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Sharing such a magnificent long essay by Teacher Liang Ning with everyone, I have only one thought: pursuing worldly success is the most basic responsibility of each of us, but beyond worldly success, caring about the times and this country is also a responsibility.
Author丨Liang Ning
Source丨Liang Ning – Idle Flowers Reflecting Water Record (ID:cafeday)
The ZTE incident has sparked a heated discussion online:
“This chip that was stuck by the U.S. must be developed in ten thousand years,” “Chinese chips are lacking because of funding,” “Domestic operating systems need the support of BAT”… such remarks make my heart ache.
After enduring for a few days, I couldn’t hold back any longer today. Let me talk about a past experience of mine.
I unknowingly wrote ten thousand words. It’s divided into several parts:
1. A Glorious Start
2. The Difficulties of the First and Second Legs
3. The Difficulties of the System Ecology and Major Defeats
4. Where Ark and Yongzhong Went Wrong
5. Why Can’t We Produce Operating Systems?
From 2000 to 2002, in three years, I served as an assistant to Academician Ni Guangnan, participating in the work of Ark CPU, Yongzhong Office, NC thin clients, and Linux operating systems.
1
A Glorious Start
In 2001, Ark No. 1 made its debut. It was hailed by the media as “rewriting the history of China’s ‘no chip’ era.”
The Ministry of Science and Technology’s 863 major project, the major project of the National Development and Reform Commission, and the industrial support fund of the Ministry of Information Industry all provided funding.
The technical appraisal committee for Ark No. 1 was led by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, with former president Song Jian and former vice president Zhu Gaofeng serving as chairman and vice chairman of the appraisal committee.
On July 10, 2001, Ark No. 1 was launched, with former Deputy Mayor of Beijing Liu Zhihua personally hosting the press conference, and several ministers including Minister Qu Weizhi attending the event to speak. Before that, Vice Premier Li Lanqing had listened to work reports three times.
This was the treatment that Ark No. 1 CPU received at that time. The highest level of people and financial support was in place.
I began participating in the Ark project in 2000.
I was the main author of the reports submitted to the 863 program, the National Development and Reform Commission (now called the National Development and Reform Commission), and the Ministry of Information Industry seeking support.
I participated in the preparation of the technical appraisal and press conference.
I still vividly remember April 2001, when the first batch of chips came back. After a tense debugging process, we saw our self-designed CPU start working.
Liu Qiang looked into my eyes and said, “The chip is alive.”
That moment is unforgettable.
Perhaps, it was the most beautiful moment in that event.
Ark Technology was founded by Canadian Chinese Li Delei.
Li Delei graduated from Harbin Institute of Technology in 1977 and went to the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for graduate studies, then went to the University of Alberta in Canada for a doctorate. He then stayed in Canada.
On January 8, 1997, Ark Technology’s predecessor, Baituo Lick Company, was registered in Beijing. It mainly relied on Li Delei to introduce outsourcing business.
In 1997, after leaving Motorola, Li Delei joined Hitachi (USA) Semiconductor Company as the director of microprocessor design. Correspondingly, the outsourcing business undertaken by BBT also shifted from Motorola to the latter, mainly doing related business based on Hitachi chips. Liu Qiang graduated with a doctorate at that time and joined as vice president of R&D.
In 1999, Li Delei approached Ni Guangnan, who saw that a complete technical team for CPU development had been cultivated here – this was his long-cherished wish.
The background at that time was that the Chinese IT industry, as well as Ni Guangnan himself, had always been troubled by the lack of operating systems and chips with independent intellectual property rights. (It has been 18 years and it is still the same)
At that time, Minister of Science and Technology Xu Guanhua said, “China’s information industry lacks chips and souls.” The chips refer to chips, while the soul refers to operating systems.
Thus, Ni Guangnan helped Ark find funding, government support, and all the resources needed by SMIC, while he himself did not take a penny from SMIC, nor did he hold any shares. He was willing to give everything; he wanted a new core framework for the IT industry.
