Chapter 394: Sharing the Soup

Hearing Li Dongling's words, Qiu Bojun felt quite moved. Li Dongling personally invited Kingsoft to establish an office branch in the Hanxi Software Industrial Park, which meant that there would definitely be no shortage of orders in the future.

Kingsoft is very short of money. Even with the 3 million US dollar investment from Li Dongling, as long as they are still fighting with Microsoft, Kingsoft will always be very short of money.

In the case that office software doesn't make money, Kingsoft only has two paths. The first path is to continuously look for investors, lower their posture, and continuously beg investors to pour money into Kingsoft.

Another path is to develop new businesses. In his previous life, Kingsoft played like this. Kingsoft Ciba, Kingsoft Antivirus, Seasun Games, e-commerce Joyo, etc., were all established to earn extra money to support the office software that was continuously burning money.

It's just that among Kingsoft's businesses, the ones that really made money were only Kingsoft Antivirus, Seasun Games, etc. Most of the rest were earning shouts or selling themselves.

Now, Kingsoft's situation is actually the same. So for the cooperation proposed by Li Dongling, whether it was Qiu Bojun or Lei Jun, they didn't oppose it. As long as they could earn R&D funding for Kingsoft, they needed to do it...

Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun discussed in a low voice for a few times. "Kingsoft is willing to establish a branch in the Hanxi Software Industrial Park, but I don't know what project Dongling High-Tech is cooperating with Kingsoft this time?"

"Dongling High-Tech is going to launch a new product, hoping that Kingsoft can develop supporting software, games, etc., for this product!"

As soon as these words came out, not only Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun, but also Ren Yuefeng, Hu Zixian, and Gao Peng cast their eyes here.

Although Dongling High

Li Dongling proposed a new project, and then Ren Yuefeng, along with a host of Dongling Gao Ke executives and department heads, completed this project and developed the product.

Yet, this model where a company hinges entirely on its founder is certainly unscientific in the eyes of professional managers, and the risk is too great. After all, one mistake by the founder could lead the entire company into a ditch.

But at the same time, if the founder can steer the ship well, they can make the entire vessel ride the wind and waves, surpassing a host of rivals at an astonishing speed, and in a completely unreasonable manner, achieve in a few years the goals that other companies would need to grope and test for ten or eight years to reach.

Dongling Gao Ke belongs to the latter. Even for Ren Yuefeng, it sometimes feels unscientific, but under the projects Li Dongling has launched, Dongling Gao Ke has never tasted defeat; every new project has pushed Dongling Gao Ke one step further!

Now that Li Dongling has proposed Dongling Gao Ke's new product for next year, how could Ren Yuefeng and the others not pay attention? This means that next year, Dongling Gao Ke might have another hit product, increasing its strength by a significant margin.

For Dongling Gao Ke to launch an electronic dictionary, it certainly needs to offer multiple functions, plus the most critical gaming function; these all require the software team to develop and upgrade.

Dongling Gao Ke could develop it themselves, but the development team over at Jin Shan is certainly several notches stronger. In his past life, the first thing that made Xiaomi phones famous was their system; although it was based on Android, its operational performance, paired with its retail price, almost beat a host of domestic phones to a pulp.

And the first version of the Xiaomi system was created by Lei Jun and five others, who spent two months getting it done.

Even the ill-fated Mi Talk was the first social product to appear on smartphones back in the day; it only lost to another social product that followed closely behind and appeared in forty days. Otherwise, it's hard to say what the landscape of the domestic social software industry would look like. One can catch a glimpse of Lei Busi's software development prowess from this...

With Lei Jun and Qiu Bojun leading a host of Jin Shan personnel to develop software for Dongling Gao Ke, Li Dongling is at ease. Finding other development teams might not be as effective, nor as cost-efficient.

Dongling Gao Ke also needs the ally Jin Shan to grow as quickly as possible to shoulder the pressure for Dongling Gao Ke. There will be plenty of projects in the future waiting for Jin Shan to act as the workhorse and develop them for Dongling Gao Ke.

