The secret of Sina brand

Wang Zhidong, general manager of Sitong Lifang. Born in 1967 in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province.

In 1988, he graduated from the Department of Radio Electronics of Peking University.

In May 1989, he was invited to the Institute of Computer Technology of Peking University to develop a "Chinese multi-window graphics support environment".

In June 1990, he transferred to Peking University Founder to be responsible for secondary product development and new product development.

In June 1991, we independently developed and launched the first practical Windows Chinese environment in China - bdwin3.0.

In April 1992, he founded Xintiandi Electronic Information Technology Research Institute and served as deputy general manager and chief engineer.

In December 1993, he founded Sitong Lifang Information Technology Co., Ltd. and served as general manager.

In 1997, he was named an outstanding entrepreneur in the third "Light of Science and Technology" in Beijing. ?

Wang Zhidong, who is well known and admired by people, is the first programmer to write the Windows Chinese platform. bdwin, Chinese Star, richwin made Wang Zhidong, who had only written programs seriously for five years, become the symbol of China's second generation of programmers after Yan Yuanchao. However, after writing the first version of Rich Win in 1994, Wang Zhidong put down the C language that he had relied on in the past and became the general manager of Stone Rich.

The big fall in Xintiandi made Wang Zhidong understand that creating a good software development environment is more difficult than creating a good product. "I once wanted to find a good environment for myself so that I could turn my back on things outside the window and concentrate on writing programs. However, this kind of environment is lacking in China. People with a technical background in China are in trouble. Many of them are just because they don’t know how to operate, how to manage, and how to grasp the direction.” After searching several times but failing to find a good environment for himself, Wang Zhidong decided to create one for himself.

As the general manager of Stone Lifang, Wang Zhidong now has to consider not how to streamline procedures and instructions, but external cooperation. "I have to consider who I want to be friends with and who I want to fight as an opponent. Once you are friends, you should change your identity and never fall on the wrong team."

Government relations. "Richwin is now included in the National Torch Plan, 863 Plan, Scientific and Technological Achievements Plan, and the Ninth Five-Year Technical Transformation Plan."

Market strategy. "In view of the fact that China's software market is very immature, we have chosen the market strategy of bundling and enlarging users. This strategy now seems to be very successful."

This is not the only thing that worries General Manager Wang Zhidong all day long. "Programming is a competition between people's intelligence. There is no need to consider many non-logical factors, but software companies require all aspects to be considered. If there is a problem in any aspect, the entire company will not.

Success. The technology must be good, the products must be good, the market must be good, the relationship must be good, and the internal mechanism must be better.” All these put a lot of pressure on Wang Zhidong, but as the general manager of the company, Wang Zhidong “will push even if he wants.” Don’t fall off”.

According to Wang Zhidong’s character, he “least likes chatting with anyone, boasting, and talking. He least likes to watch people fight and break up the fight himself.” From a programmer to a general manager, "you have to make very painful sacrifices and get rid of the original state of personal heroism. You may have to fall down before you can make up your mind to complete this transformation, and you also need good opportunities, organizational management and smartness." It’s completely two different things.”

“I feel like I haven’t enjoyed my career as a programmer for more than five years. It’s a pity that it’s only been five years. In fact, until now, I often still have the urge to go back to writing programs. The current situation is like a mouse stepping on a flywheel. The faster it steps, the faster it goes. In fact, it is all the force I put on myself. I have stepped on it now and can't stop even if I want to. Maybe in three to five years, Sitongli will be made. Now, I’ll hire a general manager and write the program myself.” Looking at Wang Zhidong’s experience, you can understand why Wang Zhidong still wants to go back to being a programmer after becoming a general manager.

Going to the Streets

In 1987, Wang Zhidong finished his junior year in the Radio Department of Peking University. He felt that he had earned enough credits, so he entered Zhongguancun.

