Who would still start a business seriously after being reborn?

Chapter 687: Old Business

Lei Jun replied with a smile, "We're not retaliating; we're serving the internet cafe industry. We believe the internet should be open and mutually beneficial, not monopolistic and suppressive. Microsoft and Samsung have their choices, and we have our principles. Our goal is to make users comfortable and internet cafe owners feel secure in their profits."

Sitting in the audience, watching Lei Jun ramble on and on about things he didn't mean, Zhang Lingyu really admired Cheng Yi's judgment.

Since the establishment of Momo Group, Cheng Yi's vision seems to have never been wrong.

This seemingly shy and somewhat dull programmer actually spoke better than he sang when he got on stage.

The press conference was a great success, and many media outlets regarded it as a declaration of Momo Group's counterattack.

The next day, the media published the content of the press conference, along with comparative test data of the Moc-os Internet Cafe Edition and the XP Speed ​​Edition.

On the homepage of Xinlang, there are even special columns dedicated to the two operating systems.

The two were compared repeatedly.

On the most classic and widely used Pentium 3 machines, the Moc-OS internet cafe version ran World of Warcraft at 45 frames per second, while the XP Speed ​​Edition only reached 30 frames per second. The installation time for Moc-OS was 8 minutes, and for XP Speed ​​Edition it was 15 minutes...

They included detailed comparison videos, clearly showing the differences between the two.

XP Speed ​​Edition is already widely known thanks to its extensive advertising, so Moc-os Internet Cafe Edition doesn't need much promotion.

It's enough to prove they're better than XP Speed ​​Edition.

This is how many markets work: those who act first enjoy the benefits of being first, while those who come later enjoy the benefits of being first.

The next day, Cheng Yi summoned Lei Jun, who had won his first battle, to his office.

"President Cheng." Lei Jun appeared somewhat reserved in front of Cheng Yi.

The more he learned about the computer and mobile phone industries, the more he felt his own insignificance.

The IT industry is truly magnificent.

But this young man in front of us has single-handedly led the PC industry in China.

It truly is a case of "Glory on the left, China on the right, Lianxiang at the waist, and Momo on the chest," meaning that anyone who stands in the way is unstoppable, and even Buddhas are no match for it.

"Sit down." Cheng Yi pointed to the sofa opposite him, pushed a cup of tea over, and smiled, "Your performance on stage yesterday was better than I expected."

Lei Jun smiled upon hearing this, and said with a hint of shyness, "The hardware knowledge you had me cram for was really useful, otherwise I might have really been stumped when faced with reporters' questions."

Cheng Yi knew that Lei Jun was trying to pin the credit on him.

Lei Jun attends various interview programs and press conferences in Europe; these things are nothing special to him.

However, Cheng Yi was quite satisfied that Lei Jun attributed the credit to him.

As long as Lei Jun doesn't become arrogant and complacent, he can become the sharpest knife in Lei Jun's hand.

It's not quite dragon slaying, but it's at least at the level of a judge.

Yesterday, Lei Jun was able to use data to explain the advantages of Moc-os on stage and also answer the sharp questions raised by reporters, which was a very good performance.

Keep in mind that Lei Jun only spent a month in intensive training.

Cheng Yi put down his teacup, took out a gold-embossed appointment letter from the drawer, pushed it in front of Lei Jun, and said, "You've got a pretty good grasp of the basics, it's time to put it into practice."

Lei Jun's gaze fell on the three words "appointment letter," and he paused for a moment before picking it up with some excitement.

The moment he opened it, his pupils contracted sharply.

The document clearly states: Lei Jun has been appointed as the Vice President of our company, in charge of market and channel development, and will be fully responsible for the market promotion and partner liaison of BBA smartphones.

The signature is: BBA Mobile Communications Company.

"It really worked..." Lei Jun looked up, his voice tinged with surprise.

Although he had great faith in Cheng Yi's abilities—after all, Cheng Yi rarely broke his word—he hadn't expected the appointment to come so quickly, and the position to be so crucial.

"Microsoft and Samsung are focusing their battle on hardware and PC systems. We can't just follow their lead." Cheng Yi leaned back on the sofa and said calmly, "It will be very difficult to take down Microsoft and Samsung. All I can do right now is to simply stall them. However, I suspect that mobile phones will be the next internet gateway, even closer to users than PCs."

