Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, has not been as spacious and luxurious as many people think, and of course, it is not as sloppy as the offices of those technocrats engineers

This is the door number of Ballmer's office. It used to be Bill O'Gates. It is located at the corner of the Microsoft headquarters office building. It has large glass windows on both sides, so you can see everything outside. For example, at this moment, the beautiful Microsoft headquarters office park area is filled with fog, and there are rows of cars parked below.

The office is small, but it is neatly arranged. There is a comfortable desk with a monitor, telephone, and photos on it. The wall on the right is covered with various notes, but the most eye-catching one is some old photos, among which you can find the photos taken by him and Bill Gates shortly after they met. It has been thirty years since then.

It was a friendship described by Bill Gates as the greatest business partnership, but this friendship now seems to fade a little, and Steve Ballmer himself didn't know when it started.

If he didn't feel strong enough when he took over Microsoft, then over the past few years, he gradually realized that there would definitely be problems between him and Bill Gates, but he never thought that these problems would come so quickly that they almost caught him off guard.

Microsoft is facing very, very many problems now, but in the final analysis, there is only one problem, that is, the market value of more than 600 billion US dollars at its peak has dropped to more than 200 billion now. This is impossible for all board members and venture capital companies that hold Microsoft shares.

But Ballmer obviously has no effective method for the company's current situation.

As he said to Bill Gates and the senior executives of the board of directors, this time his opponent is very difficult, because this company, which has been established less than ten years ago, has become the most successful consortium in the world. More importantly, the company is still developing rapidly, and he shows almost no sign of stopping and resting.

Yes, Yezi Technology is regarded as the number one competitor by Ballmer

The world knows that Yezi Technology's history of making a fortune is that it started with a revolutionary Zeus mobile phone, created a trend of smartphones, and built Android systems into a market share of more than 9 in the mobile device field. The company is now gradually swallowing up Microsoft's business, especially in the two pillar fields of traditional pC systems and OPPICP.

It can be said that on the day Yezi Technology announced the launch of Zeus Ultrabook, Microsoft's stock price fell sharply. Although it rose slightly afterwards, Microsoft's market value evaporated by one tenth almost overnight. In the following period, especially after the ultrabook was sold after it was launched, Microsoft's market value dropped by three tenths.

What this means, perhaps for ordinary consumers, they can't see clearly, but for investors, they can see very clearly that Yezi Technology is challenging Microsoft's dominance.

The board of directors held an emergency meeting to discuss how to fight back, but they were surprised to find that they did not have too effective methods for Yezi Technology. In other words, Microsoft's containment of Yezi Technology has been underway since the birth of this company, but the more it is contained, the faster it will develop.

The OPPICP software does not support Android systems. It doesn’t matter. He acquired a company and created a free version of OPPICP, which directly led to a significant decline in Microsoft’s revenue in the OPPICP field in the past few years.

Through a series of acquisitions such as Nortel Networks, Yezi Technology is now very good in both soft and hard aspects, but more importantly, they are very planned and unparalleled forward-looking.

In 2007, Yezi Technology, which became popular because of Zeus' mobile phone, announced that it would poach a technical director Mark Lukovsky from Google. No one would realize anything at that time. Everyone just thought that this might be just a very ordinary poach, but Ballmer knew very well that this person was extraordinary. When he decided to switch jobs from Microsoft to Google, Ballmer was so angry that he threw a chair at him.

He is the chief architect of Microsoft's ND system. He participated in the development of most of the kernel programs of the NDp system and some other key core projects. He has won the title of Outstanding Engineer and is a very important technical talent at Microsoft.

Ballmer had a premonition at that time, but he did not pay too much attention. But when Yezi Technology announced that the Android system would be transplanted to ultrabooks, almost everyone in the world was shocked because these were two very different fields. But Ballmer soon thought of Mark Lukovsky, and the latter was the person in charge of the Android pC system project and became an important member of Yezi Technology.

How amazing is this amazing forward-looking? It can be said to be a premonition in the future.

Not only that, Yezi Technology launched Twitter, Weibo, WeChat, and launched P to establish a series of Internet applications and companies such as utu. Although these seem to have little to do with Microsoft, they actually make more and more users move closer and gather towards them.

Watching Yezi Technology gradually swallowing Microsoft's business and market, Ballmer did not have too effective countermeasures because Yezi Technology did not have much contact with Microsoft, and Microsoft even filed antitrust lawsuits against Yezi Technology, but it was finally resolved.

