In the “digital ecological community”, the purpose of competition is not to fight each other, but to better stimulate innovation to solve users’ pain points, so that the development of the whole ecology is sustainable.

Wen qian | is high

Seven years ago, Tencent started holding global Partner Developer conferences and committed to working with its partners to create “a new ecosystem of borderless and open sharing on the Internet.” Today, the ecology has grown from “a big tree” to “a forest”. In Ma’s words, “our original intention has gradually become a reality.”

Ma Huateng believes that in the past year, the entire economic society has entered the process of comprehensive digitalization. These changes are reshaping the Internet ecosystem and making us more aware that this “forest” is not a lonely oasis in a desert, but is rooted in a larger and more diverse ecosystem. In the context of digitalization, there are more and more associations between the ecology of different industries and regions. They may separate and interlace the segments no longer confined in industries, regions and other factors, so as to create rich innovation space in the cross-border zone, thus forming a “digital ecological community”.

Ma released an open letter to Partners on Oct 30, ahead of the opening of Tencent Global Partner Conference 2017. In the letter, he shared his observations and thoughts on the development of the “digital ecological community” over the past year with seven key words, including “deep integration”, “cloud sharing”, “smart connection”, “all users”, “big content”, “new technology” and “wide platform”.

  • Deep integration: Internet enterprises will carry out deeper integration with traditional enterprises, integrating online and offline into one. Generally speaking, technology can find landing products and specific applications can find technical support.

  • Cloud sharing: in the past, we talked about “plug in”, but now we talk about “access to the cloud”, so that Cloud sharing continuously provides entrepreneurs with a variety of tools and capabilities. Through cloud innovation, we strive to realize the prospect of processing big data with artificial intelligence in the cloud of all walks of life.

  • Smart links: Tencent insists on connecting. Connectivity is the foundation for deep integration, cloud sharing and all future changes, as well as smart solutions. In the digital ecosystem, communication between “heart” and “core” should be done well.

  • All users: Internet-based digital platforms are changing into “all users” platforms. The user spectrum of digital platforms is rapidly extending from c-end individual users to b-end almost all commercial enterprise users, and even G-end public service organization users and other “all users” platforms.

  • Big Content: The generation and distribution of vast amounts of digital content is enabling “big content.” “Big” refers not only to the large scale, quantity and variety, but also to the fertile soil of content generation, the active integration and innovation of different content, and the rich distribution channels of content.

  • New technology: Tencent and its partners will work together to explore new technology and grow into drivers and contributors of technology. The future changes of new technology will definitely bring many new opportunities for reshuffle and disruptive changes.

  • Wide platform: Tencent is committed to creating a “wide platform” that adheres to symbiosis and win-win. In the “digital ecological community”, the purpose of competition is not to fight each other, but to better stimulate innovation to solve users’ pain points, so that the development of the whole ecology is sustainable.

In the end, he says, the full digitization of the entire real economy is unprecedented. This not only makes every Internet and science and technology workers excited and delighted, we have more opportunities to show their skills. At the same time, we are in awe: we need to pay more attention to the possible externalities of the whole Internet ecosystem, we need to study the possible risks and hidden dangers of the Internet of everything, and we are more and more aware of the heavy responsibilities we shoulder.

The following is the full text of ma Huateng’s letter to Partners:

Dear partners, Good morning!

We have entered the seventh year since the first partner Conference. At the beginning, we proposed to work with partners to create a “new ecosystem of borderless, open and sharing Internet”. In the last year, we have seen this new ecosystem grow from “a big tree” to “a forest”. We can say that our original intention has gradually become a reality.

Over the past year, the entire economy and society has gone completely digital. The new infrastructure, represented by cloud, big data and artificial intelligence, has not only begun to provide a source of power for the innovation of various industries, but also gradually become the main platform of new social management and a strong carrier for the development and application of cutting-edge technology. Commercial enterprises, public service departments, educational and scientific research institutions, public welfare organizations and cultural and creative organizations in all walks of life hope to get on the fast train of digital transformation and upgrading.

These changes are reshaping the Internet ecosystem and making us more aware that this “forest” is not a lonely oasis in a desert, but is rooted in a larger and more diverse ecosystem. In the context of digitalization, there are more and more associations between the ecology of different industries and regions. They may separate and interlace the segments no longer confined in industries, regions and other factors, so as to create rich innovation space in the cross-border zone, thus forming a “digital ecological community”.

