Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Beibing Country is vast and sparsely populated. Outside of Moscow, the people in the remaining regions had one thing in common: they were poor!

Even a powerhouse like Apple only sold a hundred thousand units per month in Beibing Country.

Of course, Orange Mobile Phone’s sales were concentrated in low-end models. In the mid-range market, it still couldn’t match Mountain Star and Apple.

Chen Yansen multitasked, listening to the work report while flipping through the competitor price monitoring list and store foot traffic analysis report for the Eastern European Market.

Next, the market heads from various countries brought up numerous other issues, such as customs clearance delays, progress on system language optimization, and the review mechanism for localized marketing materials.

Zhou Shouzhi calmly took in the information, analyzed it, grasped the core issues, and then provided solutions.

Exceptional managers typically have a meticulously logical methodology. As long as their thinking was sound, their direction wouldn’t be wrong.

Chen Yansen looked at Lao Zhou and nodded in satisfaction. ’No wonder Lei Yijun is usually so stingy, yet he’s willing to give Zhou Shouzhi raises and stock options. This guy’s ability to get things done really is outstanding!’

In February, total sales in the Eastern European Market were 405,000.

Next, Orange Technology would continue to increase the frequency of its marketing activities and strengthen its channel development.

For example, they planned to launch a summer student discount, finalize a revenue-sharing plan for contract phones with Romanian carriers, and move forward with preparations to open a direct-sales store in Serbia.

An hour later, the Orange Mobile Phone Eastern European Market monthly meeting concluded.

Seeing that his boss hadn’t expressed any opinions during the entire meeting, Zhou Shouzhi waited until everyone else had left and asked softly, ”Boss, do you have any new directives for our expansion efforts in the Eastern European Market?”

”You’ve done a good job with building the channel network, brand promotion, and localized operations. However, the proportion of low-end models is too high. It’s fine to use low-priced products to open up the market, but we can’t rely on a low-price strategy long-term,” Chen Yansen said unhurriedly.

”Understood, Boss. I’ll re-evaluate the expansion plan for the Eastern European Market right away,” Zhou Shouzhi immediately responded.

”Has the time for the new product launch been set?” Chen Yansen asked.

”March 18th, 2 PM, at the Sky Garden,” Zhou Shouzhi replied.

”This will be the debut of Aurora Future OS. I need you to keep an eye on it for me. Make sure nothing goes wrong,” Chen Yansen said, patting Lao Zhou on the shoulder.

”Don’t worry. Wang Teng, Ye Qiuping, and I will review the whole process again before next week,” Zhou Shouzhi nodded.

Chen Yansen hummed in acknowledgment, then got up and walked out of the conference room.

He glanced out the window. The sky was filled with iridescent clouds, and in the distance, the rapeseed fields were a lush, vibrant green.

He raised his wrist to look at his watch. It was a quarter past four in the afternoon.

Back in his office, President Chen plopped down into his chair, gestured with his hand, and a bottle of ice-cold Coke flew into his palm.

TSSSK!

Chen Yansen took a big gulp, then propped his feet up on the desk, leaned back in his plush executive chair, and comfortably scrolled through Mimo Short Video.

’I have to admit, the recommendation algorithm Zhang Yiming and Liang Bo came up with is truly one-of-a-kind. The more you scroll, the more addictive it becomes.’

To get more traffic, video creators in the North American Region had come up with all sorts of ways to push the boundaries of suggestive content.

President Chen scrolled casually for a few hours and couldn’t help but marvel, ’So wild.’

The content and values promoted on Mimo were too vulgar, but that was precisely what catered to the tastes of local users.

Total registered users had already surpassed thirty million, with over ten million daily active users.

Twitter’s short-video app, Vine, was no match for Mimo at all.

「Meanwhile.」

A bombshell piece of news broke: Microsoft was about to acquire Nokia’s mobile phone division for an estimated price of over 7 billion US Dollars!

It instantly sent shockwaves across the internet!

Although Nokia’s glory had faded due to the failure of the Symbian OS, its global phone shipments were still ranked second last year.

