Hardware has become a Silicon Valley giant self-protection weapons domestic companies are still missing

Hardware has become a Silicon Valley self-defense weapon

Google’s Nexus Q decided to postpone the sale because in the eyes of the public, Nevus Q’s living room device that supports only Google Music’s audio, Google Play, and YouTube video playback is too mediocre. This is Google’s small setback in the hardware market. It is also the only way for Internet companies to explore the integration of software and hardware.

Fortunately, Google and other giants have clarified their orientation and positioning in the hardware market. Many Internet companies in the Chinese market are still lost in the recent hardware boom.

Hardware terminal warms up

On June 19, Microsoft announced its own brand of Win8 Tablet Surface; on June 28, Google released the Nexus smartphone, Nexus 7 tablet and Nexus Q media player, and announced the commercial timetable for Google Glass for the first time. Counting the smartphones rumored by Amazon and Facebook, the hardware suddenly became like an influenza, which swept the top companies in the technology field in half a year.

In Silicon Valley, hardware production has been an obsolete since the late 1990s. With the increase in the cost of innovation in the hardware field and the shift in the manufacturing industry in the United States, this world-famous technology site has abandoned the unique garage culture. With the rapid rise of Google, Facebook has become famous and the hardware field has completely become a “traditional industry without stories”.

This is not prejudice. In the era of Intel and Microsoft holding the PC industry at both ends, hardware is indeed an unimaginative job. IBM sold the low-margin PC business to Lenovo, and HP and Dell have also stepped up their efforts in storage cloud computing. The proportion of various solutions. Until Apple created the iPhone and iPad with near-perfect software and hardware experience, the industry redefined the value of hardware. The data shows that the gross profit of Apple iPad is close to 30%, while the gross profit of Lenovo HP Acer for each PC sold is only 13%.

If traditional hardware makers such as Lenovo Acer cut into the manufacturing of mobile phones and tablet computers are high profits of the eye-catching apple, then Google Amazon sees the long-tailed influence of users after the integration of hardware and software.

According to a survey by Goldman Sachs, 21% of users will not leave the Apple platform regardless of how other products are discounted. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they may continue to choose to buy Apple's tablet or mobile phone. Only 1% of respondents said that it is "impossible" to continue choosing Apple products.

Silicon Valley’s Self-Defense Weapons

This round of hardware boom began with Apple's adjustment of the rules. In mid-June, Apple released the new iOS 6 operating system at the WWDC Developer Conference. Apple claimed that the new version of iOS has more than 200 new features, but two of them This change has completely affected the development process of Google and Facebook, two major Internet giants: Apple will replace Google Maps with its own maps, and at the same time open its own data to Facebook, positioning, games, pictures, information, status and all personal data. .

Subsequently, Google released Nexus smartphones, tablets and other terminal products, and began to make strategic adjustments to the Android platform, improve Google Play, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt publicly acknowledged at the Sun Valley meeting last month Want to enter the hardware business, and Zuckerberg at the financial report last week, completely denied the existence of Facebook's mobile phone project, no longer responding to questions about why the cornered Apple hardware engineers.

Obviously, in Apple's view, technology-based Google and social-based Facebook are not the same thing. The former can be expelled by technology, while the latter is difficult to replace. In the words of MarketWatch editor Callaway, Google provides a service, and Facebook provides a habit.

Another example is the e-commerce giant Amazon launched its own hardware Kindle reader in 2007, rely on cloud services far better than pure hardware companies, Amazon e-book market is not only not beat Apple iPad, but launched a tablet In the video and audio field, it tried to compete with Apple. At the same time, the Kindle also put the main service on iOS. In a sense, it was because of its own hardware base that Amazon could survive Apple's crackdown.

From the stalemate between Apple and Amazon, and when Apple easily kicks Google Maps, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion: In the Internet giant's competing games, its own hardware is an effective self-defense weapon.

Microsoft's launch of Surface is also based on such a thinking, when their traditional partners do not want to promote Win8 tablet, Microsoft will rely on the Surface to start the market, if other partners are active, then Surface only as a high-priced luxury on Microsoft Brand store.

The Loss of Chinese Enterprises

On the other side of the ocean, Google has begun to build its own products, and gradually try to regain control of the leadership of the Android industry chain; Facebook temporarily abandon the hardware, focus on building a second-tier platform across the hardware platform; Apple is also trying to increase the product line to deal with other The giant counterattack; Amazon is ready to enter the mobile phone market.

Compared with the strategies adopted by foreign giants, the performance of Chinese companies is unclear. Many companies have suddenly launched various types of APPs; they have started to revamp ROMs and desktops; Like mobile phones, headless flies crashed into a lost state.

Among the Internet companies that currently introduce hardware, most companies except Xiaomi and Shanda adopt a model of cooperation with other hardware vendors. This initial cooperation was initially interpreted by the media as a battle for mobile Internet entry, but today, more and more industry professionals There is doubt about this statement. Such cross-cooperation between multiple competing companies, how to balance relations, effectively communicate and implement quickly is undoubtedly a major issue facing Internet companies.

According to industry sources, the root cause of this situation is that many domestic companies do not have a unified idea of ​​hardware layout. They often allow internal divergent growth. They prepare groups of dozens of people to work in applications, ROMs, and terminals. , In line with the idea of ​​hitting luck, more attacks, but often annihilated.

The top priority for China's Internet companies is not to repeatedly “try wrong”, but to quickly sort out their direction in this hardware boom and end blindly following the lost state.