This will undoubtedly give each of our enterprises and individuals, bring huge opportunities for innovation and development space. Here, I would like to use seven key words to describe my observations and reflections in the past year and share them with all partners. The following is a brief expansion to discuss with you one by one:

The depth of the fusion

Digital information technology, represented by the Internet, began to integrate into the whole process of all walks of life from the outside to the inside, and online and offline began to integrate into one.

In the past few years, Internet Plus projects have landed. We see that more and more enterprises are moving from simply “connecting to the Internet” to “going to the cloud” as a whole, embedding whole industrial processes into a more open network to stimulate more innovation, and basing decision control on flowing real-time data to significantly optimize resource allocation and improve efficiency.

Professor Zhou Qiren of Peking University believes that China’s innovation is in the “upstream and downstream” two ways to seek. I roughly understand that, one is to seek product landing technology, the other is to seek technical support for application needs.

At present, the deep integration of the Internet and all walks of life is just in the “upstream and downstream” two ways: one is from online to offline, which is the direction of most Internet companies. Another is that a large number of offline traditional enterprises “counterattack” online, whether it is commercial retail, logistics and transportation, or even manufacturing, agriculture and other traditional industries, all hope to achieve industrial iteration with the help of digitalization.

Through online and offline digital innovation, there is no ready-made map in the world today, let alone a smooth road. The combination of the “upstream and downstream” two roads, so that Internet enterprises and all walks of life together, is the best choice for us to cross those steep gorges in the road.

Cloud to share

The cloud is as important in the digital age as electricity was in the industrial age. As an important digital innovation mode, the degree of “cloud” reflects the integration depth of the Internet and all industries.

We used to say “plug in,” today we say “plug in to the cloud.” The cloud has become a fundamental requirement of the digital age. I think cloud usage will become an important indicator of the digital economy just as electricity consumption is an indicator of the industrial economy.

We are still at the beginning of the digital age, and many of the most important things about the cloud haven’t been invented yet. For example, what is the invention of the digital age comparable to the computer in the late electrical age? I think it might be the strong ARTIFICIAL intelligence of the future. Cloud, big data and ARTIFICIAL intelligence are inseparable. I used to describe the landscape of the digital age with this phrase: ai processing big data in the cloud.

“Cloud” is an important innovation mode in the digital era. Whether data and computing power are distributed on the edge or concentrated in the cloud, they are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing.

As I mentioned last year, the sharing economy is the cloud of productivity. In other words, only by “cloud” can various resources and capabilities flow from “ice” to “living water”, and can they be truly integrated into digital management to achieve accurate distribution or scientific division of labor after large-scale matching.

Through “cloud” innovation, the digital era will be able to better realize “the full use of talents and resources”. For example, we’ve always had a vision that if a company with one or two people on our open platform has a good idea, we can help it focus on product development and not so much on other issues. The realization of this wish comes from the fact that we have provided entrepreneurs with various tools and capabilities through Tencent’s Makerspace through the way of “cloud sharing” in recent years.

Wisdom connection

Connectivity is the foundation of all smart solutions. Connectivity matches different intelligent solutions in different scenarios, and it relies on ecological collaboration to achieve this.

Tencent has been focused on connecting for many years. We want to connect people, people and things, and people and services. This is the foundation for deep integration, cloud sharing and all the changes to come. With the comprehensive digitization of the whole real economy and society, we not only need to reduce “information islands” through more connections, but also need to realize continuous optimization of communication and collaboration through better connections.

If all clouds and terminals have ARTIFICIAL intelligence in the future, connectivity will mean communication between “heart” and “core”. In the digital age, only connections matching corresponding intelligent solutions can better optimize communication and collaboration between “intelligent bodies”.

In different scenarios, connectivity matches different smart solutions, such as smart transportation, smart healthcare, smart cities, smart retail and so on. Connection is no longer something that Tencent can completely solve by developing an APP. It requires us to work with partners from all walks of life and a large number of professional service organizations to create different intelligent solutions. After the public account, wechat launched a small program with partners in various fields last year, which can be said to be another exploration and attempt of intelligent connection.

