Who would still start a business seriously after being reborn?

Chapter 484 Microsoft's Small Counterattack
The lead technician skillfully inserted the CD into the main unit's CD drive and ran the installation program.

On the screen, the blue progress bar was moving rapidly.

"What's this thing? Is it from Kingsoft?" Xiao Chen came over and asked curiously.

"This is a great product! It's a domestically produced office software, and it looks almost exactly like Microsoft Office. It's easy to use and free!" The technician explained while keeping an eye on the progress bar. "Headquarters worked hard to secure this, and it fills the gap in our Momo system's lack of office software. From now on, all machines using the Momo system will have this installed, and we'll recommend it to our customers as soon as they turn on the machine."

"Free? Is it the same as Office?" Xiao Chen expressed his doubt.

"Whether it works or not, we'll find out by trying!" the technician grinned.

The progress bar quickly filled up.

The technician said, "Brother Chen, please have the customer save their data and shut down the computer. We'll restart the server."

"Okay." Xiao Chen nodded obediently and walked to the middle of the internet cafe, shouting, "We're going to be doing maintenance on the computers in ten minutes. Turn them all off. If the maintenance causes your equipment to explode, don't come looking for me."

Xiao Chen only had to shout once, and the customers in the internet cafe all started turning off their computers.

Shortly afterward, several technicians restarted the server.

Soon, hundreds of machines in the internet cafe were restarted.

Upon entering the desktop, a striking blue pop-up window appears: "[Free Trial] WPS Office 2003, a powerful domestic office tool! Deeply compatible with Microsoft Office, offering smoother operation!"

"Wow, this looks pretty good!" A college student waiting for a machine nearby was attracted by the pop-up window and casually clicked on the newly appeared WPS icon on his desktop.

The familiar interface layout, the familiar toolbar icon positions, and even the order of the menu dropdowns are almost exactly the same as in Word!
"Boss, this Kingsoft software looks just like Microsoft's!" the college student exclaimed in surprise, drawing sidelong glances from several people nearby.

Network administrator Xiao Chen also gathered around a machine where a technician was demonstrating: "Look, as long as you send the saved .doc file via QQ, you can open it directly with our WPS, and also this spreadsheet."

The technician opened an Excel file and said, "Formulas and charts all display and calculate normally! Even the macros you recorded, as long as they're not too obscure, can basically run! Our Momo system and WPS have collaborated to deeply optimize WPS, and its running speed absolutely surpasses that of Office on Windows."

A student who was writing a practice report was drawn over. He tried typing a few paragraphs in WPS, adjusted the formatting, and said, "Wow, it really works! It feels even faster than Word."

Many gamers are completely unaware of the importance of WPS, and this update will have no impact on them.

But for many students or office workers, it's a completely different story.

"Starting today, WPS is completely free!" Xiao Zhang shouted loudly. "If you like it, you can take it home and use it. Just go to the nearest Momo Virtual Equipment Trading Network, show your ID card and pay a ten-yuan deposit to get a genuine installation disc! You can get a refund when you're done using it! If you have a fast internet connection, you can also download it from the WPS official website!"

This is the Dandelion Project, jointly planned by Cheng Yi and Lei Jun.

Lei Jun was the one who suggested giving it away for free.

The idea of ​​exchanging disks for 10 yuan was proposed by Cheng Yi.

Their first step was to use Momo's nationwide network of internet cafes as the main platform for promoting WPS.

The Momo system was divided into two phases.

One wave consists of directly operated and affiliated internet cafes and university computer labs, which can be updated directly through the Momo system.

Internet cafes that are not part of the Momo Group and have joined the Momo system will need to manually install it.

This marks the first major push by Momo's system since the launch of its internet cafe version. Relying on the unified push capabilities of the internet cafe management system, Momo's technical team swiftly completed the forced installation of WPS in over 90% of internet cafes nationwide within a month.

This speed left Lei Jun speechless.

He finally understood why IBM chose Momo Group.

Their execution is terrifying.

One month.

In just one month, WPS was installed in over 100,000 internet cafes.

Boot-up pop-up ads, prominent desktop icons, and proactive recommendations from network administrators—this method, though simple and crude, is extremely effective.

With over 2000 million forced exposures per day, it's unmatched by any other online advertising!

