Restart life

Chapter 143 0140 [There's such a thing as an anti-QQ alliance?]

Xu Fengyin's third day at the company.

In the large classroom, Chen Guiliang was giving a lesson when his phone suddenly vibrated.

Chen Guiliang took out his phone and saw the text message read: "Go to the Innovation Center in the Science Park immediately. Someone from MSN China is here and plans to make an angel investment in Renren.com."

So fast?
And it shouldn't be MSN that's investing in this!

Chen Guiliang instinctively sensed something was wrong and replied to the text message: "Tell them to wait, I have to go to class."

"???"

At the Innovation Center, Ao Yanchen replied with a strange expression, sending three question marks.

But Chen Guiliang did not send any more text messages.

Ao Yanzhen forced herself to calm down, and then it dawned on her: this was President Chen's negotiation strategy. Yes, that must be it!

At this moment, in Wang Kai's office, besides Ao Yanzhen, there was also Du Zhe, a senior executive sent by MSN China.

After chatting with Du Zhe for a while, Wang Kai asked Ao Yanchen with a smile, "When will President Chen be able to come over?"

Ao Yanzhen decided to implement Chen Guiliang's negotiation strategy: "President Chen said he has to attend a class and can't leave for the time being."

What the hell?

Wang Kai's smile became somewhat stiff.

This is MSN China, a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Microsoft!

At a time like this, why are you still attending classes?

And you failed 6 courses last semester, and now you're telling me you need to study hard?

Wang Kai said to Du Zhe, who was in charge of investment, "Mr. Du, that's how Peking University students are; they're always completely focused on their studies."

“It’s alright,” Du Zhe laughed. “Investment deals aren’t something that can be finalized in a minute. A delay of an hour or two is nothing.”

Ao Yanzhen sat beside him, her mind racing: "I wonder how much this angel investment will value me at. That bastard promised me stock options, will he back out at the last minute?"
Ao Yanchen tentatively asked, "Mr. Du, what is your valuation of Xiaonei.com?"

“That depends on the detailed data from the school’s intranet,” Du Zhe replied in a very formulaic manner. “Today’s meeting was just the initial contact. If your company is willing to accept the investment, you will need to provide a business plan and other relevant materials, and our professional team will conduct an evaluation.”

Ao Yanchen asked a few more questions, but didn't get much out of them.

Wang Kai said, "Mr. Du, would you like to take a look around the Science and Technology Building? Our science park has many innovative companies. Even if we only invest in Xiaonei.com this time, we can learn about the others. Perhaps there will be opportunities for cooperation in the future."

"No need for that," Du Zhe refused outright.

The three of them sat in the office, chatting idly from time to time, patiently waiting for Chen Guiliang to finish class.

A full hour later, Chen Guiliang finally arrived on his bicycle.

"Mr. Chen, this is Mr. Du Zhe from MSN China."

"Hello, Mr. Du."

"Hello, Mr. Chen."

The two shook hands and greeted each other; Wang Kai wanted to listen in.

Du Zhe said tactfully, "Manager Wang, could you please arrange a small meeting room for us? It might disturb your work if we negotiate in your office."

"No problem." Wang Kai led them to the conference room and then had his men bring tea over.

In the small conference room, only Chen Guiliang, Ao Yanzhen, and Du Zhe remained.

Chen Guiliang was the first to express his doubts: "MSN China also has venture capital business?"

Du Zhe smiled and said, "Not long ago, we acquired a telecommunications value-added service company in Shenzhen."

Chen Guiliang asked, "It seems that the content on Renren.com is in competition with MSN Spaces, right?"

MSN Spaces offers blog, photo album, and list services. The Chinese beta version has only been online for a little over two months, and it competes with Renren.com's blog and photo album features.

Du Zhe said, "MSN Spaces users are mainly working professionals, especially elite white-collar workers. Renren.com users are students. The two can complement each other."