He pointed to the market and channels section on the appointment letter and continued, "Your performance at today's press conference shows that you understand what users want. Internet cafe owners want to save money, and ordinary users want a smooth experience. It's the same with making mobile phones. Samsung has the technology, but they don't understand the habits of Chinese users, let alone how to integrate with our existing channels."

Holding the appointment letter, Lei Jun suddenly recalled the distribution channels he had seen in Europe during his previous inspection trip.

Their mobile phone network is extensive, but not deep enough.

What does Momo Group have?
The network includes 140,000 offline internet cafes nationwide, over 10,000 stores of Shilla Hotel, TV shopping platforms, Universal Vision's channels, and a large user base on social media.

If these channels could be integrated with mobile phone sales, their power would be immeasurable.

“But Mr. Cheng, Samsung already has a mature brand and technology in the mobile phone field. We are starting from scratch…” Lei Jun did not say it was difficult, but his concerns were obvious.

Cheng Yi smiled and picked up a document from the table. It contained a map showing the locations of the Shilla Hotel branches.

He said, "Li Fuzhen has agreed that BBA phones can first be placed in the Shilla Hotel's high-end experience area to test the technology among business people. In addition, Alipay now has more than 50 million users in Asia. We can run a promotion where users can link their phones to Alipay and get a discount on their first order. What you need to do is connect these scattered channels and then highlight our differentiation."

"The seamless integration of the Moc-OS system with mobile phones, as well as optimizations for game users." He paused and said, "Our mobile phones must synchronize accounts with the computers in internet cafes. Players can play 'Honghuang Zhanji' in internet cafes and then use their mobile phones to receive quests and check strategies when they leave."

“These are our core competitive advantages. Samsung can’t do this, and neither can Microsoft. So, your next strategy should focus on these channels,” Professor Cheng Yi said.

Looking at Cheng Yi, Lei Jun's last bit of concern disappeared.

He suddenly realized that what Cheng Yi wanted was not to make a mobile phone, but to put all of Momo Group's existing operating system, games, payment, and offline channels into the new container of the mobile phone, and create an ecosystem that no one else could dismantle.

However, to Lei Jun, Cheng Yi's words sounded like a fantasy.

What Cheng Yi said is too big to fit on a computer, so how did he manage to put it on such a small phone?
That's a joke.

However, Lei Jun strongly agreed with Cheng Yi's almost insane idea.

The most interesting thing about business is turning the impossible into the possible, which is the fundamental reason why so many people strive for it.

“I understand what you mean.” Lei Jun carefully put the appointment letter into his bag and said firmly, “I will hand over the work in the European region as soon as possible. I will report to BBA next week, first to coordinate chip adaptation with the ARM team, and then develop the channel solution.”

“No need to rush the handover.” Cheng Yi waved his hand, poured Lei Jun another cup of tea, and said, “You’ll need to keep an eye on things in Europe for a while. Intel and AMD’s chip price increases this time also include automotive chips in Europe. There’s a lot of commotion there now. Enze Capital is talking to the EU. Go and build a bridge with the European teams of BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi), and while you’re at it, check if there are any loopholes in Samsung’s mobile phone distribution channels in Europe.”

Seeing the drive in Lei Jun's eyes, he added, "Remember, we're not in BBA (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) competing with Samsung for the mobile phone market; we're opening up a new path outside the encirclement of Microsoft and Samsung. Once we've established this path, no matter how much they restrict our PC hardware, they won't be able to do anything to us." Lei Jun nodded vigorously, and as he stood up, the appointment letter in his hand seemed to gain weight.

That wasn't a job appointment; it was Cheng Yi handing him over to the next battlefield.

He really enjoys the feeling of pushing his limits.

After Lei Jun left, Cheng Yi picked up his phone and dialed Lin Qingyin's number.

In the graduate student dormitory, Lin Qingyin's fingers flew across the keyboard.

Her desktop was covered with various installation packages.

2006 stock query tool, Warcraft 3 editor, free novel downloader...

These are all rogue software programs that Cheng Yi personally participated in designing.

Each one is designed with great care, especially in terms of bundling, which is several orders of magnitude better than current software.

Cheng Yi was in charge of the design, and Lin Qingyin was in charge of the implementation.

Actually, these kinds of small software programs are a bit difficult to design, but very easy to write. She wrote five small software programs in just one week.

Upon receiving Cheng Yi's call, Lin Qingyin laughed and said, "It's finished. I'll send you the final episode of 'Best of Watching Dramas' right away."

"Okay." Cheng Yi was chatting with Lin Qingyin when he received the installation package sent by Lin Qingyin on QQ.