Wang Zhidong, who had just started his career, worked in a small company with less than 10 people to save machines, repair machines, and sell machines at the front desk. He took some time off from his busy schedule to play with the Chinese version of some Western software. Without the source code, he made the Chinese version. A version of autocad that has developed the Chinese character system on IBM5550. A year passed in a flash.

It was a user demand that changed Wang Zhidong’s development trajectory. This user bought the Peking University Founder typesetting system and the Sitong 4S system. However, the two typesetting software have different hardware configuration requirements and cannot be installed on the same machine. The merchant told him that he had to buy it

Two PCs are all it takes, and the user has a headache about this. When he was walking on the street, he met Wang Zhidong and asked him if he could help him. Wang Zhidong agreed to give it a try.

The Founder typesetting system and the 4s system have different requirements for graphics cards and printers. Wang Zhidong’s plan is to use 4s as a prototype to transplant the Peking University Founder system to the new machine, so the underlying driver of Founder must be modified. program. Founder's products are encrypted, Wang Zhidong

decrypts them first, then decompiles them, and then modifies them. A month later, Wang Zhidong installed the two systems on a PC.

This user was very excited and ran to Founder and said: "I found someone to do what you said can't be done." Founder's people didn't believe it, so the customer took the machine to demonstrate to them. After the people from Founder saw the demonstration, they insisted on asking who did it, and the customer revealed Wang Zhidong.

From then on, Wang Xuan remembered Wang Zhidong’s name. A few months later, a major newspaper made the same request to Founder. Fang Zheng asked Wang Zhidong to solve the problem. Finding that Wang Zhidong was very capable, the Founder said to Wang Zhidong: "I know you are on the street and your income is very generous. I'm sorry to ask you to come over, but you can consider being a visiting researcher."

Jin Fangzheng

Wang Zhidong, who regards taking to the streets as "going down to the grassroots", feels that he has a general understanding of Zhongguancun after more than a year of training, and is thinking of practicing in a formalized company. So, I followed the steps and entered Fangzheng.

In 1989, Wang Zhidong, who joined Founder, was like a firefighter. His main task was to solve the problems of hardware compatibility and special software requirements of Founder's system

. Founder has very strict control over program source code. Wang Zhidong wants to first decompile Founder's software without the source code, and then solve compatibility issues for Founder's software. "Encryption doesn't work for me. I can change the original encryption method, and then use my own method to encrypt it."

Founder's Weiss System decided to develop on Windows. But at that time, Windows could not handle Chinese, so I contacted Microsoft. Microsoft had not yet made plans for a Chinese version of Windows. Wang Xuan once arranged for a student to do Windows localization for half a year. The student went to Canada

. Wang Xuan thought of Wang Zhidong: "Can you Chineseize Windows?"

The task is very difficult, and we have to come up with something within 3 months. "I have never touched windows. Besides, I am not very familiar with C. I used to use assembly and debug to make little changes. But as soon as I patted my head, I agreed. I said, OK, I will give it a try. Wang Xuan He said, don’t give it a try, just make a military order. I thought, if you’re barefoot and don’t mind wearing shoes, what’s the big deal?” In this way, Wang Zhidong officially arrived at Wang Xuan’s research institute.

Wang Zhidong began to hide in his room, seeing no one, and concentrated on writing his own program. Papers of various designs were spread out on the floor. More than 2 months later, Wang Zhidong wrote the Chinese version of Windows 1.0.

Wang Zhidong works too fast and is really difficult to manage. So he made several Chinese versions of Windows in one go, and then returned to Founder Company from the research institute.

Plug-in

I modified it directly on Spanish windows. There were copyright issues, the workload was huge, and I couldn’t modify it completely, so I could only make do with it. Wang Zhidong suddenly thought about whether he could use a plug-in method to solve the problem of Windows processing Chinese.