Just as some other companies have failed to sue Microsoft for antitrust, antitrust lawsuits are very nonsense, whether in the United States or in the European Union, because you can't define what areas Yezi Technology is suspected of monopoly, or how to use its monopoly advantages to harm users.

Unable to prove these two points, all antitrust lawsuits will be declared failure

Steve Ballmer leaned on the office chair. This chair was not the one he threw Lukovsky at the time. He changed it, but his mood was worse than before. He sighed deeply, but his head was thinking about a very serious question, that is, how should Microsoft go about the future.

From Yezi Technology, Ballmer seems to have figured out a rule. He feels that it is necessary to change Microsoft's past concept of focusing on software but neglecting hardware, and to launch his own mobile smart devices as soon as possible, especially mobile phones and tablets. This market is too amazing.

Yezi Technology's current cash reserves have reached an amazing level. There are even reports that their current cash reserves have reached more than 120 billion US dollars. If this continues, how will they develop in the future?

It is conceivable that if you give them another year or two, acquiring Microsoft will be no problem.

Just as Steve Ballmer thought hard, mourning that he was supposed to be the captain who was leading Microsoft to ride the wind and waves, but now he has become a conspirator hiding in the dark and making suggestions to deal with the enemy, the PNf in the computer came from the PNf. Ballmer opened the video conference and found that senior executives including Bill Gates, Tony Bates, and chief legal counsel Brad Smith were all online.

"I'm sorry, all gentlemen, Ye Qiu, chairman of Ye Zi Technology, just announced through their websites, Weibo, WeChat and other official channels that Ye Zi Technology has successfully acquired Nokia's mobile phone, map and patent business, and the total amount of this acquisition will reach 15 billion US dollars."

With the comments from the company's chief legal counsel Brad Smith, everyone in the video conference immediately took a breath, and some were even obviously surprised because they knew very clearly that this meant that Yezi Technology would further consolidate its already very strong competitiveness in the field of mobile devices.

"This is impossible, it cannot be so fast." Ballmer felt even more depressed, and he was unwilling to believe it.

"Sorry, Steve, this is true. We have also confirmed with Finland that they exchanged and signed the contract overnight last night. As long as the EU and the US government do not obstruct this aspect, the acquisition will basically be completed."

Listening to the analysis of the chief legal counsel, everyone present, including Bill Gates and Ballmer, was silent. It was obvious that they were all thinking about how much impact it would have on Microsoft once Yezi Technology completes this acquisition. It is obvious that it will be difficult for them to draw a conclusion in a short period of time.

"How likely do you think the EU and the US governments are to terminate the transaction?" Tony Bates quickly thought of this problem. He felt that it was obviously too late to stop it now, and Microsoft did not have such strong financial resources to compete with Yezi Technology, which is a full $15 billion, which is a huge sum of money for Microsoft, which is now worth more than 200 billion.

Brad Smith shook his head, "Sadly, the situation in this aspect may not be as we imagined. They have made sufficient preparations for this before. Neither the Finnish government nor the EU will stop this acquisition, and the US government believes that the same is true. On the contrary, the Chinese government, I heard that they may stand up and object and propose an antitrust investigation."

"In addition, there is news that Google has basically completed the acquisition of Motorola, and the total amount is likely to exceed 10 billion yuan. Some people even revealed that it is 12.5 billion US dollars. Once it is obtained, Google will own 17,000 Motorola's patents, including many patents in the mobile phone field."

All the executives participating in the video conference were even more silent. They had to be surprised to find that their competitors were ahead of them, but they were a little aware of this kind of thing.

This may be a big slap to Microsoft's monopoly position in the past few decades, reminding and telling all Microsoft executives that the world today is no longer the world of the 1980s, and the world today is full of various changes, and it is no longer the dominant position of Microsoft.

"I said that we can't always focus on software and ignore hardware. Now our competitors are walking ahead of us one by one, which is a painful lesson for us," Steve Ballmer said in anger.

Bill Gates looked angry after hearing this. He was no longer the handsome young man he had back then. Now he is old and even looks a little old. "I don't think this is a painful lesson at all | I'm even less optimistic about their completion of such a major acquisition. We just need to focus on our software development. I always maintain this view." This is also the biggest difference between him and Ballmer.

"But you have to see that if we continue to maintain our current strategy, they will embezzle our market share step by step. You said before that they could not enter the traditional P domain, but they have developed ultrabooks. Now their ultrabooks are selling no worse than ordinary laptops, and the Android system is developing rapidly."

"Then they will take a step forward, continue to enter the personal P and then enter the office computer field, and in the end all we can do is that every step they go, we will take a step back because we have no effective countermeasures against them. What else can we do besides having a meeting here and saying that their acquisition will not be successful?"

