"The spoiler of the personal computer

Huaguo personal computer ushered in a new disruptor, 2001 has just passed, TCL with the first Pentium 4 computer brand, so that its image in the public's mind from a home appliance brand gradually changed to a personal computer brand. For the first time in the Pentium III era, AMD surpassed Intel in the CPU clock speed, which led to Intel facing increasing competitive pressure from AMD.

Intel launched the Pentium 4 at the end of 2000, and in the third quarter just ended, the Pentium 4 became the mainstream of the market, accounting for 34.6% of the PC market.

In the past, there was a saying in the computer circle, 486 made Compaq, Pentium created Dell, Pentium 3 created Lenovo, can Pentium M achieve Xiaomi computer? At the press conference that just ended yesterday, Xiaomi took national production and extreme cost performance as its selling points.

Purely in terms of configuration,Xiaomi computers are indeed on par with Lenovo8000Yuan price computers,But as a new player of personal computers,Whether Xiaomi computers can combine these accessories with better performance to play a theoretical performance,This is still an unknown。

But in any case, Xiaomi computers, backed by Zhouxin, will undoubtedly become a new player in the field of personal computers this winter, and are strong competitors to domestic brands such as Lenovo, Founder, and TCL. From my personal emotional point of view, even if the price is more than 2,000 yuan, I am willing to pay for this purely domestic computer, let alone the ultra-low price of 4,000 yuan."

The next day, almost all technology magazines and newspapers had headlines on the front page of Xiaomi computers, and everyone's attention was focused on the ultimate cost performance.

"Let's talk about Xiaomi, this will be Lenovo's biggest competitor, how can we resist the impact from Xiaomi in the PC market?" Lenovo held a meeting of senior executives overnight, and not only the executives were in a meeting, but the middle management below was also meeting with employees.

Lenovo wants to brainstorm some options to compete head-to-head with Xiaomi. The price of 4000 yuan is not only lifting the table, this is digging the foundation of Lenovo.

"I think we also have to reduce the price, the current price in front of Xiaomi really has no advantage, Lenovo is a computer brand with a history and heritage, yes, but Chinese consumers do not have much loyalty to goods at this price.

Computers are thousands of large commodities, what they value most is always cost performance, the price announced by Xiaomi computers yesterday, even if their accessories are produced in the country, I believe their profits will not exceed 200 yuan at most.

Of course, I know that we can't reduce the price to this point, but we can still reduce the price, the same configuration Xiaomi sells for 4,000, we sell up to 6,000, with the help of Lenovo's perfect dealer system in China, we can resist the impact of Xiaomi computers.

In addition, Xiaomi came out to be a spoiler, which is not necessarily a bad thing, Lenovo can resist, some domestic brands can't resist, we can use Xiaomi to sweep the second-rate computer brands on the market into the garbage heap one by one. ”

"It's okay to reduce the price, but at what price? Can an 8,000 yuan computer be reduced to 6,000 yuan, and a 4,000 yuan computer can be reduced to 2,000 yuan? In other words, what are we going to do with our $4,000 computer? ”

"Still reduce the price, reduce to the cost price, since Xiaomi has opened an opening, then we can reduce the price of 4,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan, and reduce the 3,000 yuan to 2,500 yuan, put pressure on other computer brands, and just clear the inventory."

"Dealers may not agree to such a price reduction."

"Forcing them to agree, we are also a strong party, since we have become Lenovo's distributors, it must cooperate with Lenovo's overall strategy. If we don't cut the price, it will definitely seriously affect our sales. ”

"I agree with Mr. Yang's view on price reduction, I also think that we should reduce prices, but blind price reductions cannot achieve the goal, we must focus on differentiated competition.

We can focus on LCD displays, Pentium 4, windows and LCD monitors, so that these three things become the standard configuration of Lenovo, and LCD monitors still have a lot of room for price reduction. ”

In July last year, Lenovo and the six major LCD giants signed the largest single purchase letter of intent in the history of Huaguo's personal computer industry: in the next six months from the signing of the contract, more than 600,000 sets of super A-level tube LCD monitors will be purchased from the above manufacturers, worth more than 1.8 billion yuan.

