Chapter 1927

“。。。 Download our software for one dollar to provide users with fresh, concise and ad free products. How do you feel? "

In the conference room, Andy raised his mouth and asked with a faint smile. He would not let WhatsApp go free all the time. Since there is no advertisement and no game, there is no way to realize the flow, no profit port, and he can't always burn money to make a call. Therefore, he still has to take the way of basic charge + value-added payment.

"This method has proved very effective in reality. However, in the initial stage, it will inevitably cause some users' dissatisfaction and uninstall wartsop, but because our products really resonate with users, the company will usher in a new round of impressive explosive growth in the future. "

CEO Brian naturally agreed with his big boss's decision to charge with both hands. He has been spending money beyond his means. The most affected is the CEO of his company.

"I also agree that before WhatsApp, users' messaging mainly depended on telecom operators, but they did not do well. Many of them charge according to the number of messages, increase the charge rate during busy hours, or completely limit the number of messages sent.

WhatsApp not only helps users remove these restrictions, but also achieves this goal at a lower cost. It provides valuable and popular functions beyond those provided by mobile operators, including group chat, audio and video file sharing.

However, in order to avoid the emergence of large-scale unloading crisis, boss, do you think it's free in the first year, and then only $0.99 per year. Although we have no difficulty competing with the high per message packages of most operators, our additional features make it more attractive. But users who are used to free lunch will inevitably have a rebellious psychology. Although the difference between $1 and $0.99 is only $0.01, users can feel that it's really a small money, not even a dollar. "

At this time, the manager of marketing department also expressed his opinions and reported his ideas to Andy.

"It's a good idea. 99 dollars. If we don't even give up such a small amount of money, we don't want to forget about such users..."

"It's true that we only charge less than one dollar. Compared with the SMS package they use now, it's too much cheaper and powerful. There's no advertisement yet. If we are stingy, we really don't need to consider serving that kind of people."

All the people in the conference room immediately echoed. Everyone in the room knows the value of wasp better than anyone else. All the time, they regarded the initial free service as a means to seize the market and increase the user base. Only one day after the market is mature and the user base is huge, they can harvest again.

After all, WhatsApp is the most popular and successful in many demanding tariff packages and the oldest, cheapest models. The cross platform operability of WhatsApp and the availability of smart phones and function phones are the trump card of its rapid development in the world. It's true that some people feel that the service fee of less than one dollar per year is expensive, so they really don't need to serve such users.

Besides, the impact of charging may not be great. After all, there is no doubt about the popularity of wasp, especially the group chat among young users. Either SMS does not have this function, or it can not afford so many SMS fees. In addition to being particularly useful, these community functions have expanded the scope of explosive growth beyond the typical 1-to-1 connection of texting to one to many. All of these have relatively low cognitive overhead for new WhatsApp users.

In addition, the registration process is simple and convenient. Users only need to confirm their mobile phone number, and WhatsApp will automatically synchronize their mobile phone address book, which will make it convenient for users to switch from standard text to WhatsApp in essence.

Of course, the real key is cross platform interoperability, enabling friends to connect with each other, no matter what kind of phone, operating system, operator or country.

While both blackberry and apple are eyeing wartsop's development and offering their own SMS alternatives, they are not working across platforms. This is a huge problem in itself. To break the established market of wasp with a service that is not only more affordable, but also more reliable and functional.

Andy saw that all his subordinates basically reached a consensus, and he nodded slightly and made a decision, "so, on January 1 next year, he will launch the official version of WhatsApp, which will be free in the first year after downloading, and will charge us $0.99 from the second year. Old users can also directly pay US $0.99 in advance to enjoy the value-added services of our software.

We must do a good job in publicity and let users know that the reason why we charge is to better serve them, so that they are free from the harassment of advertising and the bombardment of junk information. "

"All right, boss."