Wang Zhidong spent more than a week in his spare time to verify the plug-in method. At this time, Wang Zhidong was excited, "This is the world's first Windows plug-in system. Originally, I wrote a 10,000-line program, and the plug-in method was solved in 1,000 lines. Later, the program became less and less written, and the original English All Windows APIs can be used, and all printers and monitors are supported. ”

Wang Zhidong’s plug-in idea is: Suppose you design a Chinese Windows, each API can be defined by yourself, but you can define it yourself. It was impossible to write a complete Chinese windows, so I had to be parasitic on the English windows. As long as the English windows could do it, let the English windows do it. The Chinese parts that it couldn't do, I did it myself. The way to achieve this is to embed your own code into English windows and dynamically insert it into it. In this way, for application software and users, it seems like they are working on a Chinese operating system. The plug-in system has two core concepts, one is program trap and the other is dynamic definition.

"In this way, the system is stable. I only need to do the Chinese part I need, and the other parts are all dynamically defined, all using its original system. In principle, a plug-in product can be used in all windows This solves the problem of completeness and portability of Windows Chinese processing. The method of kernel Chineseization that I originally did in the research institute later proved to be unworkable. The Taiwan Information Policy Association also did the kernel Chineseization, but later Microsoft did not allow it. If it is authorized, it cannot be done, and the plug-in is independent."

After the program was written, Wang Zhidong did not take it too seriously. It was an amateur work anyway, and he would work as usual at Founder. "Because I I haven't fully thought about the impact this thing will have. But by the end of 1990, Windows 3.0 was very popular all over the world, and the Chinese version of Windows in Taiwan had begun to be released. There are also five or six versions of windows in China such as Evergreen, Poly, and Great Wall, but they are all very similar to the kernel localization solution I did at Founder. However, no one can use my new plug-in solution. I am very frustrated. I was anxious. In November, I approached the leader of Founder, who knew that I had this thing, but I made a mistake and said that my thing could be typeset.”

June 6, 1991. The first national windows seminar was held in Fuzhou. Wang Zhidong told the leaders of his unit that he wanted to participate, and later said that he wanted to participate. In order to participate in this meeting, Wang Zhidong spent more than a week busy productizing, testing samples, and promotional materials. After completion, Wang Zhidong named it bdwin.

bdwin was brought to the meeting and shocked everyone who attended the meeting. Yan Yuanchao, the inventor of cc?dos and the planner of this meeting, developed a Chinese window called Poly Window, but when he saw it Wang Zhidong's bdwin said, "I won't push my stuff any more. I'll push yours because my stuff won't work." Later, Yan Yuanchao became Wang Zhidong's chief engineer.

After returning from the Fuzhou meeting, bdwin made hundreds of sets of encrypted cards and sold them all within 2 months. bdwin was named one of Founder's seven major achievements in 1991 at the end of the year.

Chinese Star

In October 1991, Wang Zhidong thought that he had learned almost everything he should learn at Founder, so he wanted to leave Founder and learn something else. "After graduating from university, I I don’t go to graduate school because I feel that I have learned almost everything in school. Three years as a graduate student is a waste of time. For me, two or three years is a cycle. I have to learn one thing in a cycle and finish it. I have to learn something else."

Wang Zhidong, who left Founder, faced three options: one was to start his own company; the other was to go abroad; the third was to go to a foreign company. Among them, going to Singapore to do EDI and multimedia development is the most attractive to Wang Zhidong because the technology is relatively new. "I want to study foreign business management for a few years, then come back and work on my own, and at the same time practice my English."

While waiting for the procedures to go abroad at home, Wang Zhidong immersed himself in making a brand new Chinese Star version 1.0.

Soon, he met a Peking University classmate who was walking on the street together. The classmate saw this new thing written by Wang Zhidong and suggested that he start a company together. "My classmates at Peking University

were very pragmatic when we were together. They said that my software was a banner for China's software industry. We talked endlessly about great principles, but we were very speculative."

