For Lenovo, the most painful thing is that the path you ideally should take is taken away by others.
The path that Xiaomi Computer has taken is actually the path that Lenovo has been promoting in public and to the public. Yang Yuanqing, Liu’s successor, has always made harsh remarks when faced with the outside world’s doubts about Lenovo’s lack of technology:
Such as "Lenovo has lived up to its reputation as a high-tech industry", "If China's best high-tech companies do not have technology, then China's high-tech companies cannot be called high-tech", "Lenovo has not yet passed the IT winter. In fact, both net profit margin and gross profit margin have increased, which just shows how valuable Lenovo’s technology is.”
Lenovo’s lack of core technology did not only come to the attention of the public after 2018. As early as the late 1990s to the early 21st century, due to Ni Liu’s debate and Lenovo’s fiscal year performance rising year by year after its listing, Lenovo’s lack of technology was The media, experts and scholars took turns to speak out.
Therefore, Lenovo's various executives have publicly stated that Lenovo has technology, but Lenovo's technology is different from what everyone thinks.
After Yang Yuanqing answered reporters' questions about Lenovo technology, he said that Lenovo would jointly develop a CPU with Intel. A reporter immediately asked back: "Lenovo's Chief Technology Officer He Zhiqiang said in a public interview before:
If Lenovo made a CPU tomorrow, it would die.
Mr. Yang just said that Lenovo wants to jointly develop CPUs with Intel. Is there a contradiction between the two? "
He Zhiqiang is also a wonderful person. He is Ni Guangnan's subordinate. He followed Ni Guangnan in the research and development of Hanka, and later joined Liu's side.
His original words during the interview were: "Lenovo has technology. It has product technology and application technology. If Lenovo makes CPU tomorrow, it will die. Core technology is technology that can continuously bring continuous value to the enterprise. It only makes one thing." If it comes out, it cannot be called the core technology of the enterprise."
This is not the most ridiculous thing. The most ridiculous thing is that He Zhiqiang is quite complacent about the current situation of Lenovo Research Institute: Three years ago, Lenovo Research Institute could only do projects for five people. Last year, we could do projects for more than a dozen people. This year, we can do projects for twenty people. We can also handle projects for several people.
These were his original words in 2002. For a company with a revenue of HK$10 billion and a profit of HK$500 million, it is considered to have technology if it can carry out joint research and development projects by 20 people.
(The reason why the price is calculated in Hong Kong dollars is because Lenovo was listed in Hong Kong at that time, and the public statistical caliber was only in Hong Kong dollars)
After the reporter asked, Yang Yuanqing did not answer, but looked at He Zhiqiang. He Zhiqiang took the microphone from the host without feeling embarrassed at all:
“Regarding this issue, what I meant at the time was that if Lenovo relied solely on itself to develop CPUs, it would be a dead end, but joint research and development with companies like Intel would be different.
Intel has the technology, and Lenovo has been deeply involved in the Chinese market for many years and understands what consumers in the Chinese market need. Joint development between the two parties is a major benefit to Chinese consumers. Lenovo can also take this opportunity to further master core technologies. "
Because Lenovo hopes to make the Legend World Technology Conference grand enough, it invites a large number of media. Not all of these media want to see Lenovo, and Lenovo cannot influence so many media, especially in this era when most of the media still have national surnames.
Not to mention that there was a reporter from Xiangjiang who was running very fast: "Mr. He, I would like to ask, is it because New Core Technology was the first to cooperate with Intel that Lenovo started to cooperate with Intel?"
He Zhiqiang nodded: "Yes, Xinxin has given us new ideas. We can get more involved in the upstream of computers. This cooperation with Intel is an attempt."
Lenovo's abacus is different from New Core's. Although New Core's cooperation with Intel is more superficial, it only sends a group of employees to Silicon Valley to jointly do chip design with Intel. In fact, it only does some peripheral auxiliary work. During the process, Xinxin Technology held the idea of letting employees learn something.
The most important thing is to help Intel foundry and train the foundry team. This is the core purpose of Xinxin.
Lenovo is completely superficial. They don't even plan to send anyone. They will hold a few remote conference calls and then pay Intel a sum of money. Then they will buy a co-authorization of Intel's China-specific chips and that's it. It’s time to pay someone to do a joint venture.
