Rebuilding] Self-developed processor, book club leader adds more updates
"He's like that."
Wei Qingfan came to the company and soon heard about the little episode in the morning from Jiang Qinghuai. He couldn't help laughing and said, "From the company's perspective, I hope there can be a few more employees like this."
His arrangement for Feng Yongan was very experimental. On the one hand, Feng Yongan's temperament and abilities were very suitable for research. On the other hand, he was easy to talk to and the two of them were familiar with each other. If he was used as an experiment, even if something went wrong, nothing would happen.
Nothing.
Feng Yongan now works under the name of Zizhan Laboratory, and his main content is the underlying optimization of the Android system. At the same time, he can learn about all the company's projects as long as he is interested.
In addition to Zizhan Laboratory, he also wants to set up a separate Mojie Research Institute with a deeper research level. Feng Yongan and other young talents are all talents left to this research institute. However, the conditions are not mature now, and Mojie Research Institute has not yet been established.
It has not been formally established, so it was first placed in Zizhan Laboratory.
Back in his office, Mr. Wei started a new day of busy work.
Guci 2 is planned to be shipped on a large scale and will be tested on engineering machines. The youth version will also start testing on engineering machines. These are all products;
After-sales points are still being rolled out, but the speed has slowed down. Moving to lower-tier cities and counties requires more partners and more money.
But for today’s ancient poetry companies, it’s not necessary!
Because the users of Guci mobile phones are currently concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, blind expansion at this time will only waste money.
Fortunately, these after-sales stores are not only responsible for after-sales. For most cities, they are also mobile phone experience stores. Because of Wei Qingfan's insistence, most of these after-sales points have display tables to display products.
However, Guci Mobile currently has basically zero experience stores and can only rely on the "one store for multiple uses" after-sales service.
In addition, various forward-looking technology research projects are also being launched one after another. Among them, Wei Qingfan's most important thing is undoubtedly imaging, which is an important fulcrum for the brand to establish a high-end position.
As for brand co-branding, he doesn't need to mention it. Someone in the marketing department has already proposed the idea of co-branding. It's just that long-term brand co-branding is a more common product co-branding.
To be honest, I have been using the Anyan app recently to read and catch up on new books. I can switch sources and read aloud with many sounds. Anyan app is available for Android and Apple.】
Wei Qingfan made this co-branding more concrete and clearly proposed the idea of brand co-branding, and the company was eventually determined to be Leica.
Among several camera brands, Wei Qingfan really doesn’t like Leica. He prefers Zeiss, but the reasons given by the employees below are also very good:
Among several brands, Leica is doing the worst right now!
In other words, if ancient poetry extends an olive branch now, Leica may respond most positively and offer the lowest price.
Who made it worse?
This reason is so strong that Wei Qingfan can't find a reason to refute it. He can't say "I don't like Leica, let's spend more money to replace it with Zeiss", right?
There are two purposes of co-branding. The first is to directly enhance the brand image; the second is to learn from the camera brand’s accumulation in imaging through co-branding.
There was almost no resistance to this matter within the company, and the plan was quickly passed, but the specific cooperation plan would have to wait until contact with Leica.
Then, naturally, another question was raised: going to sea!
Ancient poetry mobile phones will definitely go to sea. There is no need to discuss this, but when to go to sea is a question.
Whether to focus on ancient poetry or ancient lyrics is also a question.
This is related to the company's general direction strategy and cannot be decided immediately, but cooperation with Leica is undoubtedly a good opportunity.
After the conference, there was a small meeting. Several bosses from the Strategy Office set the tone for going overseas, and finally settled on six regions: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, South Asia, and Africa. The short-term goals were mainly Europe.
and Southeast Asia, among which ancient poetry mainly focuses on the European direction, and ancient poetry mainly focuses on the Southeast Asian direction.
North America was rejected by Wei Qingfan with one vote.
The North American market is really a big piece of meat, but unfortunately it is not open to Chinese brands at all. The market economy here is a joke. Until later generations, the world has been dominated by PNE and Samsung. Needless to say, the former is also the godson of pure blood.