Going abroad includes food and accommodation, and everything is provided, but Wang Zhidong finds it unexciting. Although Singapore provides skilled immigration quotas and has extended Wang Zhidong's visa three times, Wang Zhidong is already obsessed with partnering and investing in companies.

Xintiandi was established at the end of April 1992, and Wang Zhidong served as chief engineer and deputy general manager. "At the time, it seemed that such a division of labor was natural. I was engaged in technology, and the company had management and technology. I could only take care of technology. I didn't care about technology. No one took care of technology, and I was too lazy to take care of finance and people."

On May 21st, Chinese Star version 1.1 debuted at the Beijing Trade Fair for the first time. At that time, Wang Zhidong and the others had no money to rent a booth and had no time, so they squeezed in as visitors. When they saw an empty booth, they put the materials there to promote it to others, and the owner of the booth ran away as soon as he came. Later, I found a booth from a school. Wang Zhidong and the others were explaining it to others. An old man came. Wang Zhidong and the others introduced him and sent him the information. The old man ignored him and looked at the booth. Wang Zhidong and others asked: "Where are you from?" Wang Zhidong said: "We are from Xintiandi." The old man was happy: "This is our booth."

Chinese Star became famous almost overnight, and spread around within a few months. The company's original positioning was: to become famous with the Chinese Star, without seeking profits, and to use this banner to speculate in finance and real estate. This was a very fashionable corporate structure at the time.

But things in the world are always beyond people’s expectations. At the end of 1992 and the beginning of 1993, Chinese Star began to make profits, but real estate did not make any money.

At the beginning of 1993, conflicts began to arise in the company, and Wang Zhidong felt very painful: "I did not go to a state-owned unit, but went to the company; I did not stay in Founder and started my own company. The purpose was to find a very relaxed working environment. If there are still such big personnel and power conflicts in the company I run, it will completely deviate from my original intention." In July and August, the conflicts further developed. Intensified, Wang Zhidong felt that procrastination would definitely not be a good thing for him, "I can do without anything, but I can't do without my freedom. Moreover, I don't take the Chinese Star product itself too seriously. This thing seems like something I do." It’s like a homework.”

Although Wang Zhidong comforted himself like this, Chinese Star has put so much effort into it after all, and Chinese Star is like his son. He now had to pay the price for his naive idea. At the beginning of the company's establishment, everyone agreed with Wang Zhidong to register Chinese Star as a personal invention and let Wang Zhidong be the legal representative. But Wang Zhidong said: "I'm too lazy to care about you, I'll just do technology. I At that time, I was worried that the technology was mine. If the power was on my side again, I would be sorry for the imbalance.”

Although it was hard to let go of his “son,” Wang Zhidong resigned. .

Injection of US$6.5 million in venture capital

At this time, Wang Zhidong felt sad and sentimental for a long time. "I found the most difficult road to walk. Others may think the scenery is pretty good, but when I walked through it, I already had scars. At this time, Microsoft hinted that I could go directly to the United States and there would be better treatment, but Going abroad is a way of turning back, and I don’t want to give up.”

After resigning, Wang Zhidong approached several large companies such as Founder, Lenovo, and Great Wall, trying to persuade them to join forces to establish a new company to develop a Chinese platform, because Wang Zhidong felt that They all need new Chinese platforms, but Wang Zhidong met with failure.

At this time, Stone found Wang Zhidong, and Wang Zhidong also took a fancy to Stone's system. Stone was successfully established, and Wang Zhidong became the general manager.

From the end of 1993 to March 1994, Wang Zhidong hired six or seven programmers, working day and night on development, with a program volume of nearly 1 million lines.

At that time, Wang Zhidong determined that Richwin would be able to complete the entire framework in about 3 years at the earliest, and its technology would be advanced in 5 to 10 years. This was later proven to be correct. "Richwin has gone beyond the Chinese platform concept I proposed in 1992. It must provide users with a real application environment. It has the responsibility to solve Chinese problems, and the solution must be rich. In addition, it must also play a role In order to enhance the system, there are also Chinese application tools and application environments, such as dictionaries, Internet application tools, Chinese tools, etc. Therefore, Richwin was named a multi-system support environment, which was the development of a Chinese platform to a Chinese application platform.”