The reporter continued to ask: "Will Lenovo, like Xinxin, get involved in chip foundry? And will Lenovo take advantage of this opportunity to establish a specialized chip design company in the future?"
He Zhiqiang could not answer this kind of question related to the specific operation of the company, and could only be answered by Yang Yuanqing. He said: "We will not consider doing chip foundry for the time being. Chip foundry is an asset-heavy industry, and Lenovo's current foundation is still too thin. Yes, the risks of chip foundry are huge, and we need to consider this matter extremely carefully.
The establishment of a specialized chip design company also needs to be considered.
Both of these things depend on whether the chips we launch in cooperation with Intel can be recognized by consumers. In terms of difficulty, chip design companies obviously have to be ranked ahead of chip foundries.
Lenovo has always wanted to make every step stable enough, and even if we are engaged in chip foundry, we will also consider more ways of cooperating with external companies.
Xinxin Technology of Xinzong is China's leading chip company. Their chip foundry accepts external financing. If we want to do chip foundry, we have considered Xinxin's chip foundry business cooperation model. "
"Mr. Yang, Lenovo and Mr. Zhou's Xiaomi are in direct competition, and Xinxin Technology and Xiaomi can be regarded as different subsidiaries of the same group. In this context, Xinxin Technology may not accept Lenovo's investment. Bar?
Will Lenovo consider adopting Mr. Zhou’s industrial model? Through consumer-oriented enterprises, we will drive the coordinated development of upstream and downstream supply chain enterprises, which means that we will produce computers and computer core components at the same time. "
Yang Yuanqing responded quickly: "China's personal computer market is not a zero-sum game. It is large enough to accommodate enough players, and we are not in direct competition with Xiaomi.
Lenovo's product lines range from 2,000 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, while Xiaomi can only affect the market between 3,000 yuan and 6,000 yuan. We are only partially competitive. I think it will not affect the cooperation between Lenovo and Xinxin.
Secondly, Lenovo will not consider following the development model of Xiaomi and Xinxin for the time being, because we have no experience, and it would take a lot of energy to start exploring again, which is far less cost-effective than directly purchasing chips.
With the development of science and technology, the division of labor among enterprises has become more and more clear. What we need to do is to integrate the supply chain. It is not Lenovo's responsibility to do what the supply chain should do. Now is the era of highly segmented globalization.
I know you still want to ask why Mr. Xin can do it but we can’t. Because Mr. Xin has been entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley for a long time and he has enough appeal around the world. Mr. Xin’s name is equivalent to companies like Intel, Motorola or IBM. The endorsement of his name can attract a large number of talents.
Lenovo is only famous in China. We cannot attract enough professional talents in the chip field. What we do is half the result with half the effort. We ignore Lenovo's own advantages and compete with others in areas that Lenovo is not familiar with. "
This kind of thinking is wrong. After all, no one could predict in 2002 that chips would not be available in the future. However, Lenovo does not need to worry. Let alone 20 years later, even 40 years later, Lenovo's chip purchase will not be affected.
"Mr. Yang, I would like to ask what do you think of Xiaomi and Xiaomi's technical strength? Compared with Xiaomi, Lenovo has a longer history, but Lenovo does not have core technologies that can be seen at a glance like Xiaomi. , how do you understand the reason behind it?”
Yang Yuanqing thought to himself, is this a Lenovo technology conference or a Xiaomi technology conference? Both of you are here asking questions that have nothing to do with the technology conference.
No one cares about the related applications mentioned by Lenovo before, and the smart home that has been built with great efforts, which makes Yang Yuanqing somewhat unbearable. But since all the media reporters were present, he had to manage his expression:
"It's like this. Xiaomi also doesn't have any technology. The technology is in the hands of Xinxin Technology. Although Xinxin Technology has only been established for just over two years, almost all of their core R&D teams come from Silicon Valley.
Their technical reserves far exceed Lenovo, which is the most important reason why Xinxin can possess these core technologies. This is what I just mentioned. The success of every company cannot be copied. Lenovo cannot copy the appeal of Xinzong among the engineers in Silicon Valley.
Xinzong can attract a large number of Chinese engineers and R&D personnel to come back to Zhangjiang to help him work. Is this something Lenovo can do?