Chen Guiliang increasingly felt that something was wrong: "What is your valuation of Xiaonei.com? How many shares do you want? What else do you want from Xiaonei.com? Just say it directly, stop beating around the bush."

Du Zhe laughed and said, "President Chen is being too hasty."

“Mr. Du’s arrival was really suspicious, and I was unsure of what to do,” Chen Guiliang said frankly. “I don’t understand what you’re planning to do, so I’m not really willing to accept the investment.”

Du Zhe thought for a moment and said, "We plan to invest $50 to acquire a 20% stake in Xiaonei.com, and we will not interfere with the management of Xiaonei.com. There is only one requirement: Xiaonei.com must join the Anti-QQ Alliance."

"What the heck?" Chen Guiliang thought he had misheard.

Since it was news that would be announced soon anyway, Du Zhe simply stated it clearly: "Nine major websites, including Taobao, CCID, Mop, and Lianzhong, have formed an anti-QQ alliance with MSN China. All members of the anti-QQ alliance will receive traffic support from MSN Messenger."

Chen Guiliang wanted to laugh when he heard this. How much hate does QQ have?
It's like a group team fighting a boss.

Chen Guiliang asked, "What do I need to do after joining the Anti-QQ Alliance?"

Du Zhe said:

"Users registering on Renren.com will no longer be able to fill in their QQ number; they can only fill in their MSN number. We will also build a channel so that Renren.com users who enter the workforce in the future can directly import their accounts into MSN Spaces."

"That's about it. You just need to compete with QQ Space for users. Mr. Chen probably doesn't know yet, but QQ is about to launch QQ Space. The website is almost finished, and it will start internal testing no later than next month. The functions are similar to your Renren.com!"

QQ's business scope is so vast that it's no surprise it attracts hatred.

MSN China also had these businesses, but they found it difficult to relaunch them, so they brought together a bunch of allies to engage in "channel outsourcing".

MSN's shopping channel was outsourced to Taobao. Its community and entertainment content operations were outsourced to Mop.com. Its IT and technology news services were outsourced to CCIDnet… Meanwhile, Renren.com and MSN Spaces, one targeting students and the other targeting the general public, could join forces to compete against QQ Spaces.

Furthermore, MSN China had a clever plan: to connect its users with Renren.com. Renren.com's student users could be directly imported into MSN Spaces upon graduation, making Renren.com a training base for their future users.

The terms they offered were quite tempting: Chen Guiliang would receive angel investment, and Xiaonei.com would receive traffic from MSN Messenger.

It seems like a win-win situation.

The plan seemed promising, but its execution was a complete mess.

For such a grand and massive plan, Microsoft and MSN headquarters only allocated $500 million to MSN China, leaving MSN China to raise the rest of the money itself.

Furthermore, the vast majority of MSN China's decisions and applications must be reported through multiple levels of Microsoft's global system. Contracts that can be approved independently are limited to projects under $50.

In other words, MSN China's investment in Xiaonei.com can only be a maximum of $50. Anything exceeding that amount would require approval from Microsoft headquarters, a process that can take over a year, and possibly even two!
Chen Guiliang asked, "Mr. Du, do you think it's possible for $50 to buy 20% of my shares?"

Du Zhe coaxed, "Mr. Chen, you can't just look at the money. With Microsoft's $50 angel investment, other investors will have confidence, and Xiaonei.com's value will skyrocket instantly. Moreover, Xiaonei.com will also get traffic from MSN Messenger. It will also help improve Xiaonei.com's image, after all, we are MSN, not a low-quality communication tool like QQ."

These words almost made Chen Guiliang laugh.

Apart from the statement that "his net worth skyrocketed," everything else is nonsense.

Moreover, Du Zhe didn't think he was talking nonsense, because he genuinely looked down on QQ.

At that time, QQ held a 77.8% market share in China's instant messaging market, while MSN held a 10.87% market share.

However, of the approximately 2000 million business professionals in China, 1075 million are MSN users, while QQ only has 950 million. Moreover, the majority of these business professionals, especially those at the senior management level, use MSN.