, all the fertilizer should not flow to outsiders.
The general direction has been determined, but it is still difficult to implement. On the one hand, the market needs to be developed, and on the other hand, production cannot keep up.
The current production of mobile phones is not enough to sell in the domestic market. How can we sell them abroad?
In addition, Wei Qingfan proposed to establish a Taibai Semiconductor working group to carry out preliminary preparations for self-developed processors, led by Zhang Yuanping.
This time, a fierce debate broke out within the Strategy Office.
First of all, there are still differences on whether to develop self-developed processors. Tang Tingyue and Wang Qinggen hold different opinions because this thing is too expensive.
"If you throw 10 billion into it, you may not see any splash at all. I'm not saying I'm against self-developed processors, but it's too early... the step is too big, and it's easy to lose track!"
Tang Tingyue's words rarely became a little fierce, "When the time comes, if one billion is thrown in, there will be no splash, if two billion is thrown in, there will be no splash, if five billion is thrown in, there will be no splash... At that time, will we continue to smash? Can we still smash it?
What will the company do when we come out?"
Wang Qinggen said: "I also have the same attitude. We can self-research, but we have to wait until our company becomes stronger and its ability to resist risks increases before we consider self-research of processors... We cannot afford to lose!"
"If you keep thinking like this, then there is no need to study on your own!"
Zhang Yuanping has been waiting for this day since he joined Gushici Company. The development of Gushici Company far exceeded his expectations, which also made him want to develop his own processor even stronger, but Wei Qingfan proposed it so early.
, which still surprised him a little.
However, he couldn't let Tang Tingyue and Wang Qinggen dampen Wei Qingfan's enthusiasm, and his words became even more fierce: "If we don't master the core technology, and wait for other brands to react, how can we compete? Is it cost-effective to write together? Can we do ancient poetry?"
What’s the point of having a mobile phone? If you want to do it, do it early! We all know that it’s difficult to make a processor, so we should get in early!”
"If it fails, the entire company will be implicated in bankruptcy. Who can take responsibility? How much money can you guarantee to give you, and can you make a qualified and usable processor?"
"...Stop, stop."
Wei Qingfan didn't expect everyone to be so angry, so he quickly suppressed it and said, "Everyone should speak rationally and control their emotions. We are all for the development of the company."
It is indeed all for the development of the company. Zhang Yuanping feels that mastering core technologies will make him more competitive. Tang Tingyue feels that if he is not careful, he may ruin a good situation.
Frankly speaking, Tang Tingyue's idea is more rational, and Wei Qingfan knows it very well, but he can't wait any longer!
Gushici Company is not Huawei. Huawei has been using HiSilicon processors since it restarted its mobile phone product line, from k3v2 to Kirin 970.
As for Gushi, it is necessary to switch from Qualcomm processors to self-developed processors, and Wei Qingfan will definitely have to completely replace them. It is impossible to stretch out one's feet to test the water temperature like Xiaomi did.
Processors are too expensive to make, but as long as they can be shipped on a large scale, the price is really low. This is the biggest reason why Huawei can sweep the market with cost-effectiveness.
In addition, the more products, the more users, and the more usage data, which is crucial for the normal iteration of a processor!
This requires large-scale shipments, so once a self-developed processor is used, it must be completely replaced!
However, when switching from Qualcomm processors to self-developed processors, the early experience will definitely be degraded, and there is no chance of this happening.
This downgrade experience may last for several years!
Apple started using its own self-developed processor A4A4 from PNE4, which was customized based on Samsung's Hummingbird processor. Two years later, the A6 will be able to overtake it. The fundamental reason is not how awesome Apple is, but how awesome China is!
Behind the brilliance of Apple's A-series processors is the experience and talent accumulated in the semiconductor industry over the past century!
What about domestically?
Where to recruit people?
After HiSilicon was sanctioned, HiSilicon people could be poached, but before that, without HiSilicon’s training, there was no large talent base in related industries in China, and there was no place to poach people if they wanted to.
