"Alright, then there is at least one thing we still need to do!" Tang Jun, after trying his best to understand Jiade's decision with Microsoft's logic, said, "At the very least, we should announce that QQ will be renamed MSN!"
"What are you talking about?" Jiade was furious when he heard this. "How can such garbage software like QQ be worthy of being renamed to our MSN!"
"But, didn't we acquire QQ precisely to turn QQ into MSN?" Tang Jun was shocked.
"No, it's not about turning QQ into MSN, but about turning QQ users into MSN users. These two points are diametrically different, you must understand this clearly!" Jiade said angrily.
"MSN is the best instant messaging software in the world, and compared to MSN, QQ is many levels behind. If such a thing is renamed MSN, wouldn't that make Chinese people think that MSN is as rubbish as QQ?"
"All I need is QQ users, and in the future, we will import all QQ users into MSN accounts."
Alright, Tang Jun completely couldn't understand Jiade's thought process to make such a decision, so he could only ask, "Then what exactly should we do?"
"QQ will continue to operate without any changes for the time being. Once headquarters approves MSN to operate in China and we complete all relevant procedures, we will use methods to import all QQ user accounts into MSN accounts, and then completely shut down QQ!" Jiade said.
"Then why don't we just change QQ to MSN?" Tang Jun asked. "We can immediately update a brand new QQ version... no, let QQ update to the latest version of MSN, and then change the name to MSN, wouldn't that be enough?"
"No, headquarters has not yet completed the full plan and steps for MSN's open use in China. We cannot violate headquarters' plan and let MSN appear prematurely. Headquarters will not allow such an overstepping of bounds. We just need to prepare users for MSN's launch in the future, so that it can soar!" Jiade said forcefully. Tang Jun opened his mouth, indicating that he had once again understood Microsoft's logic, and decisively closed his mouth.
After that day, Tang Jun did not provide any feedback to headquarters, fully accepting Jiade's approach, which was considered the greatest support for Jiade.
However, Jiade did the opposite. He submitted a report to headquarters, stating that Tang Jun was not suitable to be the president of Microsoft China because he lacked Microsoft's spirit in his bones; he was still a provincial bumpkin... Yes, Jiade used such an adjective to describe Tang Jun in his report.
Finally, he said that Microsoft China would only get worse in Tang Jun's hands, so he suggested that headquarters immediately replace the president of Microsoft China with someone who was completely a Microsoft person.
A week later, headquarters replied to Jiade, stating that they highly approved of Jiade's report. However, they could not find a suitable replacement for Tang Jun in a short time. After all, the presidents of Microsoft China had been changing too frequently; four presidents in five years, and headquarters could not find a better candidate in a short time.
Therefore, Jiade was asked to continue to manage with Tang Jun for the time being, and they would discuss it further once headquarters had a suitable candidate. Helpless, Jiade had to grudgingly continue working with Tang Jun.
Poor Jiade.
On the other hand, the employees of the Tengda team were experiencing their own roller coaster ride.
Initially, when Tengda announced its reorganization, with Little Ma leaving and Zeng Qing taking over, the entire QQ team was in a state of despair and unrest.
They had realized that Tengda did not intend to continue operating QQ. These team members quickly began to look for other opportunities. Some managed to transfer to Lianzhong Games or the newly established Kaixuan Operation Project Group to continue their careers at Tengda.
Others began to look for other companies. For example, many employees immediately submitted their resumes to Jiangnan Group. After all, as a competitor to o0, the product they understood best in the world was oo.
Jiangnan Group accepted all applicants without discrimination. As long as they were truly capable, they were hired. In any case, Jiangnan Group had a brand-new project group in incubation that required a large number of talents and programmers. These individuals, who had fought with Jiangnan Group for a year and a half and possessed strong combat capabilities, capable of writing and replacing QQ Space code in 15 days, were simply the most precious talents in the world. Jiangnan Group couldn't wait to poach people directly from Tengda.
As a result, the original 200-person QQ team was reduced to 120 people. Just as these people were regretting not having found a way out yet, a huge turning point occurred: Microsoft announced the acquisition of the QQ team.
Instantly, these 120 people stopped leaving. After all, anyone with a brain would assume that after Microsoft announced the acquisition of the QQ team, they would definitely keep all the members of the QQ team to continue managing QQ.