"We shouldn't compare with Xiaomi in terms of performance, but should make a fuss about what they don't have, such as LCD monitors, such as Lenovo's outlets all over the country and repair services all over the country, we should focus on these."

Not only is Lenovo formulating its own breakthrough strategy, hoping to survive this round of Xiaomi's reshuffle, but other computer brands are under even greater pressure.

Compared with the color TV industry, the history of the personal computer industry is shorter, and no one has played like this before.

Xiaomi's offline stores have already lined up in advance, in order to be able to grab Xiaomi computers as soon as possible.

No matter what era it is, cost-effective is a powerful tool to impress consumers, not to mention the emotional blessing of national products.

Xiaomi computers support offline purchase and online purchase, because NewPay has been launched in China, and Xiaomi computer's offline stores are only open in first- and second-tier cities, and the number of more large third- and fourth-tier cities, and even the counties scattered in China, there are no stores.

Therefore, on the morning of the opening for purchase, the 100,000 computers prepared by Xiaomi's official website were sold out within 10 minutes, and consumers who entered Xiaomi's official website a little later could only see a few words: "Currently sold out, restocking." Then I felt a chill in my heart.

Xiaomi, which is helmed by Hu Zhengming, really doesn't want to play monkey, but as a new brand, it is true that the production capacity is not enough. Xiaomi computers themselves have only prepared 200,000 units, and the follow-up factories will produce them one after another, but what I didn't expect was that 200,000 units were all digested in less than a week.

So much so that on the day of Xiaomi's release every week, because there are too many visits, Xiaomi's official website has a feeling of crowding.

Consumers don't know the word monkey yet, let alone hunger marketing, and some consumers know this concept, but they won't associate it with Xiaomi.

"Xiaomi computers are hard to find, and executives point the finger at Lenovo

Up to now,Xiaomi computers have been officially on sale for a month,In this month, you can see from Xiaomi's official website,Xiaomi's national sales have reached 300,000 units,Among the 300,000 units, in addition to the earliest stocking of 200,000 units,The other 100,000 units are all factory made and sold one,Xiaomi's strong sales ability can make every friend feel envious。

On the day of the release of Xiaomi computers every week, a large number of consumers wait in front of the computer early to prepare to grab the goods, because they know that even if they don't use it, it is more than enough to increase the price of 500 to sell it.

In the face of Xiaomi's menacing, some executives of personal computer brands said that Xiaomi is malicious competition, with the help of supply chain advantages to push the price to the extreme, not to give peers a way to live, and said that Zhou Xin's wealth is not for the purpose of making money, but they want to run the business, a certain profit is necessary.

In the face of such remarks, the vice president of Xiaomi Computer publicly said that we can keep the price so low because we have mastered the core technology, and the core chips of the computer are all self-produced and sold, and further said that the reason why peers feel great pressure is because they have developed for so many years, but they are only the integrators of the supply chain and have not mastered the real core technology.

Regarding Xiaomi's vice president's public remarks on Weibo, some netizens believe that the spearhead is directly aimed at Lenovo, which has been criticized by Chinese consumers for its lack of R&D capabilities and willingness to R&D.

Because Xiaomi is a new player in the PC space, executives are happy to speak out in the media, whether it's through Weibo or interviews.

When Xiaomi computers were first launched, a lot of attention focused on cost performance, and after more and more consumers got their hands on Xiaomi computers, more attention was focused on national production.

In the past, domestic computers, consumers, the media and even the official level expected them to master the core technology, especially Lenovo, in the past, in the media often saw accusations about Lenovo's lack of core technology.

The birth of Xiaomi computers, it can be said that almost everyone's expectations of Lenovo before, all of them have been realized by Xiaomi.

"I'm curious why Xiaomi can develop its own chips and graphics cards and jointly develop them, while the previous domestic brands have all kinds of difficulties when they mention self-development."

"R&D investment is slow and effective, and it may not be profitable, Xiaomi can do it because Zhou Xin has been deeply involved in the chip field for many years, as well as Zhou Xin's good relationship with Intel, Motorola, IBM and other Ameriken giants.

