Chapter 2361 Price reduction is impossible

Later, Zhou Buqi also visited the post-production of the fourth part of the blockbuster "Jurassic Park" to be released next summer. Mainly I took Yang Mi, Jiang Bingjie, Zhang Zetian and others around me to visit.

The producer also cautiously asked if there was anything that needed improvement.

This is another big drawback of Hollywood.

Whether it’s an insider or an outsider, whoever has the power has the final say. Many excellent works have been blindly changed because of random changes based on the opinions of film company management.

If you don't have enough time, don't interfere too much.

At noon, we quickly boarded the plane to San Francisco.

Li Zaiyong came with his team, mainly to negotiate the Yahoo Korea case and explain some details clearly. In addition to other accompanying staff, there was also a distinguished guest, his second sister Li Xuxian.

Zhou Buqi had met her before.

Lee Jae-yong has three sisters in total, but two of them are more famous. One is the eldest sister Li Fuzhen, who broke up with the family because she fell in love with a bodyguard. There was also a little sister who was strongly opposed by her family because she was planning to get married to a Phoenix man. She ended her life due to resistance. Later, the Li family did not reflect at all and said that her death caused Samsung's stock price to drop and brought shame to the family.

The mediocre second sister Li Xuxian is very obedient and is a standard family marriage.

Therefore, although she is relatively mediocre, she is highly valued by her family and has been promoted step by step. Now she has been promoted to the vice president of Samsung Group. I really didn’t know what she was doing here, but when I asked later, I found out that after Yahoo Korea was bought by Samsung, she would be in charge.

Zhou Buqi will not participate in the specific details of the negotiation. He is really not very good at this kind of fussing. He will leave it to Lu Qi, who will deal with Li Xuxian.

Zhou Buqi treated Li Zairong, who had come from afar, as a host.

When he was in Korea, Li Zaiyong arranged the whole process. This time when he came to San Francisco, Zhou Buqi couldn't be too cold. It's just that there's no girl to accompany you, so you can't go to a striptease club, right?

What Li Zaiyong is most concerned about is the cooperation between Samsung Electronics’ smartphone business and Ziweixing’s cloud computing business.

In the current field of smartphones, there are only three major brands left in the world: Apple's iPhone, Samsung's Galaxy and Asda's Aster.

There are also some mid- to low-end brands left.

Including Motorola, a subsidiary of Asda, launched a new smartphone in June this year, priced at only US$229; and launched another in August, priced at only US$199.

In the high-end mobile phone market, the world has almost formed a three-thirds pattern, iPhone, Galaxy and Aster. iPhone’s share is about 37%, Galaxy and Aster are about the same, both around 30%.

However, Samsung Electronics is in a very embarrassing situation.

That's Internet service.

In terms of hardware manufacturing, Samsung's mobile phones are very competitive, but Internet services and software services are weak points...especially cloud services.

Over the past few years, Samsung Mobile has had a great time cooperating with Yahoo.

But Yahoo does not have cloud services.

This is a headache.

He could only ask Zi Weiyun for help.

Cloud services are not easy to develop, and Apple once stumbled on this matter, causing Steve Jobs to stand up and do public relations while he was lying in bed. It wasn't until Apple improved its products in 2010 and upgraded its past cloud services to iCloud that the problem was solved.

From a technical perspective, Ziweiyun is much better than iCloud.

Moreover, Ziweiyun is larger in scale.

Larger scale means lower marginal costs.

iPhone users want to upload information, photos, music and other information to iCloud, but the free space is too small, only 5GB. If you want to add 10GB of space, you need to pay $20 per year, and if you want to add 50GB, you need to pay $100 per year.

There are many cloud storage space services around smartphones on the market, and the prices are basically the same. Apple's is still cheap.

The Aster mobile phone backed by Ziweiyun is different. It has launched an "Aster cloud space". The free version has 15GB, which can be increased to 60GB for only $3.99 per month. It can be increased to 120GB for only 5.99 per month. Dollar.

It is definitely the lowest price for cloud services in the mobile field on the market.

The product mechanism and technical principles behind it are actually Everdrive, Ziweiyun’s network disk product. It is equivalent to setting aside an independent space in Everdrive for the product "Aster Cloud Space".

The two brands are actually the same thing.

But it has covered both the PC and mobile cloud storage businesses.

“Super large cloud storage space” has also become a major selling point of Aster.

This makes Samsung mobile phones very embarrassing.

Samsung doesn’t have the level to do cloud business on its own...if we look for a partner, the one with the lowest price is Ziweiyun. Not only is the price the lowest, the technology is also the best.

Amazon Cloud has also launched a network disk business, but its competitiveness is all on the PC side. Their cloud business lacks practice and experience accumulation on the mobile side.

Ziweiyun is different. Relying on Aisda's mobile phone business, it has already formed a scale and has a large amount of reference data. It is in a leading position in the mobile cloud business.

