1973 Mobile Phone Hall | Digital Culture

The future development of mobile phone history

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After many textual researches and combing, I still intend to separate dopod from HTC. Although they finally came together, there are many statements on the Internet that make people see things in a blur. Some say that dopod is the predecessor of HTC, some say that dopod is HTC, and some say that dopod is a sub-brand of HTC. Many years have passed since the history of dopod, and the public does not go back to recount it. In fact, these statements are not very accurate. Let's look at the specific story.

Dopod Company in a narrow sense was founded by Yang Xingping, 196 1 was born in Zhongxiang, Hubei Province, 1982 graduated from Xi Jiaotong University, 1985 obtained a master's degree in engineering from Xi Jiaotong University, 1987 obtained a master's degree in engineering from the University of California, and 65438+ obtained a master's degree in engineering.

When studying for a master's degree at the University of California, Yang Xingping participated in the research of the American Star Wars program-"How to make computers intelligently control a complex system".

My first venture was in 1992, when I entered a company in Boston under the guidance of my tutor. Several tutors want to turn the research results in the university into products, and the specific task is to apply artificial intelligence and automatic control system to nuclear power plant technology.

At that time, the technology was very successful, but there were only a dozen customers, because there were only a few dozen nuclear power plants in the United States. Although technical research is very professional, the market path is very narrow.

From 65438 to 0994, after the rise of multimedia in Silicon Valley, Yang Xingping spent two years studying multimedia business, made a set of multimedia processing and management system, and applied for a patent in the United States.

In addition, Yang Xingping also made image processing technology, and the team developed a 4-megapixel digital camera, which was the earliest and highest digital camera in the world at that time, and the first multimedia database system for high-resolution digital cameras and camcorders in the world.

But the technology is too advanced for computer software to handle, the Internet transmission speed is very slow, the printer can't print high-precision images, and the camera has no chance to enter the general mass market, so it can only be transferred to the hospital.

During this period, Yang Xing also participated in the research and development of an e-commerce system jointly established by Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and other manufacturers, which can effectively handle high-definition images on the Internet, and led the implementation of the American clothing industry, becoming one of the first people to create an American e-commerce system.

Later, Yang Xingping worked as the vice president of technology in a company called PIXO in Silicon Valley, in the office building where Apple started, and then began to try the mobile Internet.

Yang Xingping was inspired by a doctoral supervisor. With the development of computer, communication and internet, the trend of integration has become clear. Yang Xingping has integrated mobile phones, computers and the Internet to build a wireless Internet service platform.

Yang Xingping's idea got tens of millions of dollars from a Japanese mobile phone chain, but Yang Xingping contacted Samsung and Nokia, hoping to use his technology in their products, but failed. At that time people only recognized WAP.

Yang Xingping led engineers, and it took three years from 1996 to 1999 to develop the first smartphone operating system and wireless Internet service platform. After the mobile phone was put on the market, the response was flat.

Yang Xingping said that his company team put forward the concept of setting up a software store in mobile phones for users to download as early as around 2000, but the smart phone environment at that time was far less mature than today.

In 2000, after the Internet bubble burst, the IT economy declined. After spending $200 million in venture capital, PIXO fell into a crisis of survival.

In the absence of funds, Yang Xingping sold this operating system to Apple, which just made electronic products and tried to enter the MP3 market, for the survival of its employees.

This is the prototype of the system in the later iPod. PIXO technology was used in the song selection function, calendar and contact function of the first generation iPod.

Jobs modified the original operating system, made the interface beautiful, improved the design, and combined with MP3 hardware technology, launched a huge business legend in the history of consumer electronics-iPod.

200110/October 23rd, the first generation of iPod was released, and Yang Xingping bought one specially to study every detail of color, material, extension cord and internal logic. Complex feelings are beyond words.

Apple's success deeply stimulated Yang Xingping: Why are we forced to sell our business, while Apple, which has mastered the core technology, has achieved such great success by integrating other people's technologies? I finally understand that no technology can be invented and perfected by one person or a company. A successful enterprise should be good at integrating superior resources.

Yang Xingping is technology-oriented, and her biggest dream is still to develop the most advanced smartphone operating system and deliver it to consumers. Yang Xingping decided to go back to China and have a try.

At the end of February, 20001year, Yang Xingping came to the office building of Guangdong Mobile. There were no smart phone products at that time. Yang Xingping showed his idea with Compaq iPAQ, a PDA with no call function.

Guangdong Mobile expressed doubts about this. After the one-hour speech, Guangdong Mobile immediately proposed to sign a cooperation agreement.

After the platform is built, the next step is the manufacture of the terminal. Yang Xingping had seen the cold shoulder of Samsung and Nokia before, and he decided to start a new stove.

In July, 20001,Yang Xingping met Wang Xuehong in the United States, and HTC, a subsidiary of Wang Xuehong, has been OEM Compaq IPAQ handheld computers.

Wang Xuehong thinks that there is a big market gap for PDA without integrated communication function, and the hardware products of HTC and the software platform of Yang Xingping are the best combination.

