"I just talked about acquaintance socializing, stranger socializing, and I introduced you to Quora, a very interesting website!

Then I would like to introduce you to another very interesting software, its name is ICQ, which is the homonym of 'I Seek You'! I am honored to tell you that this name is the same as the previous Quora, I took it!

ICQ was originally an instant messaging software used for communication within the Oriental Group. He's not as formal and cumbersome as email, so he's very popular with the group's internal staff!

How popular is it? My employee wrote me a letter of appeal for this and collected hundreds of signatures within the company. They wanted me to get ICQ to let go of the restriction that it only accepted internal employee registrations!

As a good boss, I naturally accept everyone's suggestions very humbly, so I have the ICQ that everyone sees now!"

Li Xuan said this, and the picture on the white curtain behind him was also replaced with the login interface of ICQ in due course.

Before I came to Austin, Mr. Owen, the president of AOL, told me that ICQ is one of the hottest Internet software in the world this year.

I think all of you here have already heard of it or used it! I won't go into the specific functions of the ICQ software, lest everyone think that I'm here to advertise today! What I want to talk about today is a very interesting little statistic that the Eastern Bloc once counted. ”

Li Xuan deliberately paused, so that everyone's attention was focused at once! In fact, what he was going to talk about today and what kind of impact might be caused, Li Xuan's huge work team behind the scenes had made a detailed deduction in advance.

As a figure of huge influence like him, Li Xuan's every word in front of the spotlight can have a huge impact. Some things are not something that can be said casually, while some things are meant to be said.

"For a period of time, the frequency of telephone use in the Eastern Bloc suddenly dropped by 6 percent, and this phenomenon even attracted the attention of the group's top management! What is the telephone used for? It is one of the most important communication tools in modern society!

When you go to meet with a client, you must first make a phone call and communicate with the other party! You go to report to the manager, first make a phone call and ask him if he is available! Even if you are going to ask your girlfriend to watch a movie, it is definitely easier to call her than to go to her house and tell her!

Therefore, once the frequency of telephone use exceeds the normal fluctuation range, the decision-making and analysis department of the Eastern Group will start to wonder if there is a problem with the company's internal communication mechanism.

However, in fact, the internal operation of the Eastern Bloc is very normal, and everyone is full of enthusiasm for their work, and there are no problems such as passive slacking off work! Therefore, the Eastern Bloc has specially organized an investigation team to be responsible for finding out the real cause of this phenomenon!"

Li Xuan paused when he said this, revealing a strange smile.

"I guess some people have already moved the reason, yes, it's because ICQ!

When everyone started using ICQ, many things that used to need to be communicated on the phone were communicated online by typing! And ICQ also offers special features such as group chats with multiple people at the same time, which in some cases is more efficient than only one-on-one phone communication!

After figuring out the crux of the matter, me and the rest of the group were finally able to relax. But another group of people couldn't sleep at night, and then it even triggered a corporate merger and acquisition case with a total amount of up to $7 billion!"

Li Xuan, like telling a reasoning story, always hangs people's appetites at critical moments! Fortunately, he just swallowed his saliva and quickly continued the topic just now.

"In order to simplify management, the colonial government of Hong Kong basically adopted a monopoly policy for public utilities, including water, electricity, and telecommunications. The telecommunications business in Hong Kong is mainly monopolized by two companies, the Hong Kong Telephone Company and the Hong Kong Dadong Telegraph Office! The former is responsible for local telephone services, while the latter is responsible for long-distance telephone services!

However, with the advent of the Internet, the emerging network communication has begun to have a greater and greater impact on the traditional telecommunications industry! For example, e-mail has begun to gradually replace fax machines, and instant messaging software such as ICQ can have an impact on telephone usage to a certain extent!

If you have followed the patent application of the Oriental Research Institute in detail, you must know that the Oriental Research Institute applied for a series of Internet-based Internet telephony patents as early as two years ago!

If such software is really commercialized, it may be a devastating blow to the current telecom operators! Because this kind of Internet telephony technology is based on the Internet, it does not require a series of complex and expensive infrastructure such as digital program-controlled telephone exchanges, and the operating cost is much lower than that of the current traditional telephone companies!

It is precisely because of seeing such a terrifying prospect that the Hong Kong Telephone Company and the Hong Kong Long-distance Telephone Company, which was spun off from the Hong Kong Dadong Telegraph Company, finally completed the merger not long ago after half a year of arduous negotiations!

On the one hand, the new company after the merger, Hong Kong Telecom, strives to improve efficiency and reduce costs through resource integration, so as to actively respond to the challenges of the Internet era.

On the other hand, Hong Kong Telecommunications has begun to actively promote the construction of Internet infrastructure with greater efforts than before, and has begun to actively transform from the original telecommunications operator to the network telecommunications operator!"

