Investor That Can See The Future

Chapter 415

AMZ operates the world’s largest online shopping mall, accounting for half of US online sales.

Microsoft makes Windows, which occupies more than 80 percent of the PC operating system.

Taