dkrc Chapter 467 StarPhone 1 Global Launch
Chapter 467 StarPhone 1 Global Launch
Beijing International Convention Center, 9:50 a.m.
The lights in the venue were dimmed, leaving only a spotlight on the stage. All three thousand chairs were occupied, and people were even standing in the aisles. Someone in the back row was taking pictures with their phone, the screen's light flickering in the darkness like fireflies in the night.
Thirty seconds left in the countdown.
Ling Yun stood in the waiting area on the left side of the stage. He wore a black turtleneck sweater over a dark blue suit, without a tie. A platinum cufflink peeked out from his left sleeve, gleaming faintly in the dim backstage lighting.
Zhao Hu stood three steps behind him, a walkie-talkie hanging from his ear. Ling Yun took a deep breath, flexed his fingers, then clenched them again. He could hear his own heartbeat, not from nervousness—it was the feeling of something long awaited finally arriving.
The countdown reached zero. The entire venue went dark for about two seconds.
The large screen lit up, and the Spark logo appeared on it, with blue and white light filling the entire stage. The logo slowly faded away, leaving only one sentence on the screen: "Running a business is not about making money, it's about solving problems."
There was a moment of silence in the audience.
Ling Yun walked out from the left side of the stage, a spotlight shining on him. He stood in the center of the stage, holding a StarPhone 1 in his hand. The screen simultaneously switched to his face, and more than three thousand pairs of eyes were watching him.
"Eight years ago," he began, his voice carrying through the speakers and echoing softly in the venue, "a few classmates and I opened an internet cafe in Jinan. Back then, we believed that computers would change the world."
He took a step forward.
"Today, I stand here believing in another thing—that mobile phones will change the world once again."
The screen switched to a video: Winter 1996, Shanda North Road, Jinan, a two-story building. The camera panned across the sign at the entrance—Starry Sky Internet Cafe. Then the scene shifted to the interior of the internet cafe, where a dozen CRT monitors were arranged in two rows, and several young people sat in front, with DOS command lines running on their screens.
Someone in the back row chuckled softly, probably remembering how they used to squat in internet cafes back in the day.
After the video ended, the feed switched back to the live phone screen. Ling Yun held the StarPhone to his chest and pressed the Home button. The screen lit up.
"This is StarPhone."
He began to operate. He swiped his thumb from left to right, and the desktop flipped to the next page. The icons were neatly arranged, each app enclosed in a rounded rectangle. He pinched the screen with two fingers, and all the apps shrunk into a card view, floating above the desktop wallpaper. He then spread his fingers, and the cards unfolded again, restoring the complete desktop.
A low humming sound came from the audience.
"Multi-touch," Ling Yun said as he continued demonstrating, "swipe, zoom, drag. Once you get used to these gestures—" He paused, "you'll feel awkward using a button phone again."
He tapped the camera icon. The camera opened, and the image of the front row of the venue appeared on the big screen. He raised his phone, pointed it at the audience, and pressed the shutter. With a click, the photo froze, then automatically shrunk and flew into the album entry in the lower right corner.
"Take a photo. It will be automatically saved to your album after you take the picture. You can share it with just one click." He opened the photo he had just taken, clicked the share button again, selected the Star Language icon, typed "Press Conference Venue", and pressed send.
"Okay. This post has been sent."
He exited the camera app and opened the UCWEB browser. The webpage loaded, showing Sina's homepage with the morning's news headlines. He swiped up and down with his finger, and the webpage scrolled for a considerable distance, the font automatically adapting to the screen size without any horizontal scrollbar appearing.
"UCWEB. It's a version that He Xiaopeng and his team made specifically for Xinghuo OS. Browsing web pages on your phone is just as fast as on a computer."
Someone in the front row stood up, clapped twice, and then sat down again.
He then opened Gaode Maps. The map loaded, and the blue dot was located in Chaoyang District, near the North Fourth Ring Road. He entered "Zhongguancun," and a navigation route popped up on the screen, from the North Fourth Ring Road to Zhongguancun, with an estimated journey time of twenty-five minutes.
