I Become A Noble in England

The last time Barron came to America, he also participated in the development of the Android system, the mobile phone operating system, by Android Corporation through Ivanta.

His experience as a senior Android user in his previous life provided a lot of inspiration for the previously unformed mobile phone system.

After that, with the help of the ideas he provided, as well as some specific function implementations and control methods, the development speed of the Android system accelerated dramatically.

And during this period of time, Barron has never stopped paying attention to the system development of Android - after all, the Android system is too important for the future layout of his industry in the era of smartphones.

Although Baron currently holds more than 30% of Apple's shares through various investment companies - initially, he held a total of 30% of Apple's shares in the name of DS Capital and Rich23 Capital.

After that, private equity funds of DS Capital, including the Mars Fund, also increased their holdings of Apple shares, and now their total holdings are close to 40%.

But in the final analysis, he can only disperse these shares and cannot really control Apple. At most, he can exert partial influence.

To be precise, if it was the Apple before the iPhone appeared, Barron could still try to take control or even acquire it. However, it would be difficult for Barron to get involved in the future Apple that has a dominant position in the smartphone field through the iPhone and has almost become synonymous with smartphones for a long time. Otherwise, he would be labeled as a "threat to national security" and would be in big trouble.

Moreover, even for the current Android company, Barron acquired it through IC Capital, an "American company" registered in the name of Ivanta. Although Britain and the United States are very close allies, in such a critical area, the other party will still not allow too much control.

The current Android system research and development in Silicon Valley includes not only employees of Android Corporation, but also technical personnel sent by Honor Electronics to carry out "Plan A".

After Global Industrial Investment Fund acquired HTC and reorganized it into Honor Electronics, Honor Electronics became the first member of the Android Alliance and will be deeply involved in the research and development of the Android system, in order to complete the finalization and production of the first smartphone equipped with the Android system in the shortest time possible.

The so-called "Plan A" is a research and development plan for the Android system and smartphones equipped with the Android system. In the development of the Android system, employees of Android Company need to determine what kind of mobile phone can realize their ideas and control the Android system, and then Honor Electronics personnel will implement this control method.

Various tests are required, including touch screen control, whether a Home button is needed, gravity sensing and other functions.

However, during this process, Honor Electronics staff did not come into contact with too much content of the Android system. At most, they would know how this system is operated. Obviously, this is a full-touch screen mobile phone without a physical keyboard and operated by a virtual keyboard. This is epoch-making at the moment.

According to the plan, Android needs to complete the first usable version of the Android system before July 1 this year, and then use this as a basis to produce the first smartphone prototype equipped with the Android system, and start preparing the supply chain and production.

Apple will launch iPhone 1 at the beginning of next year. After that, Android will also launch their Android system and the first smartphone equipped with Android system.

Barron's preparations go beyond this. Digital Future Investments, a subsidiary of Caesars Fund, recently acquired the Australian game studio Halfbrick Studio.

Many people may not have heard of this game studio. Halfbrick Studio was founded in 2001. Before that, it was engaged in outsourcing the production of mobile games.

However, in 2010, the company was in trouble. Unless the sales of the game exceeded 300,000, it would face the crisis of bankruptcy...

At that time, the company's senior designer Luke Muscat led his small team, and the three of them spent six weeks creating a game that was not well-received at the beginning.

When the game hit the Apple App Store in April 2010, the entire company was stunned by its performance.

This game, which is suitable for all ages, easy to operate and fun, exceeded 1 million downloads within 3 months, and exceeded 200 million two years after its release.

Many people must have played that game, it's called "Fruit Ninja".

It can be said that "Fruit Ninja" was born completely for touch screens. It perfectly combines the main difference between smartphones and current feature phones - the touch screen, with its game content. Even in international e-sports competitions such as WCG, "Fruit Ninja" has been included as a participating event, which shows how influential it was at the time.

Anyway, in his previous life, this game was the first game Barron played after using a smartphone, so he was left with a deep impression.

The most important thing is that the valuable thing about this game is its creativity. The difficulty of making the game is not high.

Therefore, it is very suitable to be installed in Android smartphones to attract users and let them experience the differences in operation between smartphones and feature phones.

Because it is currently just a small game studio that mainly does outsourcing business, the acquisition price of Halfbrick Studio is not high. Digital Future Investment Company only spent less than 1 million US dollars to acquire the company.

This can be regarded as his first layout in the gaming industry for mobile devices. The scale of the future gaming industry will be extremely large and will exceed the scale of entertainment industries such as sports, film and television. Therefore, the layout in this field can already be launched.

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During his time in Silicon Valley, Ivanta also took time out to meet with Barron.

It can be said that after she made a series of acquisitions as the CEO of IC Capital, this eldest lady from the TP family has become more and more well-known in the United States.

There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!

If her previous fame was mainly due to her background and beauty, then now her "talent" in business investment is becoming more and more recognized, especially her investment in highly exposed Internet technology companies, which has made her one of the most eye-catching second-generation wealthy people.

During this period, Ivanta, on behalf of IC Capital, had just completed its Series B investment in YouTube.

In YouTube's angel round of financing, IC Capital invested $1 million and acquired a 30% stake in the startup.

After April last year, YouTube finally began to transform from an original dating site to a website that provides video sharing for users.

Although this transformation seems to be relatively successful, YouTube's operating expenses have increased dramatically due to the need to provide users with a large amount of storage space. Even if it is used economically, the initial funds will soon be used up.

Under such circumstances, YouTube completed two rounds of financing in October last year and early this year respectively.

Because the cooperation with IC Capital has always been very pleasant, Ivanta listened to Barron's opinions, respected the ideas of the YouTube founding team very much, and never interfered with their development plans for the website. Therefore, both rounds of financing were carried out by IC Capital.

To date, IC Capital has invested a total of US$8 million in two installments and holds a 49.6% stake in YouTube.