This 10-yuan disk replacement storm has ignited a wildfire.

With the support of internet cafes, its power is amplified exponentially.

On the day of Minor Cold, primary, secondary, and tertiary schools began their winter vacation one after another, and internet cafes across the country were overcrowded.

从1月1日到1月7日，新出炉的52万套印着堇山LOGO的WPS安装光盘就被抢购一空。

This figure even exceeds Kingsoft's total retail sales over the past year!
Countless students, small shop owners, and ordinary office workers carried this small CD and brought WPS home, into schools, and into the computers of millions of families and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Dandelion seeds, aided by the strong winds from the internet cafe, drifted across the country.

WPS can be used in the Momo system, but Office cannot be accessed in the Momo system.

This amazing transformation began in the internet cafe.

In this era where computers and internet access are still considered luxuries, not everyone can write reports on their own computer.

Many people choose to write reports in internet cafes, and WPS is compatible with both Office and the two operating systems, making it the first choice for many.

Faced with WPS's strong counterattack, Microsoft China also reacted quickly.

Although they tolerate the existence of Office piracy, this only applies to ordinary individual users who don't have much profit to make. For small and medium-sized enterprises, they still value genuine software.

Any small or medium-sized enterprise that dares to use pirated software will be dealt with severely.

In 2003 alone, dozens of small companies were sued for using pirated operating systems and pirated Office software. Although the fines were only tens of thousands of yuan, this served as a warning to many small and medium-sized enterprises.

The latter, in particular, is used by almost every small and medium-sized company. However, if a genuine copy is installed, the price is too high, at 3241 yuan per set. For companies with many computers, the expenditure on software alone can reach hundreds of thousands of yuan.

Microsoft may not care about those pirate users, but WPS's target is clearly not just those pirate users.

It's fair to say that WPS is a sword pressed against Microsoft's throat.

After Microsoft took the office software market from WPS, the office software market alone brought them nearly $20 billion in revenue.

If they lose this market, it would mean losing a quarter of their revenue from the Chinese market.

That hurts so much.

With Microsoft headquarters embroiled in fierce competition from IBM and Intel, and facing numerous challenges in various patent areas, they simply lacked the resources to focus on the Chinese market. They could only dispatch a research and development team overnight to Microsoft China to discuss solutions. Finally, on January 13th, Microsoft Office 2003 was rushed to release a feature called Information Access Control.

This feature is essentially a digital rights management technology.

Users can set permissions for documents, such as prohibiting copying, printing, or even preventing unauthorized software from opening them.

This is an extremely ruthless tactic in the office software industry! When a Word document with an IRM lock is sent to a client or partner, it will be completely unopenable if the recipient's computer does not have a genuine or corresponding version of Office installed.

This is tantamount to artificially creating a compatibility gap between users, attempting to tightly bind users to Microsoft's ecosystem.

This news undoubtedly put a pause on the rapidly growing momentum of Violet Mountain.

If this document locking issue cannot be resolved, WPS's hard-earned reputation for compatibility will collapse instantly, and the market door that has just been opened may be closed again.

After all, their goal in all this effort is to participate in government and enterprise procurement projects.

"Damn it, Microsoft is a complete rogue group! Isn't this just playing dirty tricks?" Du Yu was so angry that he was jumping up and down in his office at Momo Technology Building.

He couldn't believe that a company as big as Microsoft would resort to such rogue tactics.

The most critical issue was that Jinshan's technical staff worked overtime for three consecutive days but still couldn't find a breakthrough.

In terms of technical expertise, Microsoft's R&D team was practically a game-changer for Jinshan's technical staff.

"You'll see later. The bigger the company, the more ruthless it is. Refined companies all die on the road to progress." Cheng Yi turned to look at Du Yusheng and said, "Liu Bang was a rogue, but he founded the Han Dynasty for four hundred years. This time, I'll teach you a lesson. Don't think that Western high society is full of gentlemen in suits."

After Cheng Yi finished speaking, he turned around and asked Lin Qingyin, who was deep in thought in front of the computer, "So, is it possible to make a technical breakthrough?"

Looking across China now, the only person who can rival Microsoft's technical staff is Lin Qingyin.