After the product was completed, the company settled down. The market also picked up, and Wang Zhidong focused his energy on the company's internationalization. "Chinese enterprises have too distinct Chinese characteristics, so they must make use of foreign advanced management experience and management mechanisms."

In 1995, Wang Zhidong went to Silicon Valley twice, and his friends introduced him to several venture capital funds. "A book I liked to read in college was "Silicon Valley Fever". What impressed me most was that Steve Jobs went to the banker in rags and asked him to invest, and Apple became famous overnight

"At that time, although I was not very shabby, I was actually very down and out. "The person I was talking to was working on a listing for Netscape, and the appointment was for an hour, but Wang Zhidong talked with me for two and a half hours. Wang Zhidong asked others for advice. The other party said, "Your company is too small, and the investment is only US$6.4 million, but the business is quite interesting. If you want to win venture funds, you must first carry out international transformation."

Wang Zhidong found Robertson Stevens. , hired them as investment consultants and carried out corporate transformation for more than a year. By 1997, three investors were selected to purchase part of Sitong Lifang's shares for US$6.5 million. "In this way, the company's capital will increase and the company's management will become more standardized."

Venture funds are a tonic for Chinese software companies that are particularly short of money, but Wang Zhidong reminded: "To take the tonic, you must also It depends on your physical strength, if you don’t replenish it well, you will bleed from all your orifices.”

On that day, the onlookers were stunned, and scenes of dramatic scenes that could usually be seen on TV flashed through: In the morning, he went to work as usual at the company; In the afternoon, the company's board of directors issued an announcement stating that he would be terminated from his duties as president and CEO of the company; then, his portrait hanging in the office area was removed, and his mailbox was immediately canceled.

History was fixed on June 4, 2001. Wang Zhidong, known as the pioneer of Sina and the enlightenment of the Internet, a legendary story of the Chinese Internet came to an abrupt end.

Five years later, Wang Zhidong laughed heartily when he mentioned the past. He said: "It was a blessing in disguise. If I had not left Sina, there would be no Click Technology today."

But the biggest trouble people have is that they have too good a memory. On different occasions, Wang Zhidong likes to narrate this: "Today's Sina, the main strength is still those people I left behind."

But the dramatic story of "a cup of wine to release military power" has not yet been The real answer.

The most convincing answer circulated is: Wang Zhidong left Sina because of political disagreements with the board of directors on whether Sina should be acquired by China.com. But history has also proved that China.com did not acquire Sina as expected.

In my opinion, history should not be forgotten, and there is also a detail that happened in an Internet cafe in Chongqing: a 15-year-old girl looked at the news about Wang Zhidong’s resignation on the web page and said "Wow" She burst into tears, tears rolling down her red face. Others asked her why she was so sad, and she said: "My idol is not Andy Lau, but Wang Zhidong."

Before this, Wang Zhidong had never been defeated in dozens of big and small battles. From an ordinary From a technician to a successful business manager, Wang Zhidong has never failed, enough to become the hidden dream of the young people of this repressed and long-lasting nation.

In terms of website strength, Sina has always been the leader among the three major portal websites. In terms of online news and online advertising, Sina has always been the leader.

In terms of personal strength, Wang Zhidong is especially legendary among the "Three Musketeers of the Internet": he was the first to receive US$6 million in venture capital in 1997; in 1998, he merged with Huayuan.com to form Sina.com; in April 2000, he successfully Listed on Nasdaq...

In the tide of capital impact, many people predicted that Sina, Sohu, NetEase and other major portals would collapse, but no one expected that Wang Zhidong would become this The weakest chain. "The story is not over yet, but the game is over."