The installation package shows a size of only 5.3MB, but after downloading and unfolding the compressed file, the hidden interlocking programs such as video plugins, desktop calendars, and browser navigation locks add up to more than 40MB.

Cheng Yi tried installing it once. When the progress bar reached 50%, three checkboxes suddenly popped up. The "Recommended Installation" option, which was selected by default, was as small as an ant.

“Not bad.” He nodded and said to Lin Qingyin, “We need to add an auto-start function. Once the user installs it, it will automatically run in the background the next time they start their computer, and it should fill up the memory.”

Lin Qingyin asked in surprise, "If we do this, won't users realize that there's something wrong with our software?"

“Even if we find out, it’s useless.” Cheng Yi smiled and said, “Our current bundling method is perfect. The only way for users to completely uninstall this software is to reinstall the system.”

"If users find out about this, they'll probably be furious," Lin Qingyin couldn't help but say.

"How would users know?" Cheng Yi laughed. "We don't post under our real names."

"Oh, right, you also need to embed a Samsung app in the plugin to help attract some hatred."

"Okay." Lin Qingyin asked curiously, "What are these software programs used for?"

"This is a competition of technology. If they want to solve this problem, they have to show their true skills. Wasn't Microsoft's XP Speedup just hyped up by optimizing old computers? Let's make it revert to its original state after only a couple of days of optimization."

As they were talking, Cheng Yi had already uploaded the software to software download websites such as Huajun.

Huajun Software Park's review process has always been lenient towards these kinds of small tools. After uploading "Drama Chaser," Cheng Yi checked the free novel reader he uploaded yesterday, which is now featured in the popular download recommendations.

Based on the description of novels such as "The Journey of the Immortals," "The Legend of the Little Soldier," and "Zhu Xian" being available for free without pop-up ads, the number of downloads exceeded 10,000 in just one day.

A few days later, Wang Lei, a Samsung Express technician in a residential community in Jingzhou City, was caught red-handed by his neighbor, Aunt Li, as soon as he opened his door.

"Master Wang, didn't you install XP Speed ​​Edition for me the day before yesterday? Today, it's so slow that even opening a webpage takes forever!" Aunt Li held up her laptop, the desktop weather plugin that kept popping up on the screen couldn't be turned off, and ads kept popping up in the lower right corner, occasionally even showing a sexy picture.

When Wang Lei took the computer, he saw that the Task Manager was filled with more than a dozen background processes running.

Stock quote notifications, game gift pack reminders, novel update notifications...

Each one takes up a lot of memory.

"Did you install any software?" Wang Lei quickly invited Aunt Li into his home. While checking her, he asked, "You have too many processes running. Even the latest Core processor will lag."

"I only downloaded a novel reader and a stock checker, nothing else," Aunt Li said with a wronged expression. "If I had known it would turn out like this, I wouldn't have upgraded!"

"This has nothing to do with your system upgrade."

"This didn't happen with my previous system!"

"You didn't download these rogue software programs before."

"The problem is clearly with this system!"

Seeing that he couldn't reason with Aunt Li, Wang Lei didn't say anything more and silently helped her uninstall the software.

He carefully cleaned up the system and deleted the plugins from the registry. Just as he finished, a college student walked in carrying a desktop computer and said, "Master, I installed XP Speed ​​Edition to play KartRider. It was fine yesterday, but today it's so laggy I can't even play. I deleted the plugins but they kept reinstalling themselves!"

"What the hell? What did you guys order?" Wang Lei took the computer with a speechless expression.

He checked again and found that the college student and Aunt Li had similar problems: they had both downloaded malicious plugins, which then maliciously downloaded several other software programs, consuming memory.

Before he could even begin to help the college student, his phone rang urgently.

"Master Wang, is there a problem with your system installation?"

"Master Wang, could you come over and take another look? My computer is completely frozen; it's not as smooth as it used to be."

"Master Wang..."

One phone call after another left Wang Lei completely dumbfounded.

What... what's going on?

That afternoon, the topic of XP Speed ​​Edition lagging surged to the top of the Sina Forum's trending list.

"They used to brag about factory optimization, but now it seems like a joke!"

"I installed three free software programs, and my computer immediately crashed with a blue screen. Is Microsoft just trying to scam me?"

"After comparing them, Momo's system is still cleaner, and it doesn't lag when playing games."

Before Cao Zhengze's paid trolls even got started, the real user complaints had already piled up in the comments section of the post, numbering in the thousands.

(End of this chapter)