This situation gives people the illusion that MSN is high-end and classy, ​​while QQ is low-end, vulgar, and difficult to use.

It's not just business people who think this way; many students do too.

They take pride in having an MSN account and are ashamed to use QQ for communication.

This has even created a public opinion, with media outlets widely predicting the downfall of QQ.

From Microsoft to MSN headquarters, and even MSN China, everyone believed that eliminating QQ was only a matter of time!
Chen Guiliang said, "Mr. Du, I appreciate your high regard for Xiaonei.com. But if the valuation is less than $500 million, I don't think there's any point in continuing the discussion. Moreover, Xiaonei.com's user base is still growing rapidly, and the next time we talk, it might not be about $500 million."

"Mr. Chen, won't you reconsider?" Du Zhe asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "It's up to you to reconsider. I have classes to teach, so I won't keep you company any longer."

"Alright, I'll go back and discuss it further." Du Zhe stood up and shook hands with Chen Guiliang.

This guy was quite polite; before leaving, he made a point of saying goodbye to Wang Kai.

Despite Wang Kai's repeated attempts to persuade him to stay, Du Zhe politely declined.

"How did the talks go?" Wang Kai asked Chen Guiliang when he returned.

Chen Guiliang said, "The offer was too low, and the demands were too high. I refused."

Wang Kai didn't ask for any more details, because it would be pointless; he was just expressing his regret.

Chen Guiliang took Ao Yanchen back to the company, and while waiting for the elevator, he said, "Don't you have anything to say?"

"What's the point of me saying more?" Ao Yanchen retorted.

Chen Guiliang said, "MSN China is too petty and is destined to fail."

Actually, it's not that they're petty, but rather that the authorization from headquarters is too limited. And it will only get tighter; if MSN China wants to add a new feature, it needs to go through layers of approval, and by the time it's finally approved, it's too late.

Ultimately, this resulted in QQ's user experience leaving MSN far behind!
Chen Guiliang said, "We contacted Tencent and told them that MSN wanted to form an alliance with us to deal with QQ, to see if we could get some benefits from Tencent."

"What other benefits do you want to gain from Tencent?" Ao Yanchen asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "At least give me a 5-digit QQ number, right?"

Ao Yanchen was utterly speechless, but added, "I want one too."

……

This year is a very special year for the Chinese internet.

Douban, Tudou, 56.com, Qunar, PPTV, 58.com... were successively established. Renren.com and 5Q Campus Network, representing another era, were also born that year.

The second spring of the internet industry has arrived!
Last month, when Chen Guiliang was criticizing "Wolf Totem," Shanda CEO Tang Jun walked into Chen's office and said, "Let's make our move tonight."

The following day, Shanda announced that it had acquired a 19.5% stake in Sina from the Nasdaq open market. Shanda was now Sina's largest shareholder.

At the same time the news was released, Mr. Chen called Sina CEO Wang Yan, who was completely unaware of it.

Sina was forced to launch a poison pill plan.

Shanda wanted to take the poison pill by force, but it didn't have enough funds, so Tang Jun brought Yahoo in as well.

The outcome of Tang Jun's negotiations with Yahoo was that Yahoo headquarters would invest $10 billion in Shanda, in which case Shanda would acquire Yahoo China. Shanda would then use this $10 billion to complete its acquisition of Sina. However, for the next three to five years, Yahoo headquarters would retain a controlling stake in Shanda.

Mr. Chen was unwilling to relinquish his controlling stake and resolutely refused to sign.

The $10 billion that Mr. Chen rejected was injected into Alibaba, which was short of funds, a few months later...

Tang Jun later often complained, "If Chen Tianqiao had signed back then, there would be no Alibaba!"

This year was a year of great events and far-reaching impact.

Now there's another troublemaker, Chen Guiliang. He finally got through to Tencent's Pony Ma on the phone and immediately said, "I need 10 five-digit QQ numbers."

(End of this chapter)