Wang Zhidong once said: "When I run a business, if I can't control the company, I won't be successful." Perhaps he later understood that even if he succeeded and couldn't control it, he would have to leave.

This ending was doomed before Wang Zhidong became Sina CEO. At the end of 1998, Sina's senior management held a plenary meeting on "What is Sina" at the Longyuan Hotel in Beijing. There is an interesting discussion on whether Sina is a media. At that time, Wang Zhidong was opposed to being a media agency. He said: "It is not to be a news agency." Mao Daolin was concerned about the cost and said: "The media is not that easy to handle!" Chen Tong, who was in charge of content, said out of his job experience: "Sports Weekly 》It was run by just a few people, but it still became prosperous.”

It can be seen that the top management of Sina at that time still had no idea what Sina would be in the future. The final “understanding” was that Sina was both virtual and virtual. The community is part software company, part media, part business center—a hybrid.

Although there was no clear direction, by 1999 Sina was developing unambiguously in all directions because it had the funds and management team that Zhang Chaoyang and Ding Lei envied. Wang Zhidong used the two methods of "burning and speculation" to spend a lot of money on media promotion, burning more than 5 million US dollars every quarter, in exchange for Sina's big eyes appearing in waiting rooms, light boxes, and various well-known websites. It can be said that Sina's early stage was successful.

This has become a common model for many Internet companies. But perhaps it is precisely this that created the sudden onset of cold winter after the Internet boom - a large amount of investment created an overall bubble in the industry.

At this time, NetEase's northbound pioneer Huang Zhimin was bargaining with the decoration company in the New World Office Building outside Chongwenmen in Beijing, preparing for the arrival of his boss Ding Lei.

Around 2000, three websites, led by the "Three Musketeers of the Internet" Wang Zhidong, Ding Lei, and Zhang Chaoyang, became all-powerful and stumbled onto the Nasdaq. Folk definitions say: "Sina is worthy of respect, NetEase is the most humane, and Sohu is the most charming."

NetEase, the most humane, has an important characteristic under the leadership of Ding Lei - Local characteristics. Sohu is a company founded by Zhang Chaoyang as an overseas student in China with venture capital; Sina has transformed from a software company to an Internet company, and has formed a strong management team through international operations. Introducing venture capital in the process.

Now it seems that the development history of Sina is actually the history of the love triangle struggle between capital, entrepreneurs and management. From the earliest Sha Zhengzhi to Wang Zhidong to Cao Guowei, every time the board of directors, which represents the interests of capital, changes the CEO, a main thread always runs through it: the power of capital.

In 2000, after the three major portals were listed one after another, global technology stocks continued to fall. The honeymoon period of the portals began to fade away, and the halo over the founders of the websites and companies began to disappear. But despite this, the stock price of Sina.com, owned by Wang Zhidong, reached as high as US$56 per share, a record that has remained until now.

However, in this case, Sina did not make a profit, nor did it do anything else. It stuck to its three product lines of advertising, e-commerce, and software and waited for the day when it would become profitable.

For shareholders who are looking forward to rising stock prices and hoping for a rise in stock prices, CEO Wang Zhidong undoubtedly missed the opportunity to "buy low and sell high." In other words, after Sina went public, in addition to raising a sum of funds, it not only failed to make good use of the value of the stock, but instead put itself into a quarterly "juice squeezer."

At the beginning of 2001, the most important change conceived by Wang Zhidong was to split Sina according to its business.

But in 2001, splitting up was a very alternative view. At that time, the capital market had always advocated mergers because "investment banks must have big cases to make money." Wang Zhidong's view is undoubtedly contrary to all investors. "Everyone thinks Wang Zhidong is crazy and Wang Zhidong is too conceited."

This ultimately led to Wang Zhidong being completely eliminated from the CEO and director positions of Sina on June 4, 2001.

