Engaging in business has never been a gentle thing, but a brutal competition again and again.

Tom Kleisie, when lamenting that others are going to bring down and stink free security software, doesn't seem to think that his free security software is destined to climb over the corpse of paid security software from the beginning of its birth.

There is no way out for either side, and they must fight to the end.

"Overtime!" Tom Kleisy said with a wave of his hand, "we're going to make our free security software as soon as possible." Otherwise, more and more users will buy paid security software, and who will download us when the time comes?"

From his order, the rented office space began to be completely brightly lit.

Symantec is still not aware of it, and it has not yet discovered that what it thought was a secret plan has been leaked.

However, in the process of implementing this free antivirus, they also tasted the sweetness.

"More than 100,000 downloads!"

"More than 150,000 downloads!"

"More than 200,000 downloads!"

……

"More than ...... downloads"

Although the quality of this security software can be described as inferior, it is not a lack of competence and shoddy, but a worse deliberate shoddy work.

But even if it is deliberately shoddy and provides a very poor user experience for installers, there are still people who tirelessly download it.

In just a few days, the number of downloads reached hundreds of thousands, which is almost as many as the sales of Symantec's own paid software.

This is indeed a very large blue ocean market.

Symantec was even a little excited.

"We ...... Do you want to go for free? The number of free downloads we have in the past few days has exceeded the number of paid downloads. And a large number of users are spreading the word of mouth about our free software, and it is expected that the number of downloads will increase by an order of magnitude in the coming period. The manager of the marketing department said.

The rest of the participants were also a little uncertain.

The free business model is not a secret, everyone knows it, it is to rely on a huge installed base to distribute advertising to make a profit.

The only problem, though, is that no one is sure that advertisers will pay for Internet advertising.

You must know that the decision-makers of almost all companies except Internet companies have never departed from the Internet era.

Even, the whole Silicon Valley is a valley of liars in their eyes.

They prefer the real factory, the real machine, the real roar of the machinery. Instead of tapping a few keyboards in front of the computer, you can earn seemingly inexhaustible wealth.

They will think, "Why should we give you liars our hard-earned wealth?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, our roots at Symantec are based on fee-based security software, which is what we stand on. The market outlook for free security software is indeed very good. But I would like to ask all of you, do we have money? Even if we do, do our investors say yes?

Now we make more than fifty dollars in net profit for every paid security software we sell.

And what about when we switch to free security software?

Where do our profits come from?

We know the future is good, but are our shareholders okay?

Now this free security software, everyone is already working under the pressure of shareholders, which is already difficult.

If......

If we were to switch to free security software altogether, and tell shareholders that it might take us more than a quarter to be profitable again, do you think shareholders would say yes?

We...... No other way...... Can only continue......

Ready, blast!"

The general manager said quite tragically that he wanted to detonate the deteriorated version of the free security software of Symantec, which had surpassed the paid version, completely triggering the illusion of computer users, and then let them buy a large number of paid security software in panic, which was also his explanation to shareholders.

Symantec, like almost all companies in the United States, has a complex ownership segment.

There are no less than 30 shareholders who can go to the shareholders' meeting for discussion. There are even fewer smaller shareholders left.

Why do these shareholders invest in Symantec because they also like security software?

No, it's not.

They just like money, they just think Symantec can make them money.

If the company can continue to make money, everyone will naturally be happy.

However, there is a problem, what if the company is going to undergo a business transformation, go through a short period of pain, and there is no way to make a profit in a short period of time?

Shareholders will explode like a pufferfish, asking why the company has started to make no money and no profit recently.

If the management answers that it is a business transformation, the shareholders will say, what is the change, isn't it good to make money now?

It's okay to transform, is your brain broken? Hurry back and do my original business.

Otherwise, we will go to court and sue you, or we will start a shareholder meeting to make you all unemployed.

This kind of behavior is indeed a true portrayal of many small shareholders.

Perhaps the majority shareholders can understand that the company needs to transform, need to grow, and can endure the pain, but the minority shareholders will not.

Everyone got together and invested in this company, not for anything else, but to make money.

On the way to making money, everyone is like-minded.

But what if you can't make money anymore?

I'm sorry, but I can only say that they flew separately.

Whether it was the head of the marketing department or the technical department, they all fell silent when they heard the words of the CEO.

Oh, yes......

Those shareholders ......

In the beginning, they will still feel that having shareholder investment is a recognition of Symantec and their own business, but as time goes on, they will find out when the company enters the stage of large-scale profitability.

These people who invested in the company in the early days of the company were not angels, but vampires, who did nothing and just lay on the company's body every day to suck blood.

The results of the work that I and everyone else have worked on are immediately divided among others who do nothing.

This is already infuriating, and if it is just that, it will be fine.

The point is that they will stand in the way during the major transformation that the company is facing.

Can't they see what the future holds?

Do they think it's too easy to lie down and suck blood, and they want to bring down the company?

Alas......

It's hard to put it into words, whether it's Symantec or Kaspersky, although they both see a promising blue ocean market, they can't do anything about it.