Therefore, if Gu Shici wants to develop its own processor, the progress of its products must also be synchronized with the cultivation of talents, which is destined to be a long process.
Therefore, an opportunity is needed to fully replace self-developed processors.
The opportunity Wei Qingfan chose was Snapdragon 810!
This first-generation "Fire Dragon" is a big opportunity for self-developed processors. In the previous life, Huawei seized this opportunity to turn around. The 810 pitted all mobile phone brands except Samsung. ate7 seized the opportunity to rise against the trend and blew Huawei's reputation.
The clarion call for mobile phones to charge into the high-end market.
The Fire Dragon 810 was at its peak when it debuted, with outstanding performance and power consumption. Compared with it, the 888 and 8g1 of later generations are nothing!
Snapdragon 810 was officially commercialized in the first half of 2015. In other words, if Wei Qingfan wants to seize this opportunity, he must have a usable self-developed processor at least in the first half of 2015.
Even if we started comprehensive self-research in 2011, it only took less than five years. It was really too short to start from scratch to self-research mobile phone processors.
He had no time to delay any longer and could only start as soon as possible.
"What I mean is that we need to understand the industry first and allow enough time so that we can choose the best time and the best angle to enter the market. What we are discussing today is also how to enter the market... Of course, Tang
Mr. Wang’s concerns are also very reasonable.”
Wei Qingfan had to express his attitude first, "I also want to be cautious. It does not mean that setting up a working group now means that the company will invest in mobile phone processors... The company's current revenue cannot support such a large amount.
Fund consumption.”
Seeing his statement and guarantee, Tang Tingyue and Wang Qinggen finally breathed a sigh of relief. What they were most afraid of was that Wei Qingfan would also get carried away and start investing money in semiconductors... Frankly speaking, if that happened, they would be waiting for the ancient poems ahead.
There is only one dead end for the company, there is no second possibility.
Zhang Yuanping asked: "What is the work content of this working group?"
"Find a practical direction!"
Wei Qingfan had already considered it and continued, "There are many self-research directions for self-developed processors. Should we start independent research from scratch, or should we find a company that does similar projects to cooperate? Or we can acquire... it's cp,
Are all GP and basebands self-developed, or are we only self-developed CP, GP, and plug-in basebands... We can study and consider these to see which one is more suitable for us!"
“If you don’t develop your own baseband, what kind of processor will you develop yourself?”
Zhang Yuanping exploded after hearing what he said, "What other cooperation is there? Isn't it just to buy it and change the name? Is this called self-research?"
"Don't get excited yet."
Wei Qingfan felt like a kindergarten principal, helpless, "The baseband patent threshold is too high..."
"What's the point?"
Zhang Yuanping didn't even hear him finish, so he interrupted directly, "If we don't develop our own baseband, don't we still have to pay patent fees to Qualcomm?"
"If you develop your own baseband, you still have to pay patent fees to Qualcomm."
Wei Qingfan sighed helplessly, "First of all, we have to clarify our purpose. Is the purpose of our self-developed processor not to pay patent fees? Our purpose is to control the mobile phone experience in our own hands. We cannot just do it because of Qualcomm.
If the processor is not ready, our mobile phone experience for a year will be wasted! What we want is to control the pace of product release in our own hands...
"Moreover, the processor and baseband are all developed in-house. How long does it take for you to make them? How much does it cost to make them?"
Zhang Yuanping stopped talking. Who can guarantee this?
But Tang Tingyue, Wang Qinggen, and Xiao Jiasheng, who had not spoken much, felt a little more at ease in their hearts.
It is difficult to develop CP and GP by yourself, but if you choose to switch to baseband, the difficulty will undoubtedly be reduced a lot, because making baseband is not only a technical issue, but also a patent threshold! It is too complicated!
Wei Qingfan's ability to say these words shows that although he has taken a big step forward, at least his mind is clear and he is not completely dazzled by the word "self-research" like Zhang Yuanping.