"... you pay a dollar to download our software to provide users with a refreshing, simple, and ads-free product. What do you think?"

In the meeting room, Andy's mouth was raised, and his face asked with a slight smile. He would not keep whats free forever. Since there is no advertisement and no game, there is no way to realize the traffic and there is no profit port. You ca n’t burn money all the time, so you still have to follow the basic charge + value-added payment path.

"This method has proven to be very effective in reality. However, in the initial stage, it will inevitably cause some users to be dissatisfied and uninstall Wattspur. However, since our products really resonate with users, the company will usher in new ones in the future. An impressive round of explosive growth. "

Ceo Bryan naturally raised his hands in favor of the decision of his big boss to charge money, and has been burning money to make ends meet, the most affected is the CEO of his company.

"I also agree that before whats appeared, users’ messaging mainly relied on telecommunications operators, but they did not do well. Many of them were charging based on the number of messages, increasing the charging rate during peak hours, or completely limiting the sending of text messages. the amount.

Whats not only helps users lift these restrictions, but it also achieves this goal at a lower cost. It provides valuable and popular features beyond what mobile operators provide, including group chat, audio and video file sharing.

However, in order to avoid the emergence of a large-scale unloading crisis, the boss, you see, is it free for the first year and only $ 0.99 per year after that? Although, we compete effortlessly with the costly per-message package of most carriers, and our additional features make it even more attractive. But users who are accustomed to eating free lunch will inevitably have rebellious psychology. Although the difference between US $ 1 and US $ 0.99 is only US $ 0.01, it can psychologically make users feel that they are really a small money, not even a dollar. . "

The marketing manager also spoke at this time and reported his thoughts to Andy.

"That's a good idea, $ 0.99. If you can't even pay for such a small amount of money, we don't want such users ..."

"It's true that we can't charge less than a dollar, but it's much cheaper than the SMS packages they use now, and it's powerful, there are no ads, and then there is no need to consider serving that kind of person. . "

Everyone in the conference room immediately made a statement. Everyone in the room knew better than anyone the value of Watts. All along, they regarded the initial free as a means to seize the market and increase the user base. Only one day , The market is mature, the user base is huge, and then harvesting.

After all, whats is most popular in the market with many demanding tariff packages and the oldest and cheapest models, and has succeeded in these markets. Whats' cross-platform operability, availability of smart phones and feature phones are all its killers that are rapidly developing internationally. Someone really feels that the service fee of less than one dollar per year is expensive, so there is really no need to wait. This kind of user.

Besides, the impact of charging may not be great. After all, the popularity of Watts is unquestionable, especially the group chat among young users is particularly prominent. Either sms does not have this feature, or it cannot afford so much. SMS costs. In addition to being particularly useful, these community features have expanded the scope of explosive growth beyond the typical one-to-one connection of texting and become one-to-many. All of these have relatively low cognitive overhead for new whats users.

In addition, the registration process is simple and convenient, users only need to confirm their mobile phone number, whats will automatically synchronize their mobile phone contacts, which will make it easy for users to switch from standard text to whats.

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.

Although both BlackBerry and Apple are jealous of the development of Wattspur and offer their own alternatives to text messaging, they have not worked across platforms. This in itself is a huge problem. Break through the established market of Watsup with a service that is not only more affordable, but also more reliable and powerful.

Andy saw that the subordinates basically reached a consensus, and could not help but nodded slightly, and issued a decision, "That's it, on January 1 next year, the official version of whats will be launched. The first year after downloading is free. A fee of USD 0.99 will be charged from the beginning of the year. Old users can also directly pay USD 0.99 in advance to enjoy the value-added services of our software.

Publicity must be done well. Let users know that the reason we charge is to better serve them and protect them from the harassment of advertisements and the bombardment of spam. "

"Okay, boss."

In the conference room, the subordinates responded fairly neatly. Andy nodded with satisfaction and worked out a development plan for the next few months. He could not be bothered about whats in the short term.

Next, during his trip to San Francisco, he only had to inspect the ins and the top Apple board during this trip.

"boom!"

Andy, who was dressed in a high-grade fabric suit, got out of the car. The bodyguard behind him closed the door, took off his sunglasses, looked at the Apple headquarters building in front of him, smiled slightly, stepped forward, and walked towards the Infinite Loop headquarters building surrounded by everyone.

Fifteen years ago, Apple, the big company driving the computer revolution, began to decline. At that time, it had just moved into this shiny new headquarters, a campus consisting of six buildings, forming an alternative ring. So it is called an infinite loop, and the name comes from a well-known programming error, which means that the code is endlessly repeated, but no one seems to know who adopted it. Infinite Loop is where Apple and engineers make historic changes, and is the source of Apple stories and legends, many of which are unknown.

When I saw Jobs again, Andy was really a bit surprised. Although Jobs returned to Apple after he was discharged from the hospital and appeared in a video conference, Andy only felt that he was thinner, but he didn't think he was so thin. Seeing the thin blue tendons and thinner figure on the neck of a real person, in such a hot day, he also wore a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, which made Andy sympathize with him.

However, this sympathy was quickly dispelled by Steve Jobs's arrogant expression and those unruly and hostile eyes. Andy smiled and greeted Steve Jobs, greeted him, shook hands briefly, then Having found his place, he sat calmly at the conference table and greeted the other directors around, waiting for the arrival of other board members.

As the world's largest listed technology company, who is Apple ’s true owner? Who is in control of this company? Why does Andy own more wealth than Apple's market value without buying Apple directly?

I believe that many people have questions about these issues, why so many rich people do not directly buy Apple.

In fact, Andy has said a long time ago that Apple does not have an actual controller. It is controlled by the company's board of directors, not its major shareholders.

why?

Because Apple doesn't have a controlling shareholder. For many Apple shareholders, it is difficult to use their own rights to determine the composition and decision of Apple's board of directors.

The reason for the status quo of the board controlling the company should start from 33 years ago. On April 1, 1976, Jobs and others co-founded Apple. At that time, the shares were scattered among the founders, of which Jobs held 30%.

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

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

When he left Apple, Jobs still held 11.3% of Apple's shares at the time. In one go, he chose to reduce it to only 1 share to cash out $ 130 million. This symbolizes that the last share of Xing is used to participate in the annual Apple. Shareholders' meeting of the company.

Later, as everyone knows, the declining Apple Company invited Steve Jobs back, and Steve Jobs returned and led the company to success, but in fact he was not a major shareholder of Apple.

The reason no one was able to acquire it was mainly because Apple's equity was too fragmented.

Existing disclosure data show that Apple currently has 60% of its shares held by as many as 2,440 institutions, with very dispersed equity.

American Pioneer Group is Apple's largest shareholder with a 6.43% stake. As the second largest individual shareholder, Andy only holds 5.23% of the top ten shareholders. The total shareholding ratio is 23.33%. Therefore, according to the shareholding ratio, there are no major shareholders who can control the company.

For this kind of high-quality company, I believe that there are a lot of capital predators in the capital market who want to acquire and annex it, but it needs to be carefully weighed before action. If you want to become its major shareholder, you need to pay more than 25 billion US dollars to get 25% of the equity. In 2009, Apple ’s market value has reached 105 billion US dollars. So many funds, although there are also many rich people and companies .

However, Apple's cash reserves are constantly growing. It can be said that Apple's board has sufficient funds to resist any capital party's acquisition of the company, and it can calmly block all kinds of "savages" with malicious acquisition attempts outer. What's more, there is an extremely powerful ceo Jobs, no one will choose to jump off the car during the period of high-speed development of Apple, unless crazy!