lerbook Chapter 479 StarPhone 2
Chapter 479 StarPhone 2
Just a few days after the celebration of StarPhone 1 sales exceeding 800,000 units, Lingyun called the product committee members to the conference room.
Li Mo brought the architecture blueprints for Starcore 2, rolled them up into a tube and tucked under his arm. Wang Jianguo came in carrying a coffee cup, the rim of which, as usual, was stained with a brown ring. Zhao Weiguo flew back from Guangzhou, and Chen Zhongming sat next to him flipping through a supply chain quotation. Ma Baoguo arrived last, carrying engineering samples that had just been delivered from the Shenzhen factory.
Lingyun stood in front of the whiteboard, which already had several lines of text written on it: screen, processor, camera, network, body, battery. Each line was left blank, waiting to be filled in.
"StarPhone 2, codenamed 'Star Shine'." Ling Yun picked up a marker and tapped the whiteboard. "Today, we'll finalize the initial specifications. Let's hear what you have to say first."
Li Mo was the first to stand up. He spread the blueprints out on the conference table, holding down the four corners with his phone. "StarCore 2, 0.13-micron process, 600 MHz clock speed, integrated 3D graphics accelerator, supports OpenGL ES 1.0. The baseband interface is reserved; once the WCDMA baseband from Noah's Ark comes out, the two chips will communicate directly via the internal bus." He pointed to the lower right corner of the chip block diagram, "Most importantly—we've reduced standby power consumption to below 30 milliwatts. That's almost half that of the first generation."
"Where's the screen?" Lingyun asked.
Wang Jianguo continued, turning his laptop screen towards everyone. "It's 4.0 inches, with a resolution of 480x640. Xinvino has already produced engineering samples; it's an OLED panel with 30% better color saturation than the first generation. We tested the viewing angle under strong outdoor light, and it's comparable to Samsung's panels of the same specifications."
"The camera. What did O-Film say?" Ling Yun asked Ma Baoguo.
Ma Baoguo pushed the engineering sample to the center of the table. "500 megapixels, autofocus, supports video recording. The module thickness has been reduced to 6.5 millimeters. They opened a new production line specifically for this camera." He pulled a comparison photo from his pocket, showing the camera modules of the StarPhone 2 and StarPhone 1 placed side by side, with the second generation noticeably thinner.
Chen Zhongming flipped through the supply chain price list. "For the 3G network, we'll use WCDMA. 3G licenses have already been issued in Europe and China. I got a solution from a Japanese supplier for the GPS module; the antenna can be integrated into the back cover. The front camera—" He looked up at Ling Yun, "You said the StarPhone 2 would have a front camera. I got a 30-pixel sample from Samsung; the cost isn't high."
"Where's the fuselage?"
"8.9 millimeters." Ma Baoguo gestured. "It's a full millimeter thinner than the first generation. The battery capacity is 1800 mAh, 300 mAh more than the first generation. Combined with Li Mo's power consumption optimization, the overall battery life can be improved by at least 30%."
Ling Yun filled in the numbers one by one on the whiteboard. After he finished, he took two steps back and looked at the whiteboard full of parameters. For a moment, no one spoke at the conference table.
Zhao Weiguo spoke first, "Brother Ling, I have an idea. Can we release a budget version? A smaller screen, a lower-spec camera, a downclocked StarCore 1 processor, and price it under three thousand. Nokia and Samsung are already flooding the market with products in the two to three thousand price range. If we don't compete, this segment will be theirs."
Several people in the meeting room nodded. Chen Zhongming did some calculations on the quotation sheet, "If we release a budget version, we can reduce supply chain costs by about 40%. The production line at the Shenzhen factory doesn't need major modifications either, and there's still a considerable inventory of StarCore 1 units."
Ma Baoguo chimed in, "The mid-to-low-end market has a large volume, thin profit margins but fast sales. With our current brand popularity, if we roll out the budget version, reaching one million units in six months shouldn't be a problem."
Ling Yun didn't answer immediately. He placed the marker in the pen slot under the whiteboard and walked to the window. The tower crane outside had stopped, its boom hanging silently in the twilight. He turned around.