With 330 million units sold, it was only 50 million units behind first place. And now it had fallen to the point of selling itself off?

In reality, while Nokia’s sales figures seemed extremely high, over 70% of them were feature phones. It was just a paper tiger!

And Microsoft’s motive for acquiring Nokia was also very simple!

First, to seize a larger share of the mobile market, compete with Apple and Google, and increase the market share of the Windows Phone OS.

Second, Nokia owned 8,500 design patents and 30,000 utility patents. By acquiring these key patents, Microsoft could enhance its own competitiveness.

To put it bluntly, Microsoft wanted to leverage Nokia’s position in the phone market to drive the ecosystem development of its Windows Phone OS.

In Microsoft’s view, it was just a mobile operating system. The technical difficulty wasn’t high, so there was no need to just hand the market over to Android and iOS.

As the reigning hegemon of the PC era’s operating systems, it naturally wanted to solidify its position in the mobile era as well.

Splurging tens of billions of Hua Yuan just to fight for market share in the mobile network space was truly staggering.

Although Orange Technology’s Aurora Future OS hadn’t been released yet, word of it had already spread throughout the industry.

”Popularizing Aurora Future OS won’t be so simple. Windows Phone is coming in strong, and Android and iOS are already well-established,” Lei Yijun said, smiling and shaking his head after hearing the news.

He believed in Orange Technology’s R&D capabilities, and he believed in Chen Yansen’s operational skills and business acumen, but the process of replacing Android or iOS would be as difficult as reshaping heaven and earth.

”President Lei, I’ve already submitted the production plans for the Xiaomi 2A and Xiaomi 2S to the Orange Phone Factory. Equipment calibration is expected to be completed by mid-March,” Li Wanqiang interjected.

To him, developing their own OS was a thankless task. He didn’t understand why Chen Yansen was spending so much manpower, material resources, and money on it.

The supply chain involved in mobile phones was incredibly complex, with countless components from the CPU and GPU to the camera, storage chips, and battery. Every single module involved thousands upon thousands of patents.

’Wouldn’t it be better to just pay for them?’

”For the two models, only 5,000 units will be equipped with Aurora Future OS. Did Orange Technology say anything about that?” Lei Yijun asked.

”No,” Li Wanqiang replied.

Hearing this, Lei Yijun secretly breathed a sigh of relief, afraid that he had offended Chen Yansen over the matter.

”President Lei, Orange Technology’s new product launch is set for March 18th,” Li Wanqiang reminded him.

”Right, I know,” Lei Yijun said.

「Elsewhere.」

In the brightly lit Xiaomi Headquarters Building, in the office area of the MIUI Department, Li Xingwei wore a grave expression, staring blankly into space.

The computer screen in front of him was dark, clearly not in use.

He was one of the founding team members of Xiaomi Technology, employee number 12, and a core development engineer for the MIUI system.

”We’ll start with a custom Android system. Once Xiaomi Mobile Phones capture a certain share of the domestic market, we’ll leverage our advantage in the end-user market to build Hua Country’s own mobile operating system.”

The grand promises Lei Yijun had made when he first joined kept flashing through his mind.

He had come from Microsoft and had even participated in the system development for Windows Phone.

He had joined Xiaomi first and foremost for the generous salary and tempting stock options, but also because he wanted to develop a ”pure-blood” domestic operating system.

But two weeks ago, Lei Yijun had announced that they were halting iterative upgrades for the MIUI system.

In other words, the boss had decided to abandon the MIUI system.

People like them had two choices: transfer to Xiaomi’s application ecosystem department, or stay put and provide system maintenance for existing users. The latter meant just waiting to be slowly cast aside by the company.

”Wei, what are you thinking about?” Just then, Sun Peng, another one of MIUI’s lead creators, nudged his shoulder and asked.

”Brother Peng, if even the Xiaomi 2A and 2S aren’t going to use the MIUI system, is there any reason for our department to even exist?” Li Xingwei asked with a bitter smile.

