The next morning, the signing ceremony between Muye & Baidu and Google was about to begin. Global media gathered at the National Exhibition, competing to report on this commercial merger worth at least US$3 billion.
Just yesterday, several authoritative survey and evaluation agencies on Wall Street re-valued Google, giving a reference valuation of US$9-12 billion. Google announced that it would acquire Muye & Baidu.Inc, and it was confirmed by Makino Technology After that, even though Makino Technology has not actually imported any resources to Google, Google’s valuation still staged a huge rebound.
Several institutions believe that Google’s next valuation may have a huge explosion, but this may not depend on Google itself, but on Makino Technology.
If after the completion of today’s merger and acquisition, Makino Technology really fully supports the development of Google, then Google will usher in an explosive period. If after the completion of the merger and acquisition, Makino Technology is relatively perfunctory to Google, then the valuation will not be so impressive, but regardless of Whether Makino Technology fully supports Google, at least one thing is certain. After the merger is completed, Makino Technology will not touch any search engine business within five years. This means that no matter what happens, Google will be in a state of no one in the next five years. The golden development period of natural enemies.
In the Internet industry, large-scale capital operations worth billions of dollars are rare. What's more, it is a successful case of Li Mu's empty hand, so it has attracted a lot of attention around the world.
In addition to the presence of a large number of media reporters, a large number of industry elites also came to support the exhibition, so the entire National Exhibition was bustling with people, much more lively than when a large-scale exhibition is held normally.
Li Mu was currently in the backstage lounge prepared for the organizer of the National Exhibition. Although today's signing ceremony was a big scene, the process was very simple. Except for a well-known host who came from CCTV to help with the opening and intervening. Outside the venue, the entire signing ceremony had three parts. First, Li Mu, Robin, and Larry Page took turns giving short speeches; second, a three-party signing ceremony was held on site; and finally, questions from reporters on site were answered.
After finally going over the process with the host, Li Mu sat alone in his lounge and took a break. When there were still ten minutes left before the show started, Li Ziwei knocked on the door and came in and said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, Mr. Lin I sent an email from the United States, and she has already made preliminary findings about the things you asked her to investigate."
"Oh?" Li Mu regained his energy, sat upright and asked, "What should I say?"
Li Ziwei took out a palm-sized notepad in her hand, opened the page with a mini ballpoint pen, and said: "There are three relatively reliable news. The first one: Microsoft has indeed made relatively big moves recently. Internally, The job transfers are relatively large. According to her experience, it is estimated that the large internal employee job transfers should represent a relatively large-scale internal reorganization. She analyzed that it should be the establishment of a new business unit or project team, but Microsoft's internal confidentiality level is relatively high. , and they’re in Seattle, so secrecy is easier to carry out.”
Li Mu nodded and said: "If the internal transfer is relatively large, there must be internal business reorganization. It seems that they have a new development direction."
Li Ziwei added: "Secondly, Microsoft has been working very hard on content operations recently. They poached some editors-in-chief from many well-known American media, gave them several times their salary, and moved them to Seattle, but specifically There is no definite information yet on which project it will be used for.”
Li Mu smacked his lips and said: "Microsoft is recruiting so many content talents, so it is going to work hard on the content side. Now the place where content talents can be used is nothing more than portals and vertical products in content. But now the vertical products in content There are still very few, except for blogs, there is nothing..."
The initial vigorous development of the Internet revolved around social networking, games and information. Of these three categories, what is really related to content is information products. To put it bluntly, they are various portals. In addition to portals, content products are at the current stage. Development is very scarce. Unlike later generations, there are so many encyclopedia products, question and answer products, interest social networking and knowledge social products. The only mature content-based product at this stage is actually blogs. Others, even online novels, are still in the exploratory stage. .
Thinking of this, Li Mu said to himself: "It seems that Microsoft has poached so many media content talents, either to start a new portal or to start a blog. There is no third possibility."
After that, Li Mu asked Li Ziwei: "Didn't you say there are three points? What is the third one?"
Li Ziwei said hurriedly: "The third point is that Microsoft has indeed made several small and medium-sized investment acquisitions in the periphery recently, and all of the investments are game development teams."
"Game development?" Li Mu couldn't help but frown and said, "Is it for the XBOX platform?"
Li Ziwei said: "No, Mr. Lin said that these game development teams are all developing PC-side Windows platform games, and one of them is a company that makes online chess and card games."
"Online chess and cards..." Li Mu squinted his eyes and nodded slightly.
Li Mu would not be surprised if Microsoft acquired and invested in game teams for the XBOX ecosystem. After all, it has to support a pure game platform and struggle with Sony's PS. There are not many exclusive game teams that can actually play. It doesn’t change, but there is something wrong with Microsoft’s acquisition of the PC game team. Online chess and card games are even more outrageous, and are obviously different from Microsoft’s tone.