Lin Qingyin studies with the programming fanatics at the Gods Network Research Institute every day, making her virtually invincible in the domestic programming field.

If even Lin Qingyin can't be dealt with, then Cheng Yi will have no choice but to ask the group of lunatics at the Gods Network Research Institute to take action.

But if it really comes to that, then things will get complicated.

Those lunatics are all arrogant and do things their own way. Even if they agree to take action, they'll probably drag their feet.

Lin Qingyin frowned and said in a low voice, "In principle, IRM's core encryption and authorization verification rely on Microsoft's servers and specific protocols. If we try to crack it head-on, the risk is very high, and it would be easy for them to find a handle to sue us for infringement."

"Hmm..." Cheng Yi nodded, this was also the most troublesome thing for him and Lei Jun.

Microsoft launched this feature to lure Cheng Yi and his team into this trap.

If they manage to crack it by force, Microsoft's legal team will definitely follow up.

Now, almost all government and enterprise clients in China are Microsoft's customers, so the outcome of this lawsuit is pretty much predictable.

If we lose, we'll have to accept the conditions proposed by Microsoft.

A public apology is a given. In addition to the public apology, WPS will likely need to remove the infringing features.

Cheng Yi asked, "Is there any other way?"

Lin Qingyin thought for a while before saying, "Perhaps we can make a peeler!"

"A stripper?" Cheng Yi was taken aback.

“Right!” Lin Qingyin habitually picked up the paper and pen Cheng Yi used for drawing and quickly drew a flowchart on the white paper, saying, “We won’t directly crack the encryption, but will create a plug-in tool that runs locally.”

"When a user tries to open an IRM-protected document with WPS, the tool will simulate a trusted environment and then intervene in the document decryption process, only stripping away the outermost DRM permission control shell and retaining the original content of the document."

As Lin Qingyin drew, she explained, "It's like stealing the content without touching the lock! The resulting document is a clean, unprotected .doc file that WPS can open normally! Moreover, the stripping process is entirely local, without internet connection, and leaves no trace!"

"Sure! Absolutely feasible." Cheng Yi kissed Lin Qingyin's cheek and laughed, "You're just like my Doraemon!"

"There's someone here." Lin Qingyin lowered her head slightly, her cheeks flushing red instantly.

"I didn't see anything." Du Yusheng scrambled his hands in front of him and said, "That's strange, I suddenly can't see anything. I need to go to the hospital."

As he spoke, Du Yusheng ran out of Cheng Yi's office.

Cheng Yi and Lin Qingyin squeezed together in the large executive chair. He put his arm around Lin Qingyin's slender waist and laughed, "Let's call it the Icebreaker! Qingyin, this time you'll lead the team yourself. You can pick any programmer from Momo Group you want. Get this Icebreaker out as fast as you can, before users panic!"

"Okay." Lin Qingyin felt Cheng Yi's mischievous hand, and a pleading look flashed in her eyes.

Seeing that Cheng Yi had withdrawn his mischievous hand, Lin Qingyin breathed a sigh of relief.

She didn't know why, but every time Cheng Yi hugged her, she always felt a strange, tingling, itchy sensation that almost brought her thoughts to a standstill.

That afternoon, Lin Qingyin selected more than a dozen programmers from the Momo System Research Center to form an icebreaker R&D team.

"President Cheng, are you sure you can get it done within three days?" Lei Jun's tone was urgent on the phone.

He's starting to have a mental breakdown.

Now he finally understands why the chairman agreed to Microsoft's almost domineering proposal in 1996.

That's because of the current situation.

In the technology field, Microsoft is far ahead of the competition.

They only sent one R&D team, and they wiped out all those programmers.

However, although Lei Jun was somewhat devastated, he was not discouraged.

Their computer technology started late, and their companies are all domestic programmers, while Microsoft recruits geniuses from all over the world.

There's simply no comparison between them.

So when Lei Jun heard Cheng Yi say that he could solve this problem, his first thought was that it was impossible.

After working together for more than a month, he gradually got to know Cheng Yi.

This guy is too cunning.

It's possible that he's deliberately lying to lull him into a false sense of security, preventing him from giving up, or perhaps he's using this as leverage to trick him into agreeing to some outrageous conditions.

(End of this chapter)