"Develop games?"

Lei Jun said in surprise, then exchanged a troubled look with Qiu Bojun, coughed, and said, "Jin Shan doesn't have any experience in game development, nor do we have professional game development talent..."

"If you don't know how to develop them, you'll naturally learn after developing a few. There isn't much talent in this area domestically right now; Jin Shan happens to be the first to eat the crab. What if you make money?!"

Lei Jun and Qiu Bojun were speechless for a moment. They felt that Li Dongling seemed to believe even more than they did that Jin Shan could pull off something special in the gaming industry.

"Dongling Gao Ke can establish a game studio together with Jin Shan to test the waters of domestic game development. Tianya Company can also join. Dongling Gao Ke will invest five million RMB in the game studio, holding 65%, while Jin Shan contributes technology as equity, holding 35%!"

Li Dongling said to Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun. Gaming is the most profitable industry in the internet era, whether in the PC internet period or the smartphone era—there is no exception.

In his past life, Jin Shan also relied on games developed by Xishanju to keep itself alive multiple times. Even when Jin Shan went public in the future, what investors cared about most was the Xishanju game brand, not its office software business. Although it sounds awkward, that is the fact.

Xishanju's fame is not small, but if they had entered the online game and mobile game industry earlier, they might not have missed the chance to become a gaming giant like NetEase.

As for the period when major internet giants stood tall, the most profitable businesses for major internet manufacturers were only two: the first was collecting advertising fees, and the second was the gaming business.

This is not only the case domestically; overseas internet manufacturers and the e-commerce industry are basically the same. These are the only two businesses that can monetize traffic.

Lei Jun and Qiu Bojun exchanged a look, and both were clearly moved. With Jin Shan facing no obvious advantage against Microsoft, the more they earn in other areas, the more favorable it will be for Jin Shan to fight a protracted war.

Jin Shan had actually realized that in the computer industry, where they could no longer leave Microsoft systems, it was not an easy task to defeat Office, which entered the domestic market along with Microsoft systems. The war between the two sides would not be decided by a single victory or defeat.

Establishing a game studio with Dongling Gao Ke's investment and Jin Shan's personnel for development was also an attempt for Jin Shan. If it made money, it would be another stream of revenue for Jin Shan—certainly better than running around begging investors for funding.

"Jin Shan is willing to give it a try, but it might not succeed!"

Qiu Bojun said to Li Dongling, telling him to be prepared for the invested money to go down the drain. After all, this was Jin Shan's first time playing with game development; not to mention Jin Shan, the entire country probably had no experience.

"Founder is also willing to join in the fun. If Brother Li and Brother Bojun don't mind, Founder is also willing to invest in the game studio!" Zhang Yufeng spoke up at this moment.

Hearing this, Li Dongling looked toward Zhang Yufeng and saw him full of smiles, seemingly just prepared to follow the trend.

But looking at the flash of light in Zhang Yufeng's eyes, it was clear this was definitely not something Zhang Yufeng proposed on a whim.

Zhang Yufeng didn't know if the game studio would succeed, but with Dongling Gao Ke, the leader of the domestic tech industry, plus the strongest company in the domestic software industry, the two companies joining forces was enough to spark the imagination. Zhang Yufeng was willing to gamble; it was only a few million, after all. For the current Founder, it could only be considered a small investment.

The people present were more than just Zhang Yufeng, the shrewd one. Seeing this, Teacher Yu Minhong of New Oriental also followed up, saying, "Add New Oriental to the mix. Everyone else is investing, and New Oriental can't be weaker than others, right? If the game studio loses money, New Oriental will accept it!"

Seeing this, Li Dongling couldn't help but sigh that Zhang Yufeng and Yu Minhong were truly two shrewd individuals. They might not know how much use this investment would have, but in the future, they might gain unexpected, massive returns because of it!

Li Dongling looked toward Qiu Bojun and Lei Jun and saw that they had no objections to the addition of Founder and New Oriental, even holding the feeling that with one more company entering the fray, the risk could be shared.

(End of chapter)