Back To 1995

  Chapter 1104 Follow the same pattern

  Song Yang asked Wesley and other executives about the Skype project and Twitter's project. Now Twitter has started to go online, and Skype is still under development.

   "It's still under development, but..."

  Wesley, who was in charge of Skype research and development, was a little hesitant, and looked at the people in the conference room, especially the several directors in charge of the ICQ project.

   "Technically, it is not the biggest problem for Skype. In terms of Internet voice call technology, ICQ and Bell Labs have sufficient technical reserves. The key is patents and legal issues!"

Internet voice calls, and even video technology, for the world's first instant messaging ICQ, have been playing for the past few years. It is not a rare technology, but because of the speed of the network, voice calls and videos are frequently used by users. Not a lot, because traffic is really expensive!

  Technological changes will bring demand for new products. The Internet has entered the broadband era, and the mobile network 3G era is coming. The demand for voice calls and video calls will usher in explosive growth.

   And when the mobile network enters the 4G era, the network speed is faster, and the traffic fee is greatly reduced, new industries such as mobile large-scale games, live broadcast, and short video era will emerge as the times require!

Skype is more like a new platform that separates ICQ's voice call and video call functions. Of course, as a professional voice call software, Skype's voice call technology is still at a level. Compared with ICQ, Skype's voice call technology is definitely more professional and has a wider range of applications. wide.

In addition to the main gimmick of free Skype calls between two users who also use Skype, Skype can also be used for remote conferences within the company and become a tool for communication between merchants and users on platforms such as eBay and Amazon. , Skype has also added a new function, you can use Skype to make calls to mobile phone users and landline users!

The positioning of Skype is that it is more inclined to cooperate with major companies. It wants to be a platform for internal company meetings, and can also be used in sales and other fields. This can greatly reduce the cost of those companies. The use of traffic is not cheaper than telephone bills, especially When calls between Skype users are free, isn't it cheaper for these companies to sell to users on the Skype platform? !

The last new feature launched, using Skype, can break through the wall dimension, illuminate the reality from the Internet, and make calls to mobile phone users and landlines. This is the reason why Wesley's R&D team and the entire ICQ are hesitant, because, This is competing with America and telecom operators all over the world!

Think about it, if you use Skype to make calls, it is free. Even if you use Skype to make calls to mobile phone users, the cost is much lower than that of the operator, and the call quality is better. In the end, users will choose to use a calling card Or Skype? !

   To be honest, the last one is the biggest "selling point" of Skype, a company that may replace global telecom operators. Is this gimmick big enough, is Bigge tall enough, and is it crazy enough for Wall Street and the entire investment industry?

  As soon as Skype comes out, you can directly say that the era of traditional calls is dead. The time when communication operators were charging phone bills is gone forever. Traditional communication is dead, and Skype is now!

  "Skype is actually an extension of the P2P technology wave. If Skype is launched, it will not only involve the patent minefield of some Internet companies such as IDT.

  ICQ may become the "public enemy" of global communication operators, and it involves many legal and patent issues. It will face lawsuits in America, old Europe and other places! "

Irene took Wesley's words and said, this is the embarrassment for ICQ. Once Skype is launched, there is no need to worry about the problem of no one using it. Users who are troubled by phone bills are Skype users who just need it. But this is to compete with communication operators for jobs.

Cutting people’s money is like killing their parents. For a long time, telephone charges have been the most important and most stable revenue of global communication operators. There is no such thing. Skype has touched this cake, and it really wants the entire communication operator industry as an enemy. up.

  For ICQ, is it worth it to provoke so many opponents for one Skype? !

For a time, the entire ICQ meeting room was full of voices. Apart from offending the communication operator industry, which was an obvious reason, many of them had selfish motives. For example, the team executives in charge of ICQ felt it. sense of crisis.

It is true that ICQ is the parent company, but with the current trend, ICQ is competing with itself and constantly launching new social platforms. Twitter and Skype are by no means the end. ICQ is likely to be difficult to maintain in the era when the social industry dominates Living.

Twitter is fine. It is not in direct competition with ICQ, but Skype is different. Although it focuses on voice calls, it can also send text and pictures. Once Skype grows up, it may take away many ICQ users. This is Something to worry the ICQ executive team.