Academician Ni Guangnan told me that the Ark CPU + Linux operating system would create a thin client NC, a “cloud + end” solution to replace the Wintel architecture, and at that moment, I was so excited that I clenched my fists tightly, my nails digging into my flesh.
In the past, we played the game designed by the Wintel alliance (the Microsoft and Intel alliance) at Lenovo.
Wintel is your top layer, and your cost and performance can only be within the space it defines.
But now, we were a group of people who were changing the core framework. We were bringing a completely different imagination and design space for cost and performance to our IT industry. This was simply amazing!
2
The Difficulties of the First and Second Legs
Those were the passionate years when the daring Yu Cisheng served as the deputy director of the Beijing Science and Technology Commission. Li Wuqiang, who had attracted the attention of Deng Xiaoping, returned from the U.S. to serve as deputy director of the Industrialization Department of the Ministry of Science and Technology. Everyone wanted to get things done.
We had the technology for CPUs and SoCs, the government funding was in place, and the chips were produced.
The next thing was to face the market and the users.
At this point, the real difficulties began.
The hardest part of making a CPU is not development.
The first step is not that you can’t write designs like INTEL, but that you can’t afford the lawsuits.
Since the Industrial Revolution, Europe has recognized and understood the value of protecting intellectual property rights to incentivize knowledge innovation.
The U.S. is even better. As long as it’s an idea, you can register a patent.
Patent protection is one of Intel’s core competitive advantages, and Intel has a large-scale team of professional lawyers that has registered almost all patents related to the x86 architecture.
Why is there still AMD? INTEL is a shareholder of IBM, and IBM is a shareholder of AMD. That’s it.
So for the Ark team, the technical difficulty is not in the x86 architecture, but on this path, at every step, you will encounter Intel’s patents. We can’t afford the lawsuits.
Therefore, the technical route chosen by Ni Guangnan was to adopt the RISC architecture and focus on embedded systems, bypassing the x86 architecture.
The second difficulty was that at the beginning of 2000, the Chinese IT industry not only could not produce CPUs, but also lacked the ability to design core circuit boards based on CPUs.
At that time, there was still a list of the top 100 electronic enterprises in China. Lenovo ranked second.
Anyway, with Ni Guangnan, Song Jian, and a bunch of big shots behind me, I took the list of the top 100 electronic enterprises in China and found the chief engineers of every big company from No. 1 to No. 100.
The dialogue was always like this:
I: “We have independently owned CPU technology and SoC capabilities, so we can greatly integrate the functions you need, and your company can define the performance and size of your products more flexibly.”
The other party: “Sorry, we don’t have the ability to develop product prototypes based on a CPU. It’s all done by INTEL or their design houses. We choose one of their public boards, and then we develop based on their public board.”
That’s when we realized that Intel didn’t just produce CPUs; it cultivated a development ecosystem based on CPUs.
The first leg is core components.
The second leg is countless small design houses that create public boards, product concepts, product prototypes, differentiation, and optimization around Intel.
Then, the next leg is the enterprises facing the market, selecting product prototypes from design houses, commercializing them, branding, selling, and providing customer service.
However, in 2000, our top 100 electronic enterprises were basically all in the third leg.
So, when we produced the CPU and the chip was alive, we held it in our hands and wanted to present it to others. There was not a single third-leg enterprise in China that could take it.
With no choice, we had to move forward.
So Ark Technology, after completing the CPU, established a hardware team and produced NC product prototypes and public boards by itself.
It meant that a small CPU design company had to simultaneously take on the work of a design house.
Finally, both the CPU and product prototype were okay, and we could hand them over to a third-leg enterprise for commercialization.
Yu Cisheng decided that the Beijing government would be the first to try.
3
The Difficulties of System Ecology
Major Defeats
The next problem arose. A bigger challenge.
The Wintel alliance. It was difficult to bypass Intel, but even harder to break through Microsoft.
Once the CPU was produced, we made prototypes and then products. After completing the products, we found that there was no supporting software available.