Steve Ballmer is the kind of person who can't stop when he gets angry, chatting endlessly. Many people are used to his style, but in the video conference, his complaints brought about other people's dissatisfaction.

Because he said it as if he was right in everything, but others were useless.

"Okay, Steve, what we want now is not complaining or accountability, but to think of a solution." Tony Bates knew the contradictions and conflicts between Ballmer and Bill Gates, and came out to talk about peace

"What is the market value of ARN now?" asked Bates.

After acquiring Nokia, Yezi Technology has an absolute leading position in the field of mobile devices, and it is the kind that is far ahead. Following this is the semiconductor intellectual property company AR. This is a typical technology company. It does not have its own factory and is more about providing technical services.

But don't underestimate this company. Well-known semiconductor companies such as Qualcomm and Samsung all use ARNR technology, which is called Intel in the mobile device field, which shows the company's technical strength.

"After two consecutive waves of acquisitions, it is not easy to acquire AR now. At least it will cost more than $10 billion, or even more than $15 billion. Moreover, they are also technology companies, with a total revenue of more than $700 million per year, and the profit is about 50%, without the slightest acquisition value." Steve Ballmer is very familiar with this market.

ARNR's little revenue and profits are all small profits for all large companies, but for this little profit, they have to pay more than one billion US dollars in acquisition prices, which is very, very unprofitable.

And even if you Microsoft acquires AR, so what?

Can you tell Qualcomm, Samsung, and Yezi Technology that my patented technology is not authorized to you?

If you dare to do this, they will definitely sue you directly. Moreover, many ARNR technologies are not completely without substitutes. The main problem is that ARN has formed a situation of small profits but quick turnover. Everyone is greedy for cheapness and thinks that it is better to rent ARNR patents cheaper than to develop them yourself.

So, in general, the acquisition of ARN is a very unfavorable deal.

Furthermore, AR does not have much hardware capabilities at all. Yezi Technology is now investing heavily in research and development in this regard. They rely on their extraordinary product sales to dilute this research and development cost. Therefore, no matter from which perspective or even from the perspective of weakening competitors, there is no need to acquire AR.

"The official news released by Yezi Technology this time also includes the launch of a series of new products such as new mobile phones, tablets, ultrabooks, etc. in January of the year. In addition to launching a series of new products such as brand new mobile phones, tablets, ultrabooks, etc., it will also announce some brand new smart devices, as well as the first generation of smart car systems they cooperate with many car manufacturers."

When Brad Smith said this, he obviously took care of the emotions of all the executives participating in the video conference and stopped because they all knew very well that the bigger the Yezi Technology market was, especially in their smart ecosystem, the faster it developed, the greater the threat to Microsoft.

Why do you say so?

The reason is very simple. In the intelligent ecosystem planned before Yezi Technology, there is obviously no shadow of Microsoft's operating system. In other words, they regard Microsoft's operating system as a synonym for the previous generation of non-intelligence.

After a full minute or two, Bill Gates sighed deeply, "We did underestimate this company in the past. We missed the best opportunity and missed the best opportunity.

If Yezi Technology is not in a state of chaos, it is taking the opportunity to take advantage of Microsoft's giants or take advantage of the government's pressure to force the company, then Microsoft is now the one who calls for trouble, but Microsoft didn't take them seriously at that time.

Fringe market, perhaps, many years later, the rise of Yezi Technology will be regarded as a role model by countless entrepreneurs, because they finally achieved a rise from the fringe market and finally staged a great feat of ants devouring elephants.

From the perspective of Bill O Gates, he feels that it is not wrong to be obsessed with software, because software is Microsoft's most core competitiveness and a key factor in the ability of him and Microsoft to be prominent in the world. Therefore, he tries every means to maintain Microsoft's authority in software and does not want the company to be more distracted by hardware. Is this wrong?

But look at the current Yezi Technology and their rapid development over the years, are you really wrong?

Bill Gates has never been willing to admit his mistakes. He is called by his supporters a role model who will never make mistakes and will never fail, so he has no habit of admitting his mistakes and has no habit of admitting failures.

"I'm a little tired, you guys keep talking." Bill Gates used this method to quit Microsoft's decision-making level. He was really tired because he found that he could not keep up with this era.

Perhaps, what made Microsoft a monopoly, but what caused Microsoft's collapse was also a monopoly.

So, is monopoly good or bad?

Perhaps, Ye Qiu, who is in Europe at this moment, would tell Bill Gates without hesitation, "If you monopolize it should be taken out and shot."
Chapter completed!