The recently launched “Jingteng boundless retail solution”, has enabled wechat small program for intelligent connection. It is an industry-benchmark smart retail solution jointly created by Tencent, JD.com and ecological Services. In the past, we chose products on e-commerce platforms, viewed brand ads on social media, and shopped in offline stores in isolation. There is no cross-scene effective connection between consumers, brand owners and retailers, let alone the integration of online and offline data, marketing plans, membership system and logistics system, making it difficult to make personalized customization for consumers.

Tencent will fully integrate the social platform, content platform and jd’s transaction system, and is expected to realize the cross-scene intelligent connection between online and offline retail industry. This will not only greatly enhance the consumer experience, but will truly empower merchants. Its innovative significance will go far beyond the concept of traffic import.

All users

Internet-based digital platforms are changing from “multi-user” platforms to “all-user” platforms, which, like water and electricity facilities, have become the basic needs of all individuals and organizations in today’s human society.

Over the past year, there has been an interesting phenomenon in Tencent: many of our internal functional departments have become productivity departments. For example, the engineering department responsible for our new office building at Binhai Tower in Shenzhen began exporting its smart building proposals to developers in Guizhou and elsewhere. We didn’t pay much attention to it at first, but then we saw a growing trend for many functions to export digital solutions for their areas of expertise. At present, the outside market demand is also very large.

Why does this happen? The reason: Internet-based digital platforms are moving from “multi-user” to “all-user” platforms.

With the comprehensive digital upgrade of the real economy and society, a huge number of enterprises and institutions are constantly logging in and becoming users of digital platforms. The user spectrum of digital platforms is rapidly extending from c-end individual users to B-end almost all commercial enterprise users, and even g-end public service organization users. As traditional enterprises and institutions do not have much reference experience in the process of digital transformation. Internet enterprises in the forefront of digitalization have naturally become the first digital sample for reference.

In the past, “all-user” platforms were limited to infrastructure platforms such as water, power and transport networks. Today, internet-based digital platforms are increasingly showing the characteristics of infrastructure. With the rapid expansion of users, it will put forward new requirements on the business model, organizational form and corporate responsibility of Internet companies.

As an “all-user” platform, the Internet will help to form better trust and cooperation between users on C, B and G platforms by solving the problem of information asymmetry between different types of users. This is of vital economic and social importance and the basis for future innovations.

For example, the traditional manufacturing industry can only achieve intelligent manufacturing if it realizes dynamic awareness of consumer needs to organize research and development, manufacturing and services.

For another example, we helped Chengdu National Tax Bureau develop a small program that enabled tax officials to conduct online real-name authentication through wechat, alleviating the situation of long queues and “hall explosion” in tax handling.

The “all-user” platform solves the pain point that traditional government services cannot reach the “last mile”, enabling C-terminal users to feel the convenience and benefits of government services.

Great content

Whether it is digital information products such as messages and short videos, or digital cultural products such as online literature, animation, film and television, games and music, the generation and distribution of massive digital content is contributing to the “big content” strategy.

Content must be “big” to match “full user” needs. Of course, “big” does not only refer to the large scale, quantity and variety of types, but also includes the fertile soil for content generation, the active integration and innovation of different content, and the rich channels for content distribution.

With the digital transformation of various industries, digital content will gain more breeding ground, blending opportunities and communication media, and become “bigger”. “IP” intellectual property, as the head force of digital content, can also be seen as an important filter in the digital age, providing convenience for ordinary users to find digital content in the corresponding domain.

In the future, every industry may have its own IP. They are the “door and window” to the digital ecological square of various fields, and have the value of hub nodes. Digital content is one of Tencent’s core businesses. Our exploration of the pan-entertainment ecosystem and IP building over the past few years is an initial attempt at a “big content” strategy.

For the large amount of long tail content, we need to rely more on machines to complete the integration and distribution of “big content”. Digital content is naturally mobile and has an advantage over offline resources in adopting “cloud sharing”. Like other resources, mass integration and mass distribution can take full advantage of digital ecological infrastructure such as cloud, big data and artificial intelligence.

In this process, the machine will replace a lot of manpower, but it needs to understand both the user and the content in order to achieve the optimal personalized match, thus resolving the contradiction between the infinite expansion of content and the limited attention of the user. Of course, machines still have a long way to go before they become ideal filtration systems.