In the conference room, there was a fairly neat and unanimous reply from his subordinates. Andy nodded his head with satisfaction and worked out the development plan for the next few months. He could not worry about WhatsApp for a short time.Next, on his trip to San Francisco, he was left to inspect ins and the top Apple board of directors.

"Bang!"

Andy got out of the car in a high-end fabric suit, the bodyguard behind closed the door, took off his sunglasses, looked at the apple headquarters building in front of him, smiled a little, stepped forward, and walked towards the "infinite circulation" headquarters building under the crowd.

Fifteen years ago, apple, the big company driving the computer revolution, began to decline. At that time, it just moved into this shiny new headquarters, a six building Park, forming an alternative ring. So it's called infinite loop, and the name comes from a well-known programming error, which means the code gets stuck in endless repetition, but no one seems to know who adopted it. Infinite circle is the place where Apple and engineers have made historic changes. It is the source of stories and legends about Apple, many of which are unknown.

Seeing jobs again, Andy was really a little surprised. Although jobs returned to apple after leaving the hospital and showed up in a video conference, Andy only thought he was more thin at that time, but he didn't think he was so skinny. Seeing the blue tendons on the real man's neck and the thinner and thinner body shape, wearing a long sleeved T-shirt and jeans on such a hot day, he made him Andy sympathizes with it.

However, this sympathy was soon dispersed by Jobs's arrogance and those rebellious and hostile eyes. Andy smiled and greeted jobs with a cold face. After shaking hands for a short time, he found his own position, sat down at the meeting table, greeted other directors around him and waited for other board members Come on.

As the biggest technology company in the world, who is the real owner of apple? Who is in control of the company? Why does Andy have more wealth than Apple's market value and not buy Apple directly?

I believe that many people have doubts about these problems, why so many rich people don't buy Apple directly.

In fact, Andy has long said that there is no actual controller in apple. It is the board of directors, not the major shareholders, that controls it.

Why?

Because Apple has no controlling shareholder. For many apple shareholders, it is difficult to use their own rights to determine the composition and decision-making of the board of directors.

The reason why the board of directors controls the company is from 33 years ago. On April 1, 1976, jobs and others co founded apple. At that time, the shares were distributed among several founders, of which jobs held 30%.

In 1980, after Apple went public, after financing, jobs's equity was gradually diluted, and his control of the company disappeared.

Five years later, jobs lost his power because he lost the support of the board of directors. Then, after several attempts to regain power failed, he resigned as chairman of the board and left the company this year. It can be said that he was expelled.

When he left apple, jobs still held 11.3% of Apple's shares. At one stroke, he chose to reduce his holding to just one share and cash out $130 million, which symbolizes that the last share of Xing is used to attend the annual general meeting of apple.

Later, as we all know, the declining Apple company invited jobs back. The king of jobs returned and led the company to success. But in fact, he was not a major shareholder of apple.

The main reason no one can buy it is that Apple's equity is too fragmented.

According to the current disclosure data, 60% of Apple's shares are held by as many as 2440 institutions, and the shares are very fragmented.

Vanguard Group is the largest shareholder of apple, with 6.43% stake. As the second largest individual shareholder, Andy only holds 5.23%. The top ten shareholders hold 23.33% of the total. Therefore, according to the shareholding ratio, there is no major shareholder who can control the company.

For this kind of high-quality company, it is believed that there are not a few capital tycoons in the capital market who covet it and want to annex it, but they need to be carefully weighed before taking action. If you want to become a major shareholder, you need to pay more than 25 billion dollars to get 25% of the equity. In 2009, Apple's market value has reached 105 billion dollars. Although there are many rich people and companies that can take out so much money at one time.

However, Apple's cash reserves are growing. It can be said that Apple's board of directors has sufficient funds to fight against any capital Party's acquisition of the company, and can calmly shut out all kinds of "barbarians" who have malicious acquisition attempts. What's more, with a very strong CEO, Steve Jobs, no one will choose to jump out of the car in the period of Apple's rapid development, unless they are crazy!