Produced | Sohu Technology
Author | Zhang Yating
Edit | Yang Jin
Huawei, which has always been prudent and prudent, has recently made intensive adjustments to its cloud business, which has aroused heated discussions from outsiders. On April 9, Huawei announced the appointment of Rotating Chairman Xu Zhijun as Chairman of Huawei Cloud, and Huawei Consumer BG CEO Yu Chengdong was appointed as Huawei Cloud CEO.
A week ago, on April 2, Huawei announced the abolition of Cloud&AI (cloud and computing) BG. On March 30, Huawei just appointed 11 members including Zhang Pingan (formerly President of Consumer Business Cloud Services) as Cloud&AI BG managers; Zhang Pingan was appointed as Cloud BU President.
At this point, the structural adjustment of the cloud business has come to an end in the turmoil. The latest Xu Zhijun + Yu Chengdong, the luxurious lineup of two generations of Huawei’s Titans, also made the speculation that “Huawei Cloud will develop independently or be sold” spread like wildfire. Some insiders bluntly said that “this is the management configuration of a listed company.”
At the Huawei Analyst Conference on April 12, Xu Zhijun gave a formal response to related hot topics. He pointed out that the abolition of cloud and computing BG is to focus on developing cloud business, increase the proportion of software service revenue, and reduce dependence on hardware.
As we all know, Huawei started by making communication equipment, and hardware revenue has always been the main driver. In recent years, the revenue of consumer business, which is dominated by mobile phones, has supported about 50% of its revenue. However, the blow of the ban made Huawei have to think about how to go on leaving the chip?
The cloud business is regarded by Huawei as a key “chess piece” for increasing software revenue.Guowei, the chief product official of Huawei Cloud, told Sohu Technology that this year’s cloud business is definitely still growing in three digits. On the one hand, Huawei attaches great importance to the cloud business, and customer demand is also great. According to official disclosures, Huawei Cloud will grow by 168% in 2020.
It should be noted that even if the cloud and computing BG has been withdrawn, the current cloud and computing entire sales and channel system remains consistent. Shi Jilin, President of Huawei Cloud and Computing Global Marketing and Sales Service Department, told media including Sohu Technology, “The future sales and channel system will be optimized and adjusted accordingly as business development needs.”
“The shortcoming that needs to be made up most is the user experience”
Compared with mainstream cloud vendors, Huawei Cloud is almost 10 years behind. Amazon AWS cloud computing service was commercialized in 2006, Alibaba Cloud was formally established in 2009, Tencent Cloud was commercialized in 13 years, and Huawei only established Cloud BU in 17 years and officially entered the public cloud.
“It is necessary to make up for shortcomings but also to find ways to surpass other manufacturers.”Fang Guowei told Sohu Technology that the biggest challenge for Huawei’s cloud business is that the business started relatively late..
He pointed out that it took Huawei almost four years to go through the product development process of other manufacturers for about ten years. “We started to do public cloud in 17 years and developed more than 200 products in almost four years. The number of products is about the same as that of other vendors.”
The speed of HUAWEI CLOUD’s development should not be underestimated. According to Canalys’ Q4 China Cloud Service Market Report last year, Alibaba Cloud occupies an absolute leading position with a 40% share, Huawei Cloud ranks second with a 17% market share, and Tencent ranks third with a 15% share.
Dai Mingzhe, an analyst at Head Leopard Research Institute, told Sohu Technology that because of its first-mover advantage, Alibaba Cloud has always maintained the first place in market share. However, HUAWEI CLOUD is catching up with its accumulation in the ICT field and the precipitation of the government and enterprise markets, and is constantly shortening the gap with the leading manufacturers in the market.
Of course, in the pursuit of rapid development, Huawei Cloud also needs to make up for its shortcomings. “We are a traditional hardware-advanced company. There are no examples in the world of transforming into a software-advanced company. Our difficulties are imaginable.” Ren Zhengfei realized that changing from selling products to selling cloud services requires building cloud services. The ability and support to provide customers with the operation, operation and maintenance capabilities of cloud services.
A business manager of a domestic leading cloud vendor told Sohu Technology that Huawei Cloud’s long-tail customers have relatively weak operating capabilities. “Customers who consume hundreds of thousands a month in the order of magnitude, either look at the brand or buy the cheap ones. Huawei Cloud is a bit embarrassed in the middle. And the stability and performance of its products still need to be polished.”
Fang Guowei also bluntly told Sohu Technology that the shortcoming that needs to be made up most is the user experience to make the product more usable. Previously, it was more to quickly complement the functions, but there is still a lack of user experience. This year, it will be promoted as a focus.
“For example, in terms of product design, interaction design will strive to be more user-friendly; in terms of documentation, I hope that customers will understand how to operate immediately after reading the documentation, because a very important point in the cloud is self service.”