Ark Technology bit the bullet and decided to create an NC public board.
However, so many software porting, adaptation, and secondary development were truly not something that one, ten, or a hundred companies could handle.
At this point, Yu Cisheng initiated the “Sail Plan,” bidding nationwide to address over 50 issues in 13 categories for the Linux desktop. Browsers, OFFICE, players… one by one to resolve.
Then, he did something famous in the circle – the selection of office software by the Beijing municipal government, which kicked Microsoft out of the competition.
This event caused a sensation in the IT circle, and Microsoft China President Gao Qunyao resigned. Then Kissinger wrote a letter to then Beijing Mayor Liu Qi to plead for Microsoft. He pressured to deal with Yu Cisheng. (Didn’t expect that American political figures would also serve their own country’s enterprises. At that time, China had just successfully bid for the Olympics, and Kissinger’s pressure was a big boss-level attack).
That was the winter of 2001, the biggest snowfall in Beijing.
On that day, more than ten academicians jointly wrote to the Prime Minister to plead for Yu Cisheng.
One of the founders of China’s computer industry, a general, and an academician, Zhang Xiaoxiang, signed first, and Academician Ni Guangnan also signed.
It is said that Premier Z saw the joint letter from the more than ten academicians and was moved for a moment.
The 863 program originated from March 1986, when four academicians jointly wrote to Comrade Xiaoping. Because the event took place in March 1986, it was abbreviated to 863. From then on, this became China’s key high-tech development program.
Initiating 863 was a letter signed by four academicians. To protect Yu Cisheng, there were more than ten academicians.
I always remember this event.
Later, while idling at home, watching “Saint Seiya”, the twelve golden saints sacrificed themselves together to break through the sigh wall for a ray of light.
More than a dozen academicians signed their names, which brought no benefit to them. They just wanted to protect a ray of light.
So, I am unwilling to recall this past because we failed.
From then on, we became the laughingstock of many people, especially Academician Ni Guangnan.
It was only ten years later, after I joined Tencent, that I learned a term – user experience.
This battle, to put it simply, is that we managed to convince the Prime Minister, but did not manage to address user experience.
The result was a defeat as overwhelming as a mountain.
The first critical issue was the compatibility of Office based on Linux, including Red Office, Yongzhong, WPS with Microsoft’s document formats. We all know that if you switch to OFFICE and cannot open historical files or files sent by others, this is a fatal issue.
In 2003, Yu Cisheng initiated the Qihang Plan again, gathering all Office experts in China, and also inviting Hancom Office from Korea and Ichitaro technicians from Japan. Experts from China, Japan, and South Korea worked together to crack Microsoft’s document format to ensure they could read and save.
The results were not good.
In addition to document formats, other software experiences were unsatisfactory for users, and there were too many complaints. Everyone could easily imagine. Users generally complained and demanded a return to Wintel.
Thus, we failed.
Later, the Ark CPU development was halted. Yongzhong went bankrupt and liquidated. Those tens of thousands of NC units that the government bought to support an industry probably sold for scrap metal long ago.
Years later, Bill Gates publicly disclosed the document format of Office.
When I saw this news, I felt like my face was slapped by a door panel.
I watched this person in a video, jokingly saying at the Harvard graduation ceremony, “Dad, I finally got my diploma!” This person, who does charity after retirement, would choose a sick boy as the cover character during his tenure as a duty editor at Time Magazine.
I wonder if this person is an angel or a devil.
He has indeed done many good things. However, he has suppressed the entire Chinese general software industry.
4
Becoming a Small Businessman
Worldly success is quite easy
In 2003, I left Teacher Ni’s alliance, feeling very sad, thinking of myself as a deserter in a great sacrificial battle.
In 2008, when I started a website, one night a kid was bored and installed the latest version of the Red Hat desktop. As I passed by, I saw it at a glance, stopped, and then used it. Trying this and that, my emotions surged, and I almost cried. If in 2002, the desktop had this level, a large number of people shouldn’t have lost so embarrassingly.