When Li Xuan said this, the venue began to become quiet, and everyone seemed to be still chewing on the huge information contained in his words just now.

At that time, Li Xuan bought a 34.9 percent stake in the Hong Kong Telephone Company from Jardine Matheson and officially entered Hong Kong's basic communications field! And the biggest obstacle it faced in trying to integrate the entire Hong Kong telecommunications market was the Hong Kong Dadong Telegraph Office.

The Great Eastern Telegraph Company was originally a British state-owned telecommunications operator responsible for Asian telecommunications business, and after the British Conservative Party led by Thatcher came to power, it was privatized in 1981.

At that time, Li Xuan's Eastern Group had only begun to take shape, and he did not have so much ambition or strength to lay out the field of communications, so it had to be said that he missed an excellent opportunity to control the Dadong Telegraph Office.

In order to obtain the franchise of long-distance telecommunications in Hong Kong, the Great Eastern Telegraph Company established a joint venture with the Hong Kong government authorities, of which the Hong Kong government only accounted for about 20% of the shares. In fact, more than 60% of the profits of the parent company of the British Great Eastern Telegraph Company come from the Hong Kong Great Eastern Telegraph Company, a joint venture with the Hong Kong government.

This situation made it extremely difficult for Li Xuan to acquire 80 percent of the shares of Hong Kong's Great Eastern Telegraph Company from the British parent company of Great Eastern Telegraph Company! In fact, the Hong Kong Government gave Great Eastern Telegraph Company the exclusive right to include all of Hong Kong's international telecommunications business. However, at that time, the Internet had not yet sprouted in Hong Kong, so this point was not specifically noted.

It was precisely by virtue of this flaw, which was not a loophole, that after Li Xuan obtained control of the Hong Kong Telephone Company, he began to invest heavily in the construction of network infrastructure, and directly bypassed the Dadong Telegraph Office to achieve communication with the Internet.

For this reason, the Hong Kong Telephone Company also fought a long lawsuit with the Great Eastern Telegraph Office that lasted for two and a half years. Finally, with the mediation of the Hong Kong authorities, the two parties eventually formed a joint venture company to be responsible for the exclusive operation of Internet business access services in Hong Kong.

However, the early Internet infrastructure operation income is not directly proportional to the huge infrastructure investment costs, so the loss of the joint venture is very scary. Li Xuan can bear these losses, but Dadong Telegraph, as a British company listed in London, must give an account to shareholders.

Therefore, the most real result is that Dadong Telegraph Company is unwilling to increase capital to make up for losses in the future, and its equity in the joint venture company continues to decrease!

Taking advantage of the opportunity of the emergence of ICQ and the so-called Internet telephone patents that were not triggered, Li Xuan finally found an opportunity to force out the Dadong Telegraph Company. If the other party is not willing to withdraw from the Hong Kong market now, AOL does not mind developing a free Internet calling software in the near future.

It can be said that Daito Telegraph has lost its future because of the continuous dilution of its equity in the new joint venture and the loss of the initiative in the field of Internet basic services.

And now it is facing such a naked threat from Li Xuan, and in the end, the Dadong Telegraph Office finally chose to take the money and leave. As a result, the Hong Kong Long Distance Telephone Company and the Hong Kong Telephone Company completed the merger, and the newly born Hong Kong Telecommunications Company completely monopolized the basic telecommunications services in Hong Kong.

After today, the fear that Daito Telegraph once faced will also befall the basic telecommunications operators in the United States, including AT&T (American Telegraph and Telephone Company), and the stock prices of these companies will be wonderful tomorrow!

The stock price is a very wonderful thing, it represents not the real value of the company now, but the expected value of investors for the future of the company! Therefore, the stock price of some companies that are obviously profitable may fall all the way, while some companies that have been losing money have lost more and the higher the stock price!

AT&T is now the No. 1 telecommunications operator in the U.S. because it basically monopolizes the long-distance telephone business in the U.S. According to what Li Xuan just described, the impact that AT&T will face in the future may also be the largest!

How can we avoid shareholders' panic about the future? Learn from Hong Kong Telecom, actively increase investment in Internet infrastructure construction, and transform into a network communications operator.

In fact, the emergence of Skype in another time and space has indeed had a serious impact on the traditional telephone business.

But Skype is long overdue!

Because when it appears, the new revenue brought by mobile communication and Internet communication makes these basic communication operators no longer rely so much on traditional telephone services. For example, even before Li Xuan's rebirth, AT&T still ranked in the forefront of the world's top 500 companies every year.

But ordinary investors can't predict it, so in order to save the confidence of investors and not let the stock price fall too ugly, whether the board of directors and management of AT&T are willing or not, increasing investment in the layout of the Internet industry is their only way out, because this represents a bright future!