Chapter 83: The Three Eras of Little Ma

“Voice feature? OO’s enabling voice chat tomorrow? How is that possible!” In the Tenda office, everyone who heard Leng Zhimeng’s final announcement looked as if they’d seen a ghost, their faces filled with shock and disbelief.

Of course—voice chat wasn’t some minor novelty like the drifting bottle feature; this was a major update that would overhaul the entire software’s architecture. It was nearly akin to redesigning the program from the ground up. Even QQ didn’t have such a function, and yet somehow, OO was about to launch it?

So, when the program ended, Ma immediately summoned not the heads of marketing or sales, but Zhang Zhidong from the technical department.

“How far along are we with our voice chat technology?” Ma asked, his expression grave.

“We’re actually ready,” Zhang Zhidong replied calmly, though a touch of pride was audible in his voice. “If you need it, I can have a beta version ready within three days.”

“Old Zhang, I knew I wasn’t wrong about you!” A satisfied smile appeared on Ma’s face at this news. It seemed that the bombshell OO had dropped wouldn’t land anywhere near them after all.

In fact, Tenda had begun researching voice technology as early as the start of 2001. Ma’s foresight and broad vision for tech and product development truly deserved praise.

As early as 2000, in every internal development meeting, Ma had already proposed to the tech team a three-phase roadmap for QQ, drafting three entirely new frameworks for major versions.

The first major version was the voice chat era—requiring QQ to implement voice communication and elevate the platform from the age of text to the age of speech.

The second would be the era of video, advancing from voice to video calls.

The third was the mobile era, where QQ would no longer be just a virtual tool on the web but would have its own physical device. In Ma’s original vision, QQ would be like a Nintendo handheld console: users could always carry a QQ device with them and chat anytime, anywhere, freed from the confines of the PC.

What was even more ingenious, in his eyes, was that this device wouldn’t just run QQ—it should also play games, opening a backdoor into the gaming market.

Ma even set a timeline for these three eras: voice by 2003, video by 2008, and mobile by 2015.

But when Ma proposed these three ambitious goals in meetings, most people found them unbelievable, thinking the schedule was far too aggressive. Even putting aside technical hurdles, the mere leap in network speeds required seemed like a fantasy. The fastest home broadband at the time was only about 50KB per second, with the average closer to 10KB. Text chat on QQ was already pushing the limits—how could they possibly support mass voice or video? Wouldn’t that require average speeds of 100KB, a tenfold increase?

Impossible.

Even twenty years later, in 2021, based on the country’s rate of progress, an average speed of 100KB per second would be a miracle—and that was for fixed-line networks. The mobile era would need wireless, which was typically much slower.

So everyone at Tenda thought their boss was losing his mind, talking nonsense. Only Zhang Zhidong took Ma’s vision seriously, and from early 2001, he began preparing for the first of Ma’s planned eras: the new generation of QQ, the voice era.

Ma had assumed that Zhang Zhidong would need at least until the latter half of 2002 to produce a qualified product. His previous question was half in jest, not expecting a definite answer. Yet Zhang Zhidong told him they could have the new version in as little as three days.

“How is it so fast?” Ma couldn’t help but ask.

“Because the entire tech department has been preparing for your voice era all along,” Zhang Zhidong responded, offering a modest compliment. “Besides, it turns out voice technology is much simpler than we expected. We actually completed the core development some time ago. The technology is ready; it’s just a matter of integrating it into QQ, fixing bugs, and handling compatibility. That’ll take about three days.”

“Zhidong, I’m so fortunate to have a brother and friend like you!” Ma was deeply moved, throwing his arm around Zhang Zhidong’s shoulders with dramatic emotion.

“But, boss, there’s still one problem,” Zhang Zhidong hesitated before speaking again.

“What is it? Will it affect our voice feature’s launch?” Ma asked, instantly concerned.

“No, it won’t delay the launch. But it may affect users’ experience, because voice requires a lot of bandwidth. I’m worried…”

“I know all about that!” Ma cut him off. “I considered this long ago—that’s why I’ve held you guys back from adding pictures, file transfer, or large group chats. Our network speeds and servers simply can’t keep up.”

“Originally, according to my plan, we’d wait until 2003 after further server upgrades before implementing these new features. But with OO’s sudden move, we’re forced to respond to their threat right now!”

“So it’s not a question of whether we have enough bandwidth, but whether QQ has the feature at all. If not, we’ll lose tons of users to OO, just like with the drifting bottle feature.”

“Just go for it—I’ll deal with the bandwidth issue!” Ma gripped Zhang Zhidong’s hand tightly. “Zhidong, I’m counting on you!”

“Don’t worry, boss. Consider it done!” Zhang Zhidong was one step away from saluting him.

Despite Zhang Zhidong’s dedication, even his best efforts couldn’t change the fact that the new version needed three days, while OO’s voice chat would be fully launched the very next day.

After over a week of mounting excitement, yesterday’s episode of JDFT achieved stunning ratings—almost a record for the year, with an astonishing 20 percent viewership. That meant one in five people nationwide was watching, and they all learned that OO would launch voice chat the next day.

Of course, most ordinary people merely watched for entertainment—they had no computers at home and no interest in visiting internet cafes. Even if OO handed out red envelopes, they wouldn’t bother downloading it.

But those with computers and some free time, who hadn’t heard of OO before, were different. After seeing the news, they immediately began downloading the software to try out OO’s chat features, which caused download speeds to drop dramatically—almost twice as slow as usual, leaving many frustrated enough to want to smash their keyboards.

Yet these people were in the minority. Many more, while trying to download OO, were surprised to discover that the software was already installed on their desktops. They had no idea when it had gotten there, no recollection whatsoever.

Later, many users declared this the greatest supernatural event on the internet in 2001.