This was undoubtedly the case. Not only did only QQ team members know how to maintain QQ, but more importantly, Microsoft China did not have many programmers. Their main tasks were to be responsible for the sales of Microsoft systems in China, the localization of some Microsoft programs, and most importantly, cracking down on piracy and suing for intellectual property infringement throughout China, earning compensation through lawsuits.
For a considerable period, legal professionals were the largest group within Microsoft China. They would file lawsuits across the country, suing companies and even government units for using pirated Windows systems, while completely ignoring individual users. This was because suing an individual user involved extremely high costs, and the maximum compensation would only be around one to two thousand yuan, which was simply not cost-effective.
Only by suing businesses and government units was it a good deal. After all, businesses would use dozens or even hundreds of computers, totaling hundreds of thousands of yuan in compensation.
Government units were even more so. These units valued their reputation very much and also needed to comply with national policies, so they would not engage in using pirated software.
Therefore, even before Microsoft sued, these units would immediately compensate privately to avoid the matter from escalating and damaging their reputation... If Microsoft were a Chinese company, it would be different, but since Microsoft was a foreign company, these units had no recourse.
Thus, although Microsoft was the world's largest software company, Microsoft China had very few programmers. Such a Microsoft China was fundamentally incapable of operating QQ. They could only absorb the original QQ operation team to become Microsoft employees.
As a result, these employees transformed from miserable workers in a private enterprise to esteemed employees of a foreign company, and even an employee of the world's number one computer enterprise.
It was like being an ordinary citizen of an African country yesterday and becoming a noble American citizen today. The QQ team was naturally overjoyed. Even many who had found other jobs regretted not staying with QQ for a few more days.
Unfortunately, the QQ team employees only enjoyed three days of happiness before a cold piece of news hit them.
That is, Microsoft entrusted Tengda to continue operating QQ, willing to pay a commission fee of up to 4.5 million yuan per month. Even more absurdly, Microsoft directly axed the QQ Space project group and laid off all the team members who belonged to the QQ Space project group, telling them to find other opportunities.
This news completely shocked the entire QQ team, and Tengda was also in shock.
After all, in Tengda's quotation list, QQ Space was priced at a whopping 50 million US dollars, accounting for half of the entire QQ project group. Yet, Microsoft just cut it without hesitation, throwing that 50 million US dollars into the fire. This audacity left Zeng Qing stunned for a full half-day, contemplating the profound meaning and business acumen behind Microsoft's actions.
As a result, after thinking for three hours, he still couldn't figure out any logic and could only exclaim, "Microsoft is awesome!"
However, Zeng Qing was still very happy. After all, QQ's monthly operating cost was less than 2 million yuan, but they were commissioned 4.5 million yuan per month for maintenance, which meant they could earn a net profit of over 2.5 million yuan per month. This was all his achievement!
Some people might wonder why QQ, which previously required over 3 million yuan in daily expenses per month, now only needed less than 2 million yuan.
This was partly because the number of active QQ users was rapidly decreasing. After shedding the server monster that was QQ Space, less operating resources were needed, making it cheaper than before.
Secondly, when Tengda was operating QQ before, they were fully committed to making QQ bigger and stronger, using all means to improve QQ's user experience and spending money to let employees work overtime to develop new features for QQ.
However, since they were now maintaining QQ on behalf of Microsoft, all these things were completely unnecessary. The entire team only needed to ensure that QQ operated normally. They clocked in at the beginning of the day and clocked out at the end of the day, with weekends off. Recently, they didn't even need to plan any activities. Such work was incredibly comfortable, and labor costs had also decreased significantly.
In summary, after Microsoft issued this magical decision, the QQ project group let out a wail of despair. They understood that Microsoft could not possibly see value in them.
Consequently, capable individuals completely abandoned QQ and began looking for buyers. Then, Jiangnan Group appeared at the opportune moment and absorbed these former rivals one by one, greatly enriching Jiangnan Group's technical and talent reserves.
Ultimately, less than 30 people out of the original 120-person team remained in the QQ project group. These were the individuals who had been slacking off and coasting along in the project group before. They loved stability the most and hated change, so as long as the QQ project group was not disbanded, they would continue to stay within the project group.
Moreover, the remaining work was very suitable for them; they only needed to maintain existing systems and did not need to develop new features, which was even more suitable for those who were just muddling through.
Thus, the news of Microsoft's acquisition of QQ only made headlines for two to three days. Outsiders were surprised to find that there was no further development.
QQ was still QQ, and it continued to operate as before. Everything seemed unchanged. However, judging from the fact that QQ had not released any new updates for a full month, it seemed that QQ had indeed died.