Online chess and card game platforms rely on social connections and follow a social route. If Microsoft's MSN is still there, then I wouldn't be surprised if it makes online chess and card games. But the key point is that MSN has knelt down and Microsoft has lost The soil for developing social games, and suddenly making social games at this time is equivalent to building castles in the air. Microsoft should not do such a stupid thing unless they are prepared to build the soil again.
Li Mu analyzed several clues that can be sorted out so far. First of all, a few things that can be determined are: Microsoft has made big moves internally, found a large number of content workers, and is preparing to launch social games;
Secondly, several points to be determined are: Microsoft may want to make a portal, it may make a blog, it may also make a social network.
Li Mu thought for a moment, slapped his thigh and said, "Microsoft is going to make a fucking comeback!"
Li Ziwei hurriedly asked: "Mr. Li, do you mean that Microsoft is going to start social networking again?"
Li Mu nodded and said: "I think he doesn't just want to socialize, he wants to do the whole thing! At least he wants to do everything Makino Technology is doing now! And he does it quietly, trying to catch me off guard!"
Li Ziwei looked at Li Mu dumbfounded. She didn't know why Li Mu would come to such a serious conclusion. At least on paper, the news sent back by Lin Qingya was not enough to support Li Mu's judgment. After all, any company, if If you want to fully compete with Makino Technology, you will probably have to pay a huge price and cost, and you will have to bear a huge risk of failure. Making such a decision is not that easy.
After hesitating for a moment, Li Ziwei asked tentatively: "Mr. Li, is the matter really that serious?"
Li Mu nodded without hesitation and said: "I think the possibility is at least 78%."
Li Ziwei said hurriedly: "Then do you want to call Mr. Lin back and ask her to investigate further?"
Li Mu pinched his chin, thought for a moment, and said, "The investigation must be carried out, but we need to change the entry point."
After that, Li Mu asked Li Ziwei: "Do you know what dimensions Americans use to judge the progress of North Korea's nuclear weapons?"
Li Ziwei shook her head slightly and asked tentatively: "Are you using spy satellites to shoot?"
Li Mu smiled and said: "This is the most direct way, just like we are trying our best to visually investigate the situation within Microsoft, but if others deliberately hide intuitive clues, it will be difficult for us to find out the other party's true situation."
Speaking of which, Li Mu added: "On the contrary, there are many non-intuitive clues that cannot be hidden at any cost, such as monitoring the mining of uranium mines in North Korea. If uranium mining increases, it can prove that they are doing nuclear-related work. , but this may be for nuclear power plants, not necessarily for users to develop nuclear weapons. So, how to confirm that they are developing nuclear weapons? We must also control changes in their power generation. If there is no significant increase in civilian and industrial power consumption, But their power generation has increased a lot, which proves that they may have invested thousands of centrifuges to prepare highly enriched uranium, because nuclear power plants only require about 3% concentration of uranium-235, but nuclear weapons require a concentration of more than 93%. , the amount of uranium mined, and the amount of electricity generated are non-intuitive clues that are difficult for them to hide.”
Li Ziwei thought for a moment, nodded, and asked seriously: "Then what do you think Microsoft's non-intuitive clues are?"
Li Mu said: "I said, please remember it."
"Okay." Li Ziwei immediately took out a pen and notepad.
"First, let Lin Qingya find a way to check Microsoft's personnel records. They have been doing MSN-related business for so many years. The information about all MSN-related employees in the early days should be relatively transparent. It is easy to check the personnel records that have been in the company for so many years. Who are the people who work in the MSN business at Microsoft? After checking these people, take a look at how many of these people left the company after Microsoft shut down the MSN business and how many stayed. In addition, among the people who left the company, how many of them have recently left? How many people have returned to Microsoft? If Microsoft wants to do social business, it will not look far away. They will bring out the old MSN team and old products for secondary development. This will save time and effort, and they will have sufficient experience and higher efficiency. , these people are like Microsoft’s uranium mines, Microsoft will never give up mining, and is even mining at a high speed;”
"Second, let Lin Qingya find a way to find out if Microsoft has made any big moves in data processing recently. If he wants to make a social ecosystem, he will definitely not be able to make a product that is weaker than ours. I doubt they will resurrect MSN, but As I just said, the resurrected MSN must be reborn from the ashes and reborn, so the resurrected MSN will definitely have the online and offline file transfer functions, voice and video call functions that our YY has, and support these functions. It requires strong data processing capabilities. To put it more simply, if Microsoft wants to make a product like YY, it must either spend money to build a large number of computer rooms or rent a large number of computer rooms. The demand for computer rooms, bandwidth, and data processing capabilities, Just like preparing highly enriched uranium requires a large amount of electricity, no matter how they hide it, they can't hide it. As long as these two points are confirmed, Microsoft's ambition will be obvious!"
(End of chapter)