So in the following two months, the two sides met five times in Shanghai, Taipei and Silicon Valley, and finally finalized the cooperation agreement.

In April 2002, HTC Wang Xuehong invested in his own name and jointly invested with China Electronics Group CEC to establish dopod Communication Co., Ltd.

According to the agreement, Wang Xuehong, as one of the major shareholders of dopod, owns the dopod brand. As a brand founder and professional manager, Yang Xingping owns some shares. Wuhan Zhongyuan Electronics, a subsidiary of CLP Holding Group, holds 565,438+0% shares in dopod and does not participate in quality control and management.

Dopod Company is headquartered in Shanghai and its production base is located in Wuhan. The reason why we chose Wuhan to cooperate with Wuhan Zhongyuan Group is because dopod has no mobile phone license and can only lease the license of Wuhan Zhongyuan. According to the agreement, dopod Communication Company can only produce and sell dopod brand mobile phones in the Mainland, and dopod International Co., Ltd. will be responsible for the sales of dopod mobile phones in Asia-Pacific and other regions.

On July 1 2002, Taiwan Province Hongda and VIA Electronics * * * jointly invested to establish dopod International Co., Ltd., which is headquartered in Taiwan Province Province, China, and the factory is located in hsinchu city, Taiwan Province Province, and is responsible for the production and design of mobile phones.

Yang Xingping has selected five three-point rings from more than 60 Logo schemes of/kloc-0, and the five rings also represent the five rings of the Olympic Games and the global concept.

Both sides of dopod stand for English do, which means English do, with P in the middle. P stands for telephone, computer, platform and people.

0 and 1 are the same language of computer, communication and Internet. Yang Xingping thinks that five circles and three points represent dopod's idea and his integration idea. LOGO consists of five zeros and three 1, and 0 and 1 are their basic languages.

At this point, everything is ready, except the east wind. On the choice of CPU, Yang Xingping found Inter and Texas Instruments, Sony for the display screen, Samsung for the battery and Windows Mobile for Pocket PC (PPC for short) for the operating system.

Design and processing rely on HTC in Taiwan Province Province. Familiar friends all know that dopod is Chinese mainland's HTC. Almost every HTC mobile phone sold in Europe and America can be found in the product camp in dopod.

A few months later, dopod's first 686 prototype rolled off the assembly line. On August 22nd, 2002, dopod launched dopod 686 in the Great Hall of the People, and sold 65,438+0,500 units in one month.

In order not to affect the overall look and feel, dopod 686 stylus is hidden in the internal antenna, and its side is provided with SIM card slot, super-resolution 3.6-inch QVGA screen, office software such as Word and Excel, and Windows Media Player8.0 player.

In 2002, Hero premiered in the Great Hall of the People. Yang Xingping, who has just returned from America, doesn't know the domestic stars. Lu Xiangdong, vice president of China Mobile, introduced it and thought of using movies to promote dopod. The slogan is: watch "hero" on the hero's mobile phone.

In 2002, dopod became famous in one fell swoop and became synonymous with future mobile phones, high-end business mobile phones and smart phones. The sales of 686 mobile phones with a price of 7880 yuan exceeded 20,000 units, and the revenue exceeded 654.38 billion yuan. In just over a month after listing, the sales volume exceeded that of Compaq iPAQ in the first year of listing.

At the end of 2003, dopod 5 15 "Smartphone" went on the market, and invited the best actor Chen to speak for it. This TV commercial will be written, performed and directed by Chen.

In September 2004, the upgraded version 565 of dopod 5 15 was released, which is the smallest smartphone in the world. It also changed the memory card type of mobile phone from SD to mini-SD memory card for the first time.

At that time, the famous "mobile phone madman" in China went to Shanghai to find him. He eagerly asked Yang Xingping:

"How much did you spend to build the dopod brand?"

"I let him guess three times. He said 1 100 million, I said you can guess again, he said 500 million. "

In fact, dopod's total investment is less than 1 100 million, and the maximum investment is 20 million-advertising by Zhang Yimou's film Hero.

In February 2004, at the 8 18 mobile phone conference in dopod, Yang Xingping announced that its annual sales exceeded130,000 units and its profit was10,000 yuan.

It is also reported in the industry that Changhong, a home appliance tycoon, and Bird, a mobile phone giant, intend to settle in dopod, Bird and Wuhan Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, hoping to acquire or cooperate. However, Yang Xingping said that the premise of cooperation is to ensure the dopod brand and let dopod fully control it.

The OEM supply in dopod is mainly carried out by HTC, but the model naming method is different. Take dopod 8 18 as an example. O2 is named mini, T-Mobile MDA and i-mate JAM.

In June 2007, dopod S 1 was released, which is HTC Touch. Dopod S 1 took the lead in integrating Touch FLOTM technology developed by HTC, and abandoned the traditional mode of operating PPC mobile phone with stylus. All operations can be achieved with one hand. Press and hold the dopod logo on the panel with your finger and slide it to the screen to bring up the menu.

