The Strategy

It rained steadily during the Qingming Festival.

Outside the Software Laboratory, a fine drizzle fell. Huang Xiuyuan, Lu Xuedong, and the others, along with more than a dozen programmers hired over time and a dozen or so recent computer science graduates, were working themselves to the bone.

He left the company's other affairs to Lin Baijie and the others, except for expenses exceeding a million yuan and major decisions.

Suiren Company's official website quietly went live for trial operation on March 28. Besides a page for the parent company, it also featured pages for two subsidiaries.

For convenience, Huang Xiuyuan had the subsidiaries' websites incorporated into Suiren Company's official site.

After a week of trial operation, they patched some obvious vulnerabilities. He then picked a steady, capable programmer and two interns to form a website management team. They would manage the company website and test and fix any vulnerabilities.

The remaining staff were divided into two R&D teams: the Computer System R&D Group, led by Lu Xuedong, and the Future Software R&D Group, led by Huang Xiuyuan.

Both teams focused on developing computer systems, but their specific R&D goals differed.

Lu Xuedong's team would build on the Linux kernel and the Apple and Microsoft operating systems then in use, developing them further.

Huang Xiuyuan's guiding principle for Lu Xuedong's team was simple: secure key patents while developing useful software technologies for Suiren Company.

As for the R&D group he led himself, its goal was to build an operating system entirely belonging to Suiren Company, from the ground up.

He had to lead this project personally, because he alone knew the direction future operating systems would take. As part of the Fuxi Project, he had participated in developing a domestic operating system.

Due to the fierce confrontations of the future, a series of bans and sanctions against Google and Microsoft's systems had forced China to rely on its own efforts.

The unending patent wars had also driven domestic operating systems to fight for survival. They struggled to stay afloat in the 2020s, reached parity in the 2030s, and by the 2040s had gained a slight advantage.

As Huang Xiuyuan had said before, the problem with operating systems wasn't building them, but promoting them and developing an ecosystem.

It wasn't too late yet. Android wouldn't officially launch until September of that year, and it wouldn't surpass Nokia's Symbian OS until 2010.

Apple's system, focused on its own ecosystem, and Microsoft's system, which dominated the PC market, were both forces to be reckoned with.

The software patents he was laying the groundwork for included the "Scan" series, the "QR Code" series, "Page Redirection," "Touchscreen Operation," "Screen Recording and Screenshots," and "Verification Code Generation"—software technologies that would emerge over the next decade or more.

Many of these technologies had already been developed by others. For example, Japanese inventor Masahiro Hara had invented the QR code in 1994.

It was actually a misconception to say the Japanese had invented "QR codes." The QR code was indeed a type of two-dimensional barcode, but not all two-dimensional barcodes were QR codes. There were many different types.

Since QR codes were open source, there were no patent issues, so they could be used without worry.

The "Scan" patent, on the other hand, might pose some problems. They needed to secure a patent as soon as possible, so Huang Xiuyuan had instructed Shang Ninghua's Patent Group to acquire one in Xi'an.

The patent was titled Telephone with Image Recognition Capability. Its inventor was Liu Minkai, and it dated back to 2003.

It was largely similar to a patent developed in 2011, titled Method, Device, and Mobile Terminal for Communication Using ****.

If Suiren Company successfully acquired Telephone with Image Recognition Capability, then it could apply for *Method, Device, and Mobile Terminal for Communication Using ***** and use the two patents to secure the rights to the "Scan" function.

Beyond these patents, many more from the era of domestic innovation would form an insurmountable "Great Wall of Patents."

For example, "Multi-layer Dynamic Verification Code," a patent for protecting personal privacy; "Dual-color Optical Code Compression and Decoding," for specialized storage; and "Multi-screen Management" and "Under-display Fingerprint Unlock," for touchscreen operation.

And there were two technologies Huang Xiuyuan valued most:

"Comprehensive Content Analysis," designed specifically for intelligent recognition. Given preset filtering criteria, it could accurately filter out most undesirable content. It could also be used for text recognition, image recognition, and translation.

The other technology was called Software Image Conversion. It would allow application software to adapt quickly to different hardware environments.

It could also be called "intelligent imitation programming": imitating a piece of software and running the imitation on new hardware.

Although it would produce plenty of bugs and compatibility issues, with the support of a supercomputer, the technology could analyze its performance and rapidly select the best solutions from the "plugin programs" in a programming database.

The larger the database of "plugin programs," the better the Software Image Conversion System's results. In Huang Xiuyuan's memory, software converted in the 2060s and 2070s achieved an average of roughly 96% functional similarity and 84% performance similarity.

With human assistance to fix some bugs, the two software programs could be made nearly identical in function and performance.

The reason for developing Software Image Conversion was to save development time.

For example, when a small company developed a piece of software, it usually only worked on one system. To use it on another system, the company had to start from scratch.

With Software Image Conversion, they could quickly generate software with nearly the same functions and performance that would also run on other systems, saving more than 90% of the time needed for secondary development.

Developing this technology was Huang Xiuyuan's main priority.

It could also be used for reverse engineering, allowing companies with little foundation in software R&D to skip some of the early stages and reduce the cost of trial and error.

Inside the laboratory, the programmers in Huang Xiuyuan's group were gradually writing the main framework. The core of Software Image Conversion consisted of software function recognition, various general-purpose frameworks, and a large number of standardized subprogram plugins.

Software function recognition could only be made semi-intelligent. To ensure quality, programmers would have to check for anything it missed.

The general-purpose framework was like the bare structural frame of a house.

The standardized subprogram plugins, meanwhile, were like the finishing materials, furniture, and appliances. Building up this part would take time. The more plugins in the library, the more completely the Software Image Conversion System could match a program.

As they improved the software, he worked with Lu Xuedong to try generating a commercial "blogging" program.

Amid all the work, Huang Xiuyuan also found time to visit his ancestors' graves.

The company was also growing rapidly, despite a few bumps along the way.

A total of 85 garbage trucks and smaller waste transport vehicles had been shipped from the Dongfeng Motor factory. Large quantities of custom-made anti-tipping trash bins, cleaning tools, and protective equipment were also gradually arriving at Blue Era.

As for preparations for Hailu Environmental Protection Gas Company, Lin Baijie had put together a rough team. The company's premises, gas storage stations, and gas cylinders of various types were also being prepared according to plan.