Relieve the pain of lack of core
Undoubtedly, sending two generals, Xu Zhijun and Yu Chengdong, can see how much Huawei attaches importance to the cloud business. Of course, frequent architectural shocks can also reveal Huawei’s entanglement in exploring cloud services.
At the beginning of 2020, Cloud&AI (cloud and computing) rose to Huawei’s fourth largest BG, Hou Jinlong served as the president of Cloud and Computing BG, and Peng Zhongyang as the president of Enterprise BG.
In January of this year, Huawei internally issued a document stating that consumer business CEO Yu Chengdong will concurrently serve as the president of Cloud and Computing BG, and Hou Jinlong, former president of Cloud and Computing BG, intends to appoint the chairman of Digital Energy. At that time, a Huawei insider revealed to Sohu Technology that “the development progress of the cloud business is average, and the slogans are more powerful. I hope Mr. Yu’s leadership can change the current state.”
On April 2, Huawei adjusted its cloud business again, appointing Zhang Pingan as the president of Cloud BU, and at the same time withdrew the cloud and computing BG, and the original server and storage were classified as “network products and solutions.”
About a week later, Huawei Cloud ushered in new personnel appointments again. Rotating Chairman Xu Zhijun was appointed as Huawei Cloud Chairman, Yu Chengdong was appointed as Huawei Cloud CEO, and Cloud BU added two deputy directors, Peng Zhongyang and Tao Jingwen in charge of corporate business. And process IT.
From the establishment of Cloud and Computing BG to the dismantling of Cloud and Computing BG, Cloud BU has once again returned to an independent state. Xu Zhijun said to the relevant changes that Huawei Cloud has always been an end-to-end independent BU. At the beginning of the establishment of HUAWEI CLOUD, it was hoped to coordinate the operation of servers and storage with HUAWEI CLOUD, but the collaborative operation was found to consume the energy of the cloud team.
He pointed out that the adjustments made now are to hope that the cloud business will be more independent and focus on developing cloud. At the same time, in the long run, we hope to increase the proportion of software service revenue.
Under the influence of the US ban, Huawei is also actively thinking about future business development issues. How does the future go? Xu Zhijun put forward five key strategic measures in the future, and the first one is to optimize the industrial mix and enhance the resilience of the industry, especially the enhancement of software capabilities, the strengthening of investment in advanced technology and weak-related industries and the investment in the smart auto parts industry.
Dai Mingzhe told Sohu Technology that under the ban, the chip industry chain will have a certain impact. However, Huawei’s cloud business will focus on software development in the future, and it is expected that this impact will be mitigated to a certain extent.
Can the cloud business become the next “cash cow”?
The cloud market still has development potential. Gartner data shows that as of 2019, the global cloud computing market reached US$188.3 billion, and it is expected that the market size will reach US$350 billion in 2023. According to the “2020 Cloud Computing Development White Paper” issued by the Institute of Information and Communications Technology, China’s cloud computing market is expected to continue to grow rapidly in the next four years.
At the same time, the cloud business has brought huge returns to the top manufacturers. According to the 2020 earnings report, AWS cloud services contributed 11.7% of revenue and 59% of profits for Amazon. According to Microsoft’s financial report, since the Q3 quarter of fiscal year 2020, revenue from the smart cloud business has become Microsoft’s largest source of revenue for three consecutive quarters.
Of course, before the cloud business brought huge returns, it was also a terrible “golden beast”. Only after a huge investment can manufacturers “lie down and make money.” From the official commercial use of Amazon AWS in 2006 to 2015, it took nearly 10 years to turn around. year. Alibaba Cloud was founded in 2009, but it achieved breakeven for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2020, and it took about 11 years from a huge loss to a balance.
Gu Fan, general manager of cloud service product management for AWS Greater China, once said that it took nearly 10 years for AWS to achieve its first $10 billion in revenue from scratch, and it took 23 months for the second $10 billion increase. The third $10 billion increase took 13 months.
Huawei hopes to avoid excessive capital investment and emphasizes the construction of application ecology. Ren Zhengfei pointed out in his internal letter at the end of last year, “We can’t simply take the same path as Ali and Amazon. We don’t have that much money. They have endless amounts of money in the US stock market. How do we develop, we must find a way out. , Rather than simply imitating.”
In China, BAT Internet vendors, three major operators, Huawei Cloud, Kingsoft Cloud and other vendors gathered in the cloud computing track. A cloud computing-related practitioner told Sohu Technology that compared with other vendors, Huawei’s advantages lie in sales capabilities, key customer relationships, hardware coordination capabilities, and a top-to-bottom ecosystem.
Through the growth process of Amazon and Alibaba, we can see that cloud is not a “quick money” business. From its exposure to cloud computing in 2011, to its formal entry into the public cloud in 2017, and to the further improvement of its strategic position today, Huawei has not disclosed the revenue of its cloud business to the public.
It is foreseeable that Huawei Cloud still has a long way to go in the process of increasing software revenue and optimizing the industry mix.
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