the executives present complained at this time. After all, it was Microsoft, and the size of Penguin was less than a tenth of others.

Brother Xiao Ma took his gaze back, and said to Zhang Zhidong: "When will QQ Fantasy go online?"

"It is expected that the closed beta will be available next month."

Brother Xiao Ma nodded: "Competing with MSN will definitely be a long process. We not only need to spend more energy, but also spend more money to finally defeat it. Everyone should think about it carefully. If there are any ways to increase revenue, they can be brought directly to the meeting for discussion.”

On the other side, Inspur Technology.

In the conference room, Shen Lang was also holding a meeting for the YY project team.

But it's different from Xiao Ma who is putting pressure on the executives.

Shen Lang was decompressing Liang Han's team.

"Everyone don't need to be too nervous. Although Microsoft's name sounds scary, in fact, it is just a software company. Does it have any Internet products that can be sold?"

"What's more, MSN has only just entered the mainland, and it is not certain whether it can meet the needs of local users. What we need to do now is not to pay attention to what MSN will do, but to focus on doing a good job of YY and making users more like it. content."

"Besides, we are only the third in the market now, and the real headaches are QQ and Fetion."

After listening to Shen Lang's words, the atmosphere in the meeting room became much more relaxed.

But in fact, Shen Lang's mood is not so lightly expressed. The boss and the second compete for the market, and it is often the third who suffers. What's more, YY is not even the third. In the future, the instant messaging software market will definitely have more intense fighting.

Whether it is Penguin or MSN, they are strong opponents. If YY wants to break out of the encirclement, he must find a way to run away before they make a move!
(End of this chapter)