中国互联网创业

中国互联网创业 中国互联网创业:生存，死亡或腾讯 周 四在北京举行的全球移动互联网大会(Global Mobile Internet Conference)上，众多成功的中国互联网企业家纷纷亮相，凸显出当前仍然是在中国互联网领域创业的黄金时期。 Bloomberg News 马化腾 但在一个个优秀互联网公司成功的背后，中国社交网络和在线游戏业巨头腾讯(Tencent)的影子却无处不在。由于该公司不断成功地扩大自己在社交网络领域的影响力，在中国的互联网企业家中流传着这样一个说法:互联网创业是生存，死亡或腾讯。 这句话的意思是，进入中国互联网市场的企业家要么与腾讯合作，要么被腾讯打败，或者(但可能性不大)迅速成长以期与之竞争。 在周四上午的会议上，智能手机制造商小米手机的创始人、金山软件公司(Kingsoft)董事长雷军谈到其去年推出的即时信息服务米聊时，腾讯的巨大影响力再次成为焦点。 雷军回忆说，他曾经和公司的其他同事猜想腾讯将花多长时间推出一个可与米聊竞争的产品。他说:米聊推出后，我们判断腾讯会在6个月后推出。然而正如他所说，腾讯仅花了两个月的时间就发布了微信。人士估计，这款广受欢迎的手机即时信息服务自去年发布后已经吸引了超过6,000万用户。腾讯的首席执行长马化腾当时就坐在会场前排。 在一阵尴尬的笑声中，雷军谈到他如何利用竞争对手腾讯推出的更受欢迎的聊天产品来学习市场竞争。 在周二的一次采访中，推出了UC浏览器的初创公司UC优视(UC Web)的创始人俞永福指出，在移动网络浏览器的小众市场中，腾讯QQ浏览器是他们在中国的主要竞争对手。 俞永福说，由于公司只专注于一种产品，他相信他的公司能够在竞争中超过腾讯。UC优视 说，UC浏览器仍然在中国手机浏览器市场占据领先位置。 不过，腾讯已经反复证明，尽管腾讯的产品种类繁多，它仍然能够在竞争中领先于专注于一 种产品的企业。 管理咨询公司沃尔夫亚洲集团(Wolf Group Asia)首席执行长沃尔夫(David Wolf)说，腾讯未 来将会遇到的主要障碍是自己的成功。即使是没有《谢尔曼反垄断法》(Sherman Anti-Trust Act)的限制，腾讯仍将会面临微软曾经遇到过的挑战。沃尔夫说，中国也有一部反垄断法。 如果腾讯巨大影响力长期存在的话，将会令一些人的创业梦想破灭，尤其是不该被击碎梦想 的人，到那时腾讯可能会面临一些挑战。 沃尔夫说，对于想要挑战腾讯的勇敢的初创企业来说，关键是要在中国之外开拓多样化的市 场，进军到腾讯没有涉足的领域。 UC优视已经进入其他几个国家，小米正在制作低成本的智能手机，这两家公司都还在紧紧 把握自己的优势。但是同样重要的是，目前似乎还没有任何后起之秀拥有战胜腾讯的实力。 Internet Business in China: Life, Death or Tencent At the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing on Thursday, the presence of a whole host of successful Chinese internet entrepreneurs showed it's still a good time to start a web business in China. But looming everywhere amid the success stories was the long shadow of Tencent, China's social networking and gaming giant. The company has been so successful at growing its presence across the social networking space that it has spawned an aphorism among Chinese web entrepreneurs: 'Life, death or Tencent.' Translation: An entrepreneur entering China's web market can either cooperate with Tencent, be crushed by it, or (less likely) scale so rapidly as to have some hope of competing with it. That dynamic came to the fore in Thursday's morning session when Lei Jun, founder of smartphone maker Xiaomi and chairman of software maker Kingsoft, discussed the company's rollout last year of its instant messaging service Miliao. With Tencent chief executive Pony Ma looking on from the front of the room, Mr. Lei recalled wondering with others in his company how long it would take Tencent to come out with a competing service. 'We thought maybe it would take six months,' he said. Instead, as he pointed out, it took only two months for Tencent to come out with Weixin, a wildly popular mobile messaging service that analysts estimate has already accumulated more than 60 million users since its launch last year. To awkward laughter, Mr. Lei talked about how he used the rival's more popular messaging service to study the competition. In an interview Tuesday, Yu Yongfu, the founder of the upstart mobile browser company UC Web, pointed out that in the very niche market of the mobile web browser, Tencent's QQ browser was their primary Chinese competitor. Mr. Yu said he was confident his company could outcompete Tencent - UC Web says it remains the leader in China market space for mobile browser users -- due to its focus on the single product. Still, Tencent has proven over and over that despite its wide range of offerings, it can outcompete specialized companies. Tencent's primary obstacle could in the future be its own success, according to David Wolf, chief executive of Wolf Group Asia. 'They'll be facing some of the same challenges [as Microsoft] without the formalities of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act,' Mr. Wolf said. 'There is a Chinese anti-monopoly law, and If this goes on long enough and they break the dreams of people and especially the wrong people, Tencent may find itself facing some challenges.' As for those brave start ups seeking to play David to Mr. Ma's Goliath, the key according to Mr. Wolf is to diversify away from China and move into areas where Tencent doesn't compete. UC Web has a presence in a number of other countries, and Xiaomi makes a low-cost smartphone, so both are for now holding their own. But just as importantly no upstart as yet seems to have the slingshot that could bring Tencent down.