The new technology

Whether it is the Internet enterprise or the traditional enterprise, today are emphasizing their own science and technology attributes. This is not just a slogan, because disruptive technologies are likely to change the existing industry landscape.

In the face of a new round of global industrial revolution, each traditional enterprise began to recruit a large number of technical personnel. This is not only for the needs of digital transformation and upgrading, but also to cope with the threat of future disruptive technologies.

Today, software, hardware and services are becoming more and more closely connected, even integrated. In the future, the term “technology company” will no longer be reserved for TMT.

Traditional enterprises in all walks of life need to upgrade into science and technology enterprises with the help of digitalization. Every enterprise hopes to master the strategic commanding point of new technology, because the strength of its science and technology attributes determines the size of its future competitiveness. New technological changes in the future will certainly bring many opportunities to reshuffle the deck.

In the past, Chinese companies mainly played the role of technology followers and reference, but today we do not have much experience to reference on a global scale, we need to gradually become the driver and contributor of technology, through continuous innovation to blaze a way forward.

Tencent has ramped up its investment in new technology over the past year, with some results. In addition to our business R&D teams, we set up a company-level AI Lab and set up our first overseas Lab in Seattle, USA. At the same time, our crowd maker space and AI accelerator have also started to go overseas, hoping to grow together with overseas high-tech start-ups.

As front-line workers in the industry, we deeply feel that the growth of China’s science and technology enterprises is closely related to the development of domestic education and research institutions. We need to pay more attention to basic and frontier science research and develop innovative industry-university-research systems.

In recent years, Tencent has established close cooperation with Tsinghua University and other universities, including this year’s “Qinghua-Qingteng Future Science and Technology School”, which aims to help domestic start-ups understand cutting-edge technology and explore innovative industry-university-research ecology.

Wide platform

If a narrow platform is a zero-sum game, a wide platform is a symbiotic and win-win one. In the “digital ecological community”, everyone’s destiny is more and more closely intertwined, advocating symbiosis and win-win to sustainable development. Although the situation is not ideal, we still hope to move in this direction step by step.

I encourage people in our company to be sportsmanlike, to keep striving, to get to the top. But it’s not just competition among athletes. When teams play together, competing athletes become close teammates and play well together.

Sometimes participating is more important than winning. Whether inside or outside the enterprise, today we need a “wide platform” with sufficient tolerance in the “digital ecological community”.

Platform ecological enterprises, as infrastructure providers, shoulder greater responsibilities in the “digital innovation community”.

For example, on the one hand we definitely want as many people using our cloud as possible; But on the other hand, clouds are infrastructure like electricity, so if the grid has only one source of power, there’s a big risk that if I shut down you shut down, it’s not good. This requires us to embrace the existence of an “alternative” because users are more important than competition.

Tencent will provide a more inclusive, innovative and sustainable smart retail solution for the majority of merchants with a “decentralized” approach and comprehensive platform capabilities, and continue to empower the majority of brands, offline retail platforms, commercial real estate and other relevant institutions.

We hope that by truly enabling businesses to independently operate traffic and fans, we can break the “narrow platform” rule in the current retail industry, help everyone get out of the dilemma of “choose one or the other”, and open up a bigger blue ocean for the retail ecology in the digital transformation.

Similarly, the development of the digital economy opens up more possibilities for collaborative innovation across geographies. For example, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which I have talked about many times this year, also needs to adopt a “broad platform” approach to encourage collaborative innovation. In the past, there was competition among all of us, but now we need to form a fist to attract global markets and talents, and jointly expand the innovation ecosystem of digital technology.

With the development of internet-based digital platforms, every person, every enterprise or organization is closely connected with each other through digital technology, and everyone’s life, production and various life activities are intertwined. We share a common destiny in this “digital ecological community”.

I think the goal of competition in this “community” is not to kill each other, but to better stimulate innovation to solve users’ pain points and make the whole ecosystem more sustainable.

I believe my understanding of these new changes is still in its very early stages.

The comprehensive digitization of the whole real economy society is unprecedented. This not only makes every Internet and science and technology workers excited and delighted, we have more opportunities to show their skills. At the same time, we are in awe: we need to pay more attention to the possible externalities of the whole Internet ecosystem, we need to study the possible risks and hidden dangers of the Internet of everything, and we are more and more aware of the heavy responsibilities we shoulder.

Let’s work together hand in hand! Thank you!

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