“Voice function? oo will launch voice function tomorrow? How is this possible!” In the Tengda office, everyone who heard the last piece of news announced by Leng Zhimeng looked as if they had seen a ghost, their faces filled with shock.
Of course, voice function, this is not a small feature like a message in a bottle. This is a major version update that will change the entire software architecture! This almost requires redesigning the entire software. This is a function that even QQ doesn't have, yet oo already has it?
So after the program ended, Brother Ma didn't summon the heads of the marketing and market departments first. Instead, he called Zhang Zhidong from the technology department.
“What is the progress of our voice chat technology?” Brother Ma asked with a serious expression.
“It’s actually ready!” Zhang Zhidong’s tone was calm, but some pride could still be heard. “If you need it, Boss, I can release a Beta version within three days.”
“Old Zhang, I really didn’t misjudge you!” Hearing this result, Brother Ma’s face showed a satisfied smile. It seemed that the bomb oo had painstakingly thrown out wouldn’t affect him at all.
In fact, Tengda had already started researching voice technology in early 2001. Here, one must commend Brother Ma’s broad vision and foresight in technology and products.
Because as early as 2000, in all internal version development meetings, Brother Ma had proposed a three-step technological development route for QQ, revising three completely new QQ frameworks for major versions.
The first major version was the voice chat major version, which required QQ to implement voice chat functions, elevating QQ from the text era to the voice era.
The second major version was the video era, further advancing voice to video.
The third major version was the mobile era, requiring QQ to no longer be satisfied with virtual software on the internet, but to have its own physical devices. In Brother Ma’s original vision, QQ was like Nintendo’s handheld console. Users could carry a QQ device with them at all times, chat on QQ anytime and anywhere, breaking free from the limitations of computers.
What was even better was that this device could not only be used for QQ but also for playing games, thus allowing them to counterattack into the gaming market. xxs12
Brother Ma also set a timetable for these three eras, requiring them to enter the voice era before 2003, the video era before 2008, and the mobile era before 2015.
However, when Brother Ma proposed these three major version goals at the meeting, many people found it incredible and thought it was too fast. Not to mention technological advancements, the progress on the internet alone seemed like a fantasy.
The fastest broadband speed at the time was only about 50kB/second, with the average speed being only about 10kB/second. Chatting on QQ with text was already quite difficult, and supporting voice and video would require the internet speed of all netizens to reach over 100kB/second, a tenfold increase in internet speed.
How was this possible?
Twenty years later, by 2021, according to China’s technological level, an average internet speed of 100kB/second would already be a miracle. This was for wired internet speeds, and the mobile era would inevitably require wireless networks, which had frighteningly slower speeds.
Therefore, everyone at Tengda thought their boss had gone mad and was talking nonsense. Only Zhang Zhidong diligently worked to fulfill Brother Ma’s requirements, starting preparations in early 2001 for the new generation of QQ in the voice era, the first era planned by Brother Ma.
Brother Ma originally thought that Zhang Zhidong would take until the latter half of 2002 at the earliest to produce a qualified product. He was just casually asking, not expecting Zhang Zhidong to give him a positive answer. To his surprise, Zhang Zhidong told Brother Ma that he could release this new version in three days at most.
“Why so fast?” Brother Ma couldn’t help but ask.
“Because our entire technology department has been preparing for your voice era, Boss!” Zhang Zhidong flattered him a little. “Also, voice technology is much simpler than we imagined. We completed the technological research a long time ago, and the technology is already ready. It just needs about three days to integrate it with the current QQ, fix all kinds of bugs, and complete some integration work.”
“Zhidong, you’ve worked hard. My greatest fortune in this life is having a good friend like you!” Brother Ma was deeply touched and hugged Zhang Zhidong’s shoulders, shedding man tears.
“However, Boss, there is actually another problem.” Zhang Zhidong hesitated for a moment before saying.
“What problem? Will it affect the launch of our voice function?” Brother Ma immediately asked with concern.
“No, it won’t affect the launch, but it will affect the user experience. Because voice requires a large amount of bandwidth to support, I’m worried…”
“I know this problem!” Brother Ma interrupted Zhang Zhidong. “I’ve already considered this. This is why I’ve been suppressing your technology department from creating images, files, and large group chats. Our internet speed and servers indeed cannot keep up with the demand.”
“Originally, according to my plan, we would complete further server upgrades in 2003 before starting the updates for these new technologies. But oo appeared, which forced us to deal with their threat immediately!”
“So now it’s not a question of whether the bandwidth is enough, but whether QQ has the function or not. If it doesn’t, just like the message in a bottle before, oo will snatch away a large number of our users!”
“Go ahead with confidence, I’ll handle the bandwidth issues, okay?” Brother Ma squeezed Zhang Zhidong’s hand forcefully. “Zhidong, I’m entrusting everything to you!”
“Don’t worry, Boss, I guarantee the mission will be completed!!” Zhang Zhidong was almost saluting Brother Ma.
Although Zhang Zhidong worked very hard, no matter how hard he worked, he could not change the fact that the new version would take three days, while oo’s voice function would be fully launched the next day.
After more than a week of hype, the jdft broadcast yesterday had extremely high popularity, almost reaching the level of a year-end hit, with an astonishing 20% viewership. This meant that one-fifth of the entire country was watching jdft, and then they collectively learned that oo would launch its voice function tomorrow.
Of course, most ordinary people were just watching the show. They didn’t have computers at home, nor were they interested in going to internet cafes. Even if oo gave them red envelopes, they wouldn’t be interested in downloading it.
But for those who had computers and had free time but didn’t know about oo before, it was different. After seeing this news, the first thing they did was to immediately start downloading the oo software, intending to experience this oo chat function. This directly led to oo’s download speed slowing down considerably, almost twice as slow as usual, making them want to smash their keyboards.
However, such people were a minority. Because more people, when downloading oo, were surprised to find that they didn’t know when oo had already been installed on their computer desktops, and they had no recollection of when it was installed.
Later, many users stated that this was the biggest online paranormal event of 2001!