In the early days of its establishment, Xinzong was able to spend billions and dollars on the R&D department regardless of cost. Can Lenovo do that? According to my understanding, Xinxin’s R&D investment is measured in billions of dollars, which is close to Lenovo’s annual revenue.
Taking Lenovo's Shenteng 1800 server, which was certified by the Chinese Academy of Sciences just last month, our R&D investment is only about 50 million, and the unit is only RMB.
The two are not comparable at all. "
Xinxin Technology has not been listed on the market. The reporters present did not know Xinxin’s R&D investment. After hearing the investment of 1 billion US dollars, the reporters were first surprised by the large number, and then felt that it seemed strange when they connected this number with Zhou Xin. Not much.
"Mr. Yang, you just mentioned the Shenteng 1800 just launched by Lenovo. According to Sugon's chairman's answer in an interview, Lenovo relied on poaching a large number of Sugon's core R&D personnel, including Sugon's vice president in charge of R&D. The research and development of Shenteng 1800 was successfully completed.
So is it possible for Lenovo to copy the success of Shenteng 1800 and poach some of the core R&D members of the new core? "
Shenteng 1800 is China's first supercomputer with performance exceeding teraflops. It is composed of 526 Intel Xeon processors and 256 computer function node machines. It is Lenovo's most impressive research and development achievement.
Yang Yuanqing did not want to offend Zhou Xin, even if Zhou Xin's company entered the personal computer field: "If it is in the personal computer field, I am confident that I can poach people from Xiaomi, but in the chip field, I have no confidence that Lenovo can poach people from Xinxin.
We haven’t even entered the chip field yet. "
Lenovo's Legend World conference was a gorgeous event, but the effect was a failure. No one cared about the related application concepts they launched, and no one cared about the supercomputer Shenteng 1800 they just launched. Everyone was paying attention to the technical strength of Xinxin. powerful.
Xiaomi's model is an impact on all Chinese computer companies. With the help of its self-built supply chain, Xiaomi can reduce costs to the extreme, and through online and offline marketing methods, it can quickly build a network throughout most parts of China. marketing network.
This style of play is limited by production so that they don't break their muscles. But whether it is Lenovo and Founder at the head, or domestic brands such as TCL and Ziguang at the back, they all feel the chill. The price of Xiaomi is so low that few consumers actually buy it, but the number of consumers affected is not a small number.
Because of the ultra-low price of Xiaomi computers, many bad phenomena have appeared on the market. For example, after buying it, it is resold at a price increase of 5,000 yuan. The most popular ones are the merchants in the computer city. After buying it, the price is increased by 1,000 yuan, or even Exaggeratedly, the price can be increased by 3,000.
After Lenovo's Legend World conference, public opinion further pushed Lenovo and Xiaomi to the forefront, especially on the Internet:
"I was recently invited to participate in Lenovo's Legend World conference as a company representative. I won't disclose the specific company. I can only say that it is one of the diamond-level sponsors of Lenovo's Legend World conference."
Diamond level sponsors of Lenovo Legend World Conference include Intel, Microsoft, Oracle and Texas Instruments.
“After listening to Xiaomi’s press conference some time ago, I have only one thought: in the IT industry, what will be long-lasting and what will be quick to decay. Many things we take for granted now may not be recognized by history at all, but will change. Time is very cruel, but also very fair. Not many things survive the test of time. In the end, it is not money, but technology that determines the length, weight and quality of oneself in history. Durability.
Lenovo really wants to prove that it has technology, and has spent a lot of space recounting its past achievements. It hopes to use this conference to send notice that we are no longer the Lenovo we were before. We have achieved a transformation in trade, industry, and technology, and have come to a last step.
But the fact is that the technologies they announced are not as valuable as the self-developed technologies at Xiaomi’s press conference. This is the cruel reality. Today, many people believe that Lenovo’s Liu Ni dispute has long been settled. today
Liu Bei relies on the huge Lenovo Group, and Ni Guangnan is a scholar with a breeze on his sleeves. It's not a level contest at all, it's not a grade issue.
Indeed, in terms of wealth, fame and media opinion, the debate has long been decided and can never be 'corrected'. But this competition is far from over. Because the ghost of 'technology' is still lingering in this seemingly determined struggle, unwilling to leave. "
(End of chapter)