In the eyes of some people today, if Wang Zhidong is as conservative as Ding Lei, there will be an opportunity to rewrite history. "If I don't hold a controlling stake, I would rather die" - this is why Ding Lei and Zhang Chaoyang can sit firmly on Diaoyutai no matter whether the company is losing money or its performance is declining, and I remain unmoved.

At the beginning of the business, NetEase was wholly owned by him, and his entrepreneurial partners did not own equity. It wasn't until he was planning to go public and re-establish the company's structure that Ding Lei began to transfer shares to others. In addition to transferring to venture capital institutions, he has transferred varying amounts of equity to company employees, including senior executives, several times. Despite this, to this day, Ding Lei still owns about 54% of NetEase's shares and is in an absolute controlling position.

In 2001, due to suspicion of financial fraud, Ding Lei no longer held specific management positions except for maintaining the title of chief architect. However, he still maintained sufficient influence in the company's development strategic planning.

When Ding Lei started his business, he was engaged in software because of his personal interests. Later, with the advent of the Internet boom, NetEase transformed into a portal. Since then, in order to achieve the goal of being listed on Nasdaq, both Ding Lei and NetEase have undergone significant changes, even if it ended up being a "bloody listing."

In 2001, just four days after Wang Zhidong left Sina, news began to spread that NetEase would be sold. However, Ding Lei finally persisted and relied on an asset-light company operating text messages and online games. He quickly became the richest man in the world.

Therefore, compared with Ding Lei, Wang Zhidong’s experience is a lesson. Wang Zhidong introduced venture capital when he founded Sina, and has since gone through multiple rounds of financing. After Sina went public, his personal shareholding was only around 6.1. Wang Zhidong sadly resigned from Sina. The lack of substantial control at the capital level is obviously the most important reason. Assuming that he is as conservative as Ding Lei in terms of equity control, the story will be rewritten.

Insiders also publicly accused Wang Zhidong of being "too conservative" in his business style. For this reason, Wang Zhidong also fought back. In an exchange with a reporter at the end of 2000, Wang Zhidong once believed that his position had been consolidated because those who originally attacked him for being "conservative" found that "in the face of sudden changes in the stock market, the practice of sticking to fundamentals actually showed that Advantages come." Wang Zhidong believed that online advertising had a bright future, but he unexpectedly "lost Jingzhou".

Not long after Wang Zhidong left Sina, Ding Lei began to try and launch a new service: SMS service. What surprised many people at first was that compared to other services, the SMS service bundled with operators gave the website a new source of income, and it soon turned into actual profit - the SMS service saved a large number of Internet users at that time stand.

Until now, SMS business is still an important source of income for most portal websites in China, second only to online advertising. Only online games, which Ding Lei entered later, accounted for more revenue than text messages among the three major portals.

In 2004, some media, after reviewing this process, condensed the changes in the portal into one sentence: from "blood transfusion" to "blood production". Portal websites have begun to give birth to a large number of business opportunities.

This is enough to make people happy. The portal that once sang a sad song has not finally become a pioneer of revolution, at least not yet.

In 2000, a TV host asked Wang Zhidong, then CEO of Sina: "If you retire today, what would you most like to do?" Wang Zhidong later recalled: "At that time, I almost blurted out , if I retire now, what I want most is to start a more independent company.

"

In order to "have a more independent company", after leaving Sina, Wang Zhidong founded Click Technology, which is positioned at the integration of software, network and communication technologies. In the past five years, it has "loomed in the world" ”. At the end of June 2006, two days before Wang Zhidong’s birthday, the personal collaboration software product Lava-Lava was put into trial operation.

It’s just that the idol may have faded. In April 2006, a stormy day In the spring, Wang Zhidong delivered a large speech on innovation on a forum. One of the sentences was, "Everything Google does was already done by someone 20 years ago, and it was already broken. "Wang Zhidong is not the first to say this kind of argument, nor will he be the last to say it, but it has unexpectedly aroused dissatisfaction and attack from many people.