Li Zaiyong walks on two legs. The one found in the mainland market is Baidu Netdisk, and the one found in overseas markets is Everdrive Impression Netdisk, a subsidiary of Ziweixing International.

It's easier to say domestically.

The domestic network disk business is in a fierce competition stage. All major network disk vendors are desperately providing users with super large capacity for free, and there is no paid version.

This makes the cost of Samsung mobile phone cloud storage business in mainland China extremely low.

Not so overseas.

Although the service price offered by Everdrive is extremely low, the cost is still high for Samsung.

Samsung Electronics has calculated that if Samsung mobile phones provide users with the same services as "Aster Cloud Space" at the same price, they will lose more than US$100 million per year.

This is just the beginning.

With the popularity of smartphones, the stock of Samsung smartphones will increase, and Samsung's losses will become larger and larger. It is expected that in three years, all Samsung mobile phones in the market will be replaced by Samsung smartphones, and they will be replaced by Samsung smartphones every year. Lost more than $1 billion in this business.

Li Zaiyong wants Zhou Buqi to lower the price of Samsung mobile phones using the Everdrive service.

Zhou Buqi snorted coldly.

This is of course impossible.

The cloud services provided by Ziwei Cloud to Samsung and Asda are originally calculated to enhance the market competitiveness of the Aster series of mobile phones.

It's just a price reduction for Samsung... it just makes less money. Isn't this causing trouble for Asda?

Li Zaiyong invited Zhou Buqi to visit the Samsung Silicon Valley headquarters park under construction and talked about cooperation in cloud business.

Zhou Buqi sighed, "I'm afraid it will be difficult!"

Li Zaiyong remained calm.

Zhou Buqi said frankly: "To be honest, Ziweixing is now encountering some operational troubles. The reports in the media are all correct. The acquisition of Yahoo did cause indigestion as a follow-up reaction, and the company's cash flow encountered a crisis. "

Li Zairong glanced at him, "Didn't Ziweixing International just acquire the popular social networking tool Snapchat?"

Zhou Buqi shook his head, "The main method of payment for that transaction was stocks, not cash. Do you know why I am so anxious to sell Yahoo Korea's business? This is the truth."

Li Zaiyong nodded.

Zhou Buqi said: "Originally they never thought of selling Yahoo Korea... I guess you may have heard that the original plan was to directly abolish Yahoo Korea and retain the brand, business and intellectual property rights. When the time comes, Yahoo might be able to return to South Korea and seek a chance to make a comeback."

"Well, I heard a little bit about it."

Li Zaiyong agreed with this statement, and the information he received was also the same.

If Yahoo Korea is sold, it will no longer be possible for Yahoo to enter the Korean market and conduct business. Just like the Japanese market, Yahoo can't enter even if it wants to, and can only hand over the market to Yahoo Japan.

If not sold, Yahoo will retain the opportunity to return to the Korean market in the future.

However, this path was ruled out by Zhou Buqi.

Supporting Kakao is the only option.

Zhou Buqi said: "But now the financial pressure on the company's accounts is quite tight, so I pushed against all the opinions and asked for the sale. Alas, Ziweixing International needs money in too many places, especially Ziweiyun. Some people followed me a few days ago. I reported that Ziweiyun is losing at least US$100 million every month."

Lee Jae-yong said politely: “There is too much business going on.”

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, the operating costs are too high. The original plan was to sell Yahoo Korea at a minimum price of US$1 billion, but I think Samsung and Ziweixing have established a good cooperative relationship. There is no need to This little thing is too much to worry about."

Li Zaiyong's expression was a little stiff.

Already, hopes of lowering the price of cloud services have been dashed.

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "The transaction price of Yahoo Korea is US$760 million, which is much lower than the US$1 billion we planned. This part of the discount can be obtained even on cloud services!"

Although Li Zaiyong was trained to be like a stone Buddha, he was also very angry at this time.

Damn it!

You really know how to do business!

Zhou Buqi sighed: "Ziweiyun has suffered too many losses, and it really can no longer cut its income. Most of Ziweiyun's many products are operating at a loss. The cloud storage business is one of the few that can have A business with a stable income stream cannot have any problems. Even if I agree, the management will not agree."

Li Zaiyong nodded, and it was difficult to say anything else.

This feeling of being controlled by others is really annoying.

This also made him determined to accelerate the acquisition of Yahoo Korea, then strengthen Samsung's strength in Internet services, and even launch its own cloud computing business in the future.

Zhou Buqi laughed.

I wish I could drag Samsung into the quagmire of cloud computing as soon as possible.

Li Zaiyong suddenly said: "By the way, are you the major shareholder of Netflix?"

Zhou Buqi smiled, "Yes."

Lee Jae-yong said: "Can Netflix develop the platform for Samsung smart TVs? Netflix is ​​now the most popular streaming media platform. I think young people in South Korea now like to watch Netflix. Netflix and Samsung TV, Could be a great partner.”

Zhou Buqi said simply, "No problem!"