”Wei, it’s just a job. As long as we have work to do, that’s what matters! Don’t worry, with your skills, if you get transferred to the application ecosystem department, you’re guaranteed to get a general manager title at the very least,” Sun Peng said dismissively.

”And what about MIUI?” Li Xingwei retorted.

”Isn’t there Aurora OS?” Sun Peng shrugged.

Li Xingwei gave a choked laugh, not knowing what to say.

After a long moment of silence, he said to Sun Peng, ”Brother Peng, take care.”

”Wei, what do you mean by that?” Sun Peng’s mouth fell open, a look of surprise in his eyes.

”I’m quitting!”

With that, Li Xingwei strode purposefully toward Lei Yijun’s office.

”Quitting?” Three minutes later, Lei Yijun looked at his star player and asked in confusion.

Li Xingwei was one of Xiaomi’s first employees. He remembered it clearly: on the day Xiaomi was founded, he had personally handed a bowl of hot millet porridge to the man.

He had casually spouted a few grand declarations and had been happy that the company had managed to recruit a senior R&D specialist from the Windows Phone team.

’Less than three years have passed, and now the man wants to leave?’

”President Lei, if we’re not even working on the MIUI system anymore, what’s left for me to do here?” Li Xingwei asked, his gaze burning as he looked at Lei Yijun.

”I’m planning to establish a Xiaomi Internet Operations Department. I want you to be the general manager, in charge of the Xiaomi Browser business,” Lei Yijun said seriously.

”The MIUI system has only suffered a temporary setback. Isn’t it too early to give up on it?” Li Xingwei couldn’t help but demand after hearing Lei Yijun’s plan.

”Xiaomi needs to survive first before we have a chance to walk the path of independent R&D. Do you understand?” Lei Yijun snorted, leaning back with a harsher tone.

”President Lei, thank you for your favor and trust, but I’m a stubborn person. Please approve my resignation,” Li Xingwei said, suddenly standing up and pressing him bluntly.

Lei Yijun took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to lose his temper. He waved his hand and said, ”I understand. You can go.”

’It’s not that I don’t understand what Li Xingwei is thinking. But the difficulty of developing our own OS isn’t something you can solve just by talking about it. Wasn’t Microsoft’s influence strong enough? Three years after launch, its market share was only 5%. To increase user adoption, Microsoft was even willing to spend 7 billion US Dollars to buy Nokia’s mobile phone division. Does Xiaomi have the sales volume? Does Xiaomi have the capital? What am I supposed to build it with? My own damn head?! Who wouldn’t want to use a proprietary OS to build an ecosystem moat for their own products?’

Li Xingwei left, dejected.

’Dammit, is it wrong for me to just want to survive?’ Lei Yijun screamed silently in his heart, his eyes red.

’That son of a bitch Zhou Hongyi! He’s always nipping at Xiaomi’s heels!’

’Lei Yijun just wanted to win, for once!’

With this business adjustment, Li Xingwei became the first of Xiaomi’s 13 founding team members to resign.

...

...

”Li Xingwei? Hire him. He can be your deputy,” Chen Yansen said without much thought after hearing Wang Teng’s report.

Orange Technology’s system R&D department had long been split into two groups: Aurora OS and Aurora Future OS. The former worked on deep customization of Android, while the latter was responsible for version upgrades of Aurora Future OS.

”Alright, Boss. Should I put him in the Aurora Future OS group, then?” Wang Teng asked for Chen Yansen’s opinion.

”That’s fine,” Chen Yansen replied.

In just a few words, the course of Li Xingwei’s career for the rest of his life was decided.

To Chen Yansen, Li Xingwei’s addition to the team didn’t warrant much of his attention.

After all, Orange Technology’s technical department and AI lab were filled with senior engineers from companies like Microsoft, Google, and Oracle.

Li Xingwei’s resume was decent, but it was far from impressive enough to make Chen Yansen take special notice.

Time flew by, and Orange Technology’s spring product launch was held as scheduled.