"Navigation. I won't need to ask for directions anymore when I go out."
He exited the map and clicked the WPS mobile icon. A blank document opened, and he brought up the Hanvon handwriting input method, writing four characters on the screen with his index finger: "A single spark can start a prairie fire." The characters were immediately converted to standard Song typeface text as soon as he finished writing.
"WPS." He looked up. "The version that Boss Qiu specially made for Spark OS."
He then clicked the Star Language Meeting Room icon, and a video window popped up. He clicked the invite button, and the screen immediately switched to a remote connection window—
Qiu Bojun sat in his office in Zhuhai, with bookshelves piled high behind him and the sunlight streaming in through the window.
"Mr. Ling, can you hear me?" Qiu Bojun waved in the video.
"Very clear." Ling Yun turned his phone towards the audience. "General Manager Qiu, have you received the document?"
"Received, received." Qiu Bojun smiled in the video. "I've already opened and read those four words you just wrote. Mr. Ling, let me tell you, the experience of WPS on Spark OS is even smoother than on Windows. I've told our technical team that starting today, WPS Mobile will launch on Spark OS."
The applause rolled from the back row to the front.
"Mr. Qiu, what does Kingsoft lack most right now?"
"We lack manpower. We lack money. But what we lack most is time—Microsoft Office is also developing a mobile version, and we need to be faster than them."
"Then you can continue writing your code. I won't keep you any longer." Ling Yun smiled and hung up the video call.
He turned to face the audience and placed his phone on the podium.
"Everything you just saw—touchscreen, camera, browser, map, office—was written line by line with our partners." He paused, lowering his voice slightly. "I'm standing here today not just representing myself, but also the tens of thousands of engineers at Spark, partners like Mr. Qiu, He Xiaopeng, and Liu Yingjian, and everyone who believes that 'Chinese people can build their own operating systems.'"
In the front row, Ni Guangnan sat in the third row near the edge. He didn't applaud; he just sat there watching Ling Yun on stage. He had watched every frame of the smooth images on the screen countless times—on the development board in the lab, in the conference room at three in the morning, on that frequently crashing test prototype. He took off his reading glasses, wiped the lenses with his fingers, and put them back on. Li Mo, sitting next to him, glanced at him but didn't say anything.
Ling Yun picked up his phone from the podium and turned the screen back on.
"There's one last thing."
He pressed a button on the remote control, and a line of text popped up on the big screen: StarPhone 1 is priced at 3999 yuan.
"This price wasn't set by me alone. It was negotiated one by one by Ma Baoguo and his supply chain team with dozens of suppliers. It was achieved by 15,000 production line workers working day after day in the Shenzhen factory. It was achieved by all the engineers at Xinghuo working hundreds of extra night shifts." He took a step forward, the spotlight following him. "The first batch will consist of 100,000 units. They will go on sale tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM on the Xinghuo website and in brand stores in twelve major cities across the country."
The applause drowned out his words. A barrage of flashes illuminated the stage. People in the back rows stood up to applaud, then those in the front rows rose, like waves surging outwards from the center of the audience. Ling Yun stood in the center of the stage, his hand holding his phone hanging limply at his side, a spotlight shining down on him from above, enveloping him alone.
He took a step back, preparing to bow and leave.
Just then, his phone vibrated in his pocket—it was on a specially set vibration mode, only responding to calls from one person. He took the phone out, and a text message popped up on the screen: From Steve Jobs.
"Ling, you watched the live stream. Congratulations. But don't forget, we still have a match between us. —Steve"
Ling Yun stood in the shadows at the side of the stage, looking down at the short message. The scene was still in a frenzy, with applause, camera shutters, and voices blending into a massive roar. He stood at the edge of the roar, his thumb rapidly typing three words on the screen.
"I know."
He tapped send, then put his phone back in his pocket. After thinking for a moment, he took it out again and added, "Waiting for your turn."