After leaving Teacher Ni, I was in a slump for more than a year. During that time, many people asked me to work, mostly in two types of tasks: one was “I have a product, please help me build a channel in China,” or “I have a product, please help me deal with government relations.” I no longer wanted to do these two types of things. But apart from that, I didn’t know how to do anything else.
Later, I joined Wang Lu. I told him: I have learned things over the years that can only be used for working on a particularly large system. I want to learn some specific skills here that can support my family.
Later, Wang Lu made me the manager of a struggling digital magazine.
I left Wang Lu and called Lei Jun. I said, “I am going to work.”
Lei Jun asked me to find him in his office. He asked what I was doing.
I showed him the magazine in my hand and said I was the manager of this magazine.
Lei Jun said: “Why do you want to do this?”
I said: “I can’t find a job.”
Lei Jun said: “But why do you want to do this?”
I said: “I want to learn some small skills that can support my family, which anyone can do.”
Lei Jun said: “Then just do this.”
Being a magazine manager is essentially about advertising sales.
With my qualifications for writing major project proposals worth billions for the National Development and Reform Commission, writing an advertising proposal for clients worth three to five hundred thousand should not be difficult.
First, a client requested a kickback. I couldn’t confirm if that meant money, but I thought about it and decided to try giving it.
I treated this client to a meal and handed him an envelope. During the meal, both of us were absent-minded, neither of us were there for the food and conversation. Then I handed him the envelope, and without any hesitation or polite refusal, he smoothly stuffed it into his pocket and left.
That night, I cried for a long time.
In the past, I woke up early and worked hard for friendship and honor.
From then on, what I did had no honor at all; I was just doing a small business of pulling ads for kickbacks.
Later, I learned to create websites, and eventually sold the website to Tencent, and later… ten years passed.
In the eyes of the world, I am considered successful.
5
Academician Ni Guangnan is Still Persisting
In early 2014, I left Tencent.
After completing the procedures, I sent a WeChat message to Academician Ni Guangnan: “Teacher Ni, I have left Tencent.”
Academician Ni replied, “Come find me; I happen to have something to discuss with you.”
I went to see him.
In 2013, during government procurement, I consulted Academician Ni Guangnan on strategies against Win8.
Academician Ni Guangnan directly wrote to General Secretary Xi, bluntly suggesting: “Develop a controllable operating system for developing countries based on a shared software architecture.”
The main text of Academician Ni’s report was less than 800 words, and the General Secretary handwrote over 200 words of comments. “The importance of core technologies and information infrastructure such as computer operating systems is self-evident. We must solve the problems of being constrained by others in some key technologies and devices as soon as possible.”
More than ten years have passed, and after experiencing failures and controversies, he has apologized to the Ministry of Science and Technology for various reasons, yet Academician Ni is still persisting.
When I visited him in early 2014, he was still wearing the same cotton coat from 2001.
Academician Ni still trusts me and directly brought me together with a few key individuals to discuss how to promote a controllable operating system in mobile scenarios.
Ten years have passed. Google and Apple defeated Microsoft. Microsoft is still strong, but the PC era has ended.
Yu Cisheng and Li Wuqiang have both retired. Li Delei’s whereabouts are unknown, and Yongzhong has gone bankrupt and is being liquidated.
Liu Qiang left Ark in 2005 to establish Junzheng, which went public in 2010. Now, many chips used in 360 cameras, Xiaomi watches, etc., are made by Liu Qiang. The investment made by Academician Ni Guangnan in Ark CPU in 2000 has still yielded results.
Huawei bought the ARM license and produced the HiSilicon chip.
Xiaomi also invested billions in developing the Pinecone processor.
Just like more than ten years ago, as long as we resolve the intellectual property issues, choose the right technical route, find capable people, and invest in the work, CPUs/chips can be produced.
What remains unresolved is still the operating system. The gap is still in the ecology.
Back then, we could bypass Intel, but not Microsoft.
Today, we can bypass ARM, but cannot produce Android.