To put it bluntly, Zhou Xin's new horse, the tech giants of Ameriken will give him face, and the other party will buy his cooperation request, and the domestic brands they don't buy it, they just want to sell products to you. ”

"Lenovo has been doing it for so many years, and there is still no core technology, I don't say CPU, graphics card, these high-tech things, Lenovo has any innovation in other fields?"

The discussion on Xiaomi's self-developed technology on the general network forum, chatting and chatting will be crooked to why the previous domestic brands can't do it, and why Lenovo can't do it if it is further crooked.

Although there are many domestic computer brands in addition to Lenovo, Lenovo is undoubtedly a symbol, and then linked to independent research and development, Lenovo is a typical case.

In December 2002, Lenovo held a technology conference called Legend World in the Lenovo Building, claiming to transform to technology.

At this meeting, Lenovo invited experts from Intel, Texas Instruments, Oracle, Microsoft and other foreign companies to sit and discuss.

President Yang Yuanqing announced this year's technical answer sheet, because Lenovo's technology conference was held for four days, and after the announcement on the first day, some experts immediately spoke on the Internet: "Is Lenovo called technology?" ”

At this so-called "world-class technology event initiated by Chinese enterprises for the first time", Lenovo put forward the concept of "related applications" for the first time. At the opening ceremony, the founder of Lenovo used the "Theory of Permanent Revolution" and "Theory of Stage Revolution" to summarize Lenovo's technological innovation path.

The most attractive part of this science and technology conference is the "E-home" laboratory, where a series of forward-looking products developed by Lenovo based on "related technologies" are displayed.

After passing the verification, the glass door of "E-home" will automatically open, the electronic parrot in the entrance hall will send a pleasant greeting, the living room light will be automatically adjusted to the appropriate brightness by the system, the curtains of the "balcony" will be automatically opened, and the bedroom will automatically play soft music.

Screens can be seen everywhere in the entire E-home, and audio and video files stored in digital cameras, PDAs, PCs and even the Internet can be played on any display terminal. The seemingly ordinary electronic scale in the foyer is also embedded with the association protocol, and the relevant health data is collected and displayed while standing on the scale.

"Sensors like these can be hidden in all corners of the home, even in the toilet, and they can collect all kinds of health data at any time and act as a reliable family doctor."

"It is not difficult to see that at the three levels of personal information terminals, enterprise information applications and social information services, the biggest problem is the fragmentation of applications. 'Relevance' is the solution proposed by Lenovo for this. ”

This can be regarded as the prototype of the Internet of Things, of course, this is not the first Lenovo to put forward, this concept has been proposed by IBM a long time ago, and IBM has also elaborated on it at the previous Comdex conference.

To put it bluntly, this thing is a model room for the concepts proposed by others, so that the discussion of Lenovo's display technology among reporters at the World Conference is: these technologies are too scraps.

The reporters were also merciless in the interviews at the meeting:

"Mr. Yang, the technology displayed at today's Lenovo Legend World conference is very innovative, but in my opinion, Lenovo is only the integrator of technology, and we actually don't feel that much technology really comes from Lenovo original.

This time, Lenovo proposed the concept of related applications, does Lenovo's R&D team have any more specific core technologies for the implementation of this concept? ”

"I don't deny that Lenovo currently lacks a foundation, and the technology on display today is more about integrating the technology of mature manufacturers.

However, Lenovo will not give up the exploration of technology, according to the strategy set by Mr. Liu, we should also go to the stage of technology from trade, industry and technology.

Lenovo's strategy has always been to clear the periphery first and then approach the core technology, I originally wanted to wait for the phased results to be announced, but today it is not impossible to announce in advance, Lenovo will also set up a chip research and development department, and Intel will work together to create a CPU that is more suitable for Chinese consumers.

This CPU will become the core technology for the implementation of Lenovo's related applications, supporting the implementation of applications at home. ”

Yes, the benefits of Xiaomi's self-developed CPU have been fully verified in the past, and someone has already made a way out, and there is no reason why Lenovo should not follow along, even if it is just a gimmick, it is enough.

(End of chapter)