Brothers in the same family sometimes have to settle accounts, let alone in the same company. Everyone has different interests and demands, let alone different teams. Compared with Microsoft, IBM and other companies, ICQ has different factions. The war is not serious, but these things are inevitable.

  There was constant noise in the meeting room, but Song Yang's expression didn't change much, and his expression remained the same, as if he was deaf to the disputes in the meeting room.

  "The Skype project needs to continue. Even if ICQ doesn't do it, other companies will do it. In the future, the market for voice calls and video calls will become bigger and bigger. ICQ can't miss this market!"

  As soon as Song Yang opened his mouth, the dispute in the conference room immediately subsided. Even the executives who were unwilling could only accept Song Yang's proposal at this time.

Inside ICQ, although Song Yang is not as domineering as Disney's Eisner and Sprint President Bill Asry, Song Yang has been invincible in the Internet for so many years, defeating opponents who are called geniuses one after another. , which proves that Song Yang has a unique vision in the Internet industry. Even if Song Yang's identity as a major shareholder is discarded, those present here are also known as the best in the professional manager industry. Who dares to say that their vision is better than Song Yang's? !

  In the conference room, other ICQ executives came out one after another, leaving only Irene, Wesley and other "elders" of ICQ's founding team to stay in the conference room.

   "Song, is the launch of Skype really beneficial to ICQ?!"

The rest are "our own people", and Irene is not too scruples, Song Yang and Irene, Alcatel mobile phone president Ertian, eBay president Whitman and others, in meetings and public places, No matter what the opinions are, they will not dismantle the other party's platform, and will pay attention to maintaining the other party's authority and face.

  Listening to Irene's words, Song Yang laughed, "Actually, for ICQ, Skype is not that important, nor is it indispensable!

  However, if Skype can develop, it may not be so obvious for the improvement of ICQ, but it may be helpful for the business of American Telecom, and other technology companies may need it..."

Skype is a blow to communication operators, but not all communication operators will suffer losses. Skype will have a great demand for broadband and mobile Internet, and American Telecom is the largest broadband and mobile network operator in America. Skype The more users there are, the more users America Telecom will have. Skype is equivalent to stealing users from other operators for America Telecom in disguise!

  Irene, Wesley and others are all people who have experienced the Internet war, and have also seen the intrigues of this arena. Now that they heard Song Yang's words, they keenly discovered the special meaning in Song Yang's words.

  Irene asked in a bit of shock, "Song, you want to sell Skype?!"

Song Yang seems to have done this kind of thing more than once. Song Yang played with Hotmail once. When Hotmail was at its peak, he sold it to Microsoft at a high price and cashed out a large amount of cash. Now It seems to be doing the same thing again, and do it all over again!

The sale of the Hotmail mailbox is still controversial. It is said that Song Yang’s sale of the Hotmail mailbox is a failure. Don’t you see, Microsoft relies on the Hotmail mailbox to make Microsoft even more powerful in the Internet industry. IE browser, MSN and Microsoft have many The business is more or less supported by Hotmail mailboxes. The tens of millions of users brought to Microsoft at the beginning, I don’t know how much it has helped Microsoft, which is fighting with Netscape.

But there are also those who believe that Song Yang’s sale of Hotmail mailboxes is definitely the most classic handwriting in the history of the Internet. Not to mention the cash of hundreds of millions of dollars in one sale back then, and looking at the current mailbox industry, no one is making money. Microsoft's Hotmail, Yahoo's mailbox, and dozens of other large and small mailbox companies still haven't made a penny.

And Google, in the hands of Song Yang, also began to launch its own mailbox secretly. Although Google does not directly represent Song Yang, when Google launches mailboxes, it is foreseeable that the email industry will definitely usher in a big chaos. Want to earn a penny!

Now, Irene feels that Song Yang seems to be planning to play the drama of the Hotmail mailbox and sell Skype to fatten up. Skype is not too important to ICQ, but it is still interested in other industry giants outside the Internet industry. For the company, it is very important, especially when the number of Skype users exceeds 100 million, it will be even more fragrant...

  (end of this chapter)