At that time, I attended several high-end meetings with Teacher Ni. The room was full of dignitaries, still speaking in the same language system as fourteen years ago.
I found that I had changed. In similar situations, my feelings today are completely different from those of fourteen years ago.
In the past ten years, I haven’t reported work to any leader, nor have I spent any minute speculating on their intentions.
I only need to continuously do one thing: understand user needs and optimize user experience.
This is a completely different direction from working in a system.
The second time, I left Academician Ni again. At that time, I believed I could directly judge that this matter could not be accomplished.
It means that if the methods do not change, perhaps we can still obtain a lot of money, resources, and approvals for land, but we cannot create the ecosystem of an operating system.
Android has three components:
1. The continuously iterating and optimizing Android system itself;
2. The various applications based on Android that everyone has become accustomed to: WeChat, business, games, life, entertainment…
3. Countless teams worldwide continuously creating and developing new applications based on Android, constantly enriching and optimizing this ecosystem.
Fifteen years ago, those who attempted to port desktop office applications back then had already suffered defeat.
Now, with a number of applications far greater than in previous years, and an even more abundant ecosystem, the same old system and routines remain.
Faced with a bigger battle, there is no chance of winning.
Resigning from a company and leaving a person are completely different feelings.
I was happy to resign from Lenovo and Tencent.
But I have always felt deeply guilty for leaving Academician Ni for the second time.
At that time, he was already 75 years old. This was his lifelong dream. I was his favorite and trusted disciple. I didn’t help him.
6
Reviewing Ark and Yongzhong
Today, let’s review what Ark and Yongzhong did wrong more than ten years ago.
First, let’s talk about Ark.
First of all, Ark Technology is Li Delei’s personal company. The purpose of Li Delei starting this company was to make money, so his choices naturally revolved around what could make money.
Ni Guangnan was attracted to the talent pool and know-how of this company, leveraging all his connections and credibility, hoping to turn Ark’s talent pool and know-how into a sustainable IT system foundation through a project.
Where did this go wrong?
It is what I mentioned in my “30 Lectures on Product Thinking” (👆 click to read).
Top organizations are based on deep emotions and relationships;
First-class organizations share a common belief;
Second-class organizations share common interests;
Third-class organizations share common rules.
So, using this organizational principle, let’s see why Li Delei was untrustworthy.
First, there was no deep emotional connection between Li Delei and Ni Guangnan. There was certainly no common belief. There was also no common interest.
Li Delei’s interest was to maximize personal income.
Ni Guangnan’s interest was to turn Ark’s talent pool and know-how into a sustainable IT system foundation.
Therefore, the basis for their cooperation was that as long as Ni Guangnan could continuously meet Li Delei’s interests, they could “share common rules.” In other words, once Li Delei was dissatisfied with the benefits provided by Ni, the rules would instantly misalign.
Therefore, later when the NC market did not take off, Li Delei immediately breached the contract with 863 and turned to other businesses to make money. Of course, Li Delei handled some matters very poorly, which drew much criticism.
But fundamentally, Li Delei and Ni Guangnan were not part of an organization that could conspire on great matters and bear great pressures.
If Ark’s problem was organizational foundation, the core of Yongzhong’s organization was actually very good.
Zhang Yanqing and Cao Can shared not just common interests and beliefs; they were practically deeply connected.
The problem with Yongzhong was product definition and user experience.
Once again, in my “30 Lectures on Product Thinking,” I discussed the user value formula.
This formula was proposed by Yu Jun, and I deeply agree with it.
User Value = (New Experience – Old Experience) – Replacement Cost
To gain a user, the tool relied upon is user value. If the user perceives enough value, they will migrate. For example, hundreds of millions of users smoothly migrated from SMS to WeChat.
What does it mean to gain a user? We once relied on government orders to install Yongzhong Office on tens of thousands of government employees’ office computers. Did we gain this user?
Let’s first calculate the value that Yongzhong Office provided to users.
If Microsoft’s Office software experience is rated 90 points and the price experience is rated 50 points, then Microsoft’s Office software brings a historical experience of 45 points to users.