I won't go into details about other machines in dopod. Basically, prototypes can be found in HTC. Please understand them together with the development history of HTC.

The reason why dopod can become a famous smart phone brand in a short time lies in the positioning of high-end smart phones, which are better than similar mobile phones in design concept and function. Relying more on product word-of-mouth publicity, the only large-scale advertisement was the cooperation promotion plan with Zhang Yimou before the performance of Hero.

At that time, Yang Xingping also realized that dopod's operating system was still not convenient enough and needed continuous improvement. He kept trying to change dopod. However, dopod's operating system was controlled by Microsoft, and Yang Xingping communicated with Microsoft executives many times, but it didn't work.

In 2006, when HTC, another company owned by Wang Xuehong, was no longer satisfied with designing and processing for dopod and asked to enter the mainland market by eating in dopod, it was naturally opposed by Yang Xingping, and there was a fierce dispute between the two sides at the board meeting.

Finally, Yang Xingping offered to withdraw as a condition in exchange for the weak commitment of the management to push dopod to the global market.

In February 2006, the National Development and Reform Commission approved dopod to produce GSM and CDMA mobile phones. In March this year, Yang Xingping, former CEO of dopod, was appointed as honorary chairman, and Li Shaotang from Taiwan Province Province of China became the new CEO.

The business world is like a battlefield. Jobs killed opponents and partners many times. In order to consolidate his position, Bill Gates drove away the core figures who once supported Microsoft technology.

Everything in dopod entered the track and gradually became profitable, but Yang Xingping left dopod, which he founded at dawn after nightfall.

Four years later, Yang Xingping spoke for the first time about this dusty history. He summed up dopod's experience with the word "sacrifice". This is a story of the game between capital and technology. The plot is that investors try to sacrifice one brand for the better development of their own brand, and dopod in Yang Xingping is the one who was sacrificed.

Yang Xingping admitted that he was depressed for a long time after leaving dopod. Only by reading the thoughts of the philosopher he has always loved before can he gradually forget the pain.

Then HTC began to think about dopod. After years of operation, it has also gained a firm foothold in the mainland. Negotiations between Wang Xuehong and Yang Xingping failed. Finally, Yang Xingping made the exit as a condition, in exchange for the commitment to push dopod to the global market. Later, it seems that HTC is just a delaying tactic. In the end, dopod was completely replaced by HTC.

In March 2007, after leaving dopod, Yang Xingping returned to the deep mountains and chose the financial and education industries to start a new business. Yang Xingping, who likes philosophy, named the new company "Road to Nature" and focused on mobile financial management software.

This mobile phone software will provide a comprehensive mobile financial solution: users can enjoy financial services including stocks, funds, banks and insurance on the platform through computers and mobile terminals.

In the second half of 2008, when Natural Road developed the first generation products, Li Dongsheng invited Yang Xingping to be the vice president of TCL Communication for many times.

In 2009, Yang Xingping became CEO of TCL Communication. The reason for joining TCL is the "gentleman's agreement" between Yang Xingping and Li Dongsheng: if Yang Xingping can make the annual sales of TCL mobile phones reach 6,543,800+million, TCL will inject a strategic investment of 30% shares into Nature Road.

In 2009, the sales volume of TCL mobile phones was 1.6 1.2 million, exceeding the expectation by 60%, and Yang Xingping retired.

Today, Yang Xingping, who is over half a century old, is engaged in Nature Road Company. Yang Xingping said that he had two most important things to do. The first is to help young people who are addicted to online games. The second is to help investors who have suffered heavy losses.

Regarding the first thing, Yang Xingping said that there is nothing he can do at present, but the second thing is his duty.

201112, China (zhangjiagang) mobile internet industry elite summit and Jiangsu zhangjiagang mobile internet high-tech industrial park launch conference, Yang Xingping made a speech and put forward his own views on apple:

"In fact, I think China has two misunderstandings about Apple. If we understand them, we can make many fewer mistakes. The first big misunderstanding Many China enterprises think that Apple is an innovative enterprise in science and technology, especially we can't think with our traditional concept of scientific and technological innovation.

The second is that it is very common, and people think that Apple is very fashionable. Its products are fashionable, which is also a huge misunderstanding. We must change these two fundamental misunderstandings. If we don't understand these two truths, it will be difficult for us to really make a core product like the iphone. "

"Their products don't pursue fashion ... In fact, Apple and Microsoft never do original things. They always watch others do something to open this market. The road was paved and they began to go in. What is their magic weapon? Apple is dominated by product experience, product quality and product design. Microsoft is market-oriented, and neither of them is a guide to technological innovation. "

"Cook is definitely a person who defends the country, not a person who fights for the country, which I can conclude. At present, Apple has reached its peak, and the apples behind it will definitely go downhill, which is inseparable from the laws of nature. "

In 20021year, Yang Xingping was 60 years old. The company of Nature Road was still operating, and the website entered normally, but Yang Xingping rarely appeared in the public eye.

The development history of domestic mobile phones is constantly updated.

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Most of the pictures come from the Internet.

Most of the data comes from the Internet.