"No. Our strategy is to first establish a foothold in the high-end market. We'll use high-end technology and reputation to expand downwards. If we were to make a budget version now, we would get bogged down in a price war with counterfeit phones. That's not the path we should take."
Zhao Weiguo frowned. "But what about Nokia—"
"Nokia's Symbian system still holds the top market share. Their advantage lies in the low-to-mid-range market, not the high-end. If we engage in a price war with them, we're using our weaknesses to exploit their strengths. Apple is coming next year—Steve Jobs won't just be an observer. Once the iPhone is released, the high-end market will be a three-way game: Apple, Spark, and Nokia's high-end line. What we need to do now is secure our position at this table." Ling Yun sat back down at the table and circled the "Network" section on the whiteboard. "3G is the biggest variable next year. WCDMA networks are already being deployed in Europe, and after the 3G licenses are issued in China, operator subsidies will follow. Whoever can get ahead in 3G experience will be at the forefront of the next wave of phone upgrades."
After the meeting, Wang Jianguo chased after Ling Yun and called out to her in the corridor.
"Mr. Ling, I have an idea." The coffee he was holding had gone cold, but he didn't seem to mind at all. "Could we add a feature to StarPhone 2—automatically backing up photos taken by users to the cloud? If you switch phones, you just need to log in to your Starfire account, and all your data will be back. We've already got PanShi and HaiNa running smoothly, so storage space isn't an issue."
Ling Yun stopped. "Tell me in detail."
"Look. The biggest pain point for users when they switch phones isn't the price, it's data migration. Contacts can be transferred via SIM card, but photos can't. Text messages can't. App data can't. If we build the StarPhone 2 with the Starfire Cloud service built-in, it will automatically back up everything on startup—contacts, photos, text messages, calendar, app list, all to the cloud. When users switch to a new phone, they just need to log in to their Starfire account, and everything will be there, even the desktop wallpaper will be exactly the same as before." Wang Jianguo spoke faster and faster than usual, and at the end he laughed, "When my wife and I switch phones, it takes us ages to transfer our contacts every time. I think this should be possible."
Ling Yun leaned against the corridor wall and thought for a few seconds. "Have Jiang Feng cooperate. Connect Haina's storage interface with Panshi's elastic computing scheduling, and create a dedicated resource pool for Xinghuo Cloud services. If this feature is successful, it will be the core selling point of StarPhone 2—not the hardware specifications, but the user experience."
"I'll call Jiang Feng." Wang Jianguo put his coffee cup on the windowsill, turned and walked towards the R&D center. After a few steps, he turned back. "President Ling, what's this function called?"
"Let's call it Spark Cloud Service. Don't use any fancy names; make sure users understand it at a glance."
Ling Yun returned to his office, opened his notebook, and added a few lines below the StarPhone 2 page: Cloud integration, data roaming, zero cost of switching devices. He closed the notebook, picked up the internal phone, and dialed Jiang Feng's number.
"Jiang Feng, you need to come up with a technical solution this week for what Jian Guo told you. Focus on solving two key issues: first, backup speed—users can't wait. Second, security—photos and contacts are private data, so there should be three layers: encrypted storage, encrypted transmission, and access verification."
"We already have a ready-made encryption solution that has been tested by Haina. As for backup speed—" the sound of typing came from the other end of the phone, "If we use incremental backups, only uploading the changed parts, after the first full backup, daily synchronization will be virtually imperceptible."
"Prototype to be released before New Year's Day. Internal testing to begin before the Spring Festival."
"Okay." Jiang Feng paused for a moment, then said, "President Ling, do you think Xinghuo Cloud services could become a competitive advantage for us in the future?"
"It's not a matter of whether or not. It's a matter of certainty," Ling Yun said. "Others can copy our hardware specifications, but they can't copy our self-built cloud computing infrastructure. We've been working on PanShi and HaiNa for three years, and no one else has done it during those three years. By the time they want to catch up, we're already ahead of them."
After hanging up the phone, Ling Yun stood up and walked to the window. Night had completely fallen, and the streetlights in the park illuminated the road with an orange glow.