If Yongzhong Office’s user experience is rated 70 points and price experience is rated 90 points, then Yongzhong Office can unilaterally claim that it brings a new experience of 63 points to users, which is better than Microsoft’s.
However, there is also the replacement cost. The replacement costs for users include brand awareness, acquisition costs, learning costs, and usage costs, which include the timely help they can receive when encountering problems during use.
We know that Bill Gates has long been the richest man in the world; Microsoft’s brand, channel, product maturity, customer service system, and the user sharing available online, along with the document format compatibility issues I mentioned earlier, mean that the user’s replacement cost is quite high. Let’s estimate the replacement cost at 20 points.
Then user value = new experience 63 points – old experience 45 points – user replacement cost 20 points = -2 points.
This means that even if we give Yongzhong Office a high score and give Microsoft a low score, ignoring the user’s migration cost, users hardly perceive new value. It’s not enough to motivate a user to migrate.
At the same time, we need to note that government procurement is paid by the unit. Therefore, the actual users have no perception of the price experience.
So, if we score based on user perception, Yongzhong’s user value = 70 – 90 – 20 = -40 points.
In fact, it is even lower than this score.
If you bind users with “patriotism,” how can you expect the user value to drop so much, and why wouldn’t users complain? They would find all sorts of reasons to return to their previous comfortable situations.
Cao Can defined Yongzhong’s core competitiveness as “data integration.”
He analyzed that “Microsoft Office software has a significant flaw: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are three independent applications that cannot be integrated.”
“If we can integrate document processing, spreadsheets, and slide production into the same program, then when users modify data in the document, the corresponding data in the spreadsheet and slides will automatically update, without requiring users to find the necessary modifications one by one.”
I was surprised! A data reference being used simultaneously in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is a very, very low-frequency application scenario, okay?
I just recalled that in the past five years, I haven’t had to use “data integration” even once.
In Yongzhong, Cao Can is the undisputed product core, and Zhang Yanqing supports Cao Can immensely. The entire Yongzhong team is united and works hard. On the way to Yongzhong, Academician Ni praised Yongzhong’s collective fighting spirit.
(At that time, we were waiting for a bus, and Academician Ni said, “Shall I buy you an ice cream? How about strawberry?” Sigh, for that ice cream, I felt guilty for leaving him twice.)
Returning to Yongzhong, the problem was that not enough attention was paid to enhancing user experience in the highest-frequency usage scenarios.
Instead, they invested their core efforts in a scenario that a user might not encounter even once in five years and were quite pleased with themselves.
I read about Yongzhong’s conclusion and Cao Can’s recollections online. Cao Can placed his resentment on Tang Min and others who acquired Yongzhong.
But that shouldn’t be the case. Yongzhong went bankrupt due to a debt of 10 million yuan.
10 million yuan is just an ordinary house in Beijing. If the product’s user value is clear and positive, raising 10 million yuan shouldn’t be difficult.
Yongzhong had a solid organization that could bear pressure together, had a good start, and produced 70-80% of the product. Yet they still failed.
In Cao Can’s recollection article, there was self-praise for his innovation points and resentment towards competitors, but there was no complete user scenario, user experience map, or user value.
Pony Ma said: Product managers cannot fight for their own self-esteem.
7
Changing the Assessment Method of the System
Is the Only Way to Cultivate an Innovative Ecology
I have reviewed my understanding of the core defeat points of Ark and Yongzhong, two star enterprises from more than ten years ago.
At that time, we indeed made mistakes. We made errors in organizational design, user insight, user experience, and many other aspects.
However, the failure of a major government project support, and more than ten years later, China still does not have chips and operating systems, is not our fault.
Let’s explore again why, after twenty years, we have countless high-rise buildings, and many counties are built like Beijing, and we have the new four inventions.
But we still do not have operating systems.
In the international space of the information society, China is a strong internet country.
However, this strong internet country is built on Microsoft’s Windows and Google’s Android.
In 2014, I accompanied Teacher Ni to a seemingly high-end “Mobile Operating System Ecology Seminar.”
I said, if our country really wants a “mobile operating system ecology,” it is quite clear and straightforward: the country should invest money, plant seeds, and pour 100 billion into the market each year for five consecutive years, allowing for large-scale failures.
The officials present then discussed how to acquire land from the science park to ensure the investment results… I was speechless. Then I exited.
Why can we build houses and launch satellites, but cannot produce operating systems?
In fact, this is similar to how Lenovo sold Wintel framework PCs to become number one globally, but could not take a step inward to develop core technology, nor could it take a step sideways to embrace the internet and mobile internet.
The reason is the same.
It is the collective mindset of the system, which relies heavily on certainty.
Within a framework of certainty, internal talents are highly competitive and cannot tolerate failure.
The result is over-management. Everyone takes pride in confirming certainty again and again.
Uncertainty is fear, panic. Failure is shame, a stain.
However, innovation and creativity grow alongside uncertainty and failure.
This is the fear and intolerance of our system, whether at Lenovo or elsewhere.
As for market-oriented enterprises, they follow users and the market.
In 2014, Academician Ni pushed for the mobile operating system again, asking me to talk to Tencent to see if WeChat could be ported to a controllable operating system.
I immediately approached Tencent’s big shots and discussed the General Secretary’s directive, then asked if WeChat could be ported. The response from Tencent’s people was as I expected: we follow the users. Without user volume, we cannot arrange work.
So, there was an article stating that “Domestic Operating Systems Rely on BAT,” expecting listed companies that need quarterly financial reports to support stock prices? Don’t be ridiculous.
8
How Much Did Ark and Yongzhong Receive?
Looking back today, how much was invested in what was viewed as a major failure, costing countless heroes in the Ark and Yongzhong projects?
“Ark No. 3” research and development funding was allocated 15.38 million yuan. If according to the project budget requirements of the “863 project,” the salary portion for researchers cannot exceed 15%, about 2.3 million yuan, then nearly 60 engineering personnel participating in the Ark company’s research and development would earn only over 2,000 yuan a month.
According to the relevant policies of the Ministry of Science and Technology regarding the use of research funds, funds used for wages, labor costs, and unit commissions cannot exceed 5% for public institutions, 10% for research transformation enterprises, and 15% for enterprise units. If the “863 project” was conducted by universities, it would be normal to give 15% of the salary as a bonus, but for companies to do the project, 15% for wages is certainly insufficient.
Li Delei said the money was too little and not enough to pay wages, and was ridiculed by “863” experts. This expert explained that the funding for the chip project mainly went into chip fabrication and EDA tools, while personnel wages were just a small portion.
Ignoring market talent competition and market pricing. Centering around maintaining the rules set by officials. I demand this. If you cannot do it, you are wrong.
Ignoring the market and human nature.
People like Liu Qiang and me. We can easily do well in easier tasks. If we find people like us to tackle the hardest tasks and pay them the least, why would our officials think this is reasonable?
What about Yongzhong?
Cao Can stated that from 2000 to 2008, Yongzhong Technology received government funding exceeding 80 million yuan, and the funds invested in product development reached 152 million yuan. During the same period, product sales revenue was only over 50 million yuan, with the company accumulating losses of over 50 million yuan.
This is the largest investment in CPU and Office in our country.
Isn’t it a laughable matter for a bunch of post-90s investment fund managers?
We have the new four inventions: high-speed rail, QR code payment, shared bicycles, and online shopping.
Let’s recall how much money was burned to create these new four inventions.
We don’t need to think back to the group buying wars or the ride-hailing subsidies. In 2018, Mobike, which outpaced its peers, a single bicycle company burned 10 billion yuan.
One company burned 10 billion, shared bicycles burned hundreds of billions, and the result is that every city can ride a shared bicycle.
How much has been burned for China’s independent intellectual property CPU + operating system + core office software? Including all the NC units that turned to scrap metal.
20 billion, is that possible?
This matter, this number, has become a terrifying memory.
Then, all companies and all officials were scared to death.
Ten years later, the state paid the fine for ZTE. An 800 million USD fine.
However, this money was paid by the state, and the officials made no mistakes. This is our system’s choice.
Those who would make mistakes no longer dare to act. More than ten years ago, Li Wuqiang stood up, unafraid of losing his “official hat.” Such “fools” are few in the past ten years. Not to mention that a few fools have also failed. A lesson from history.
9
Whose Delusion, Whose Shame
Therefore, I say the government needs an operating system. What is needed is not to invest in a team, but to burn money to create an ecology. It is about burning money. Tolerating failure.
During the Warring States period, King Zhao of Yan built a golden platform by the Yishui River to recruit talents from all over the world. Whoever has the ability can draw a piece of gold on the spot. The market and human nature are like this; why deceive ourselves?
One bicycle company burns 10 billion; our country’s operating system, with its complex and large ecology, requires countless people to participate. Are you planning to invest a few companies with a few small amounts of 15 million each and then try to take on Android?
Whose delusion is this?
Why is it said that challenging Android is harder than challenging Microsoft?
Because today, the ecosystem based on Android is larger, more prosperous, and more frequent.
From office, business, life, and entertainment, almost all digital spaces for individuals and enterprises can be completed using a mobile phone. Our dependence on mobile scenarios far exceeds that of desktops.
How much money did Microsoft invest in OFFICE?
Microsoft is a listed company and publicly reports its financials. In the 2016-2017 fiscal year, Microsoft’s annual R&D investment was 12.4 billion euros. Over 100 billion yuan.
Microsoft’s annual R&D investment is over 100 billion yuan. I don’t know how much of that was used for OFFICE.
But in any case, Yongzhong spent 150 million over eight years, failed, and became a major stain.
Whose delusion is this, and whose shame?
More than eighteen years ago, Academician Ni Guangnan sighed to me: “Whether in a pure planned economy or a pure market economy, we can still produce great things.”
More than eighteen years later, in 2018, Academician Ni, now 79 years old, is still striving for China’s controllable chips and operating systems.
In the eyes of the world, he is a Don Quixote. Expelled from Lenovo by Liu Chuanzhi, the major projects he promoted were not completed. He has been used by one person after another for this dream.
And he knows he is being used, yet he still prefers to risk his entire reputation to continue trying and working hard.
Those who do nothing and have no faults ridicule him: “Out of touch with reality,” “Easily deceived,” “Still being deceived while continuing to do so”…
Then everyone continues to pay for the “no chip” directly or indirectly.
Whose delusion is this, and whose shame?
10
Conclusion
This past is filled with passion, loss, doubt, and guilt, so I am very reluctant to recall it.
Today, taking this opportunity, I will vent my feelings and write it down.
I did not show this to Teacher Ni because he is a true gentleman. If I showed it to him, he would definitely avoid talking about this person and consider that person.
Last night, I suddenly thought of writing, and this morning at 6:00, I couldn’t sleep anymore, so I got up and wrote it all in one go, ten thousand words. Perhaps I wrote everything that should be written and shouldn’t be written. This is my personal perspective, my personal narrative.
One year, I went to Changbai Mountain with Hao Xilong’s family and a few of his friends.
We stayed overnight at a farmhouse at the foot of the mountain. Surprisingly, at this farmhouse, I encountered Liu Qiang.
Years after Ark, I didn’t expect to meet again in such a place, thousands of miles away.
The once heroic young man now has gray hair. By that time, he had already founded Junzheng. The past of Ark was no longer something everyone wanted to mention.
So many good comrades, we scattered without saying goodbye.
But the attempts, efforts, mistakes, and sacrifices that once happened are still part of history.
Let me place this article on the internet, as a way to say thank you and cherish to the comrades and teachers who once fought side by side, supported each other, complained to each other, and didn’t have a proper farewell.
Click the image to read
The boss says you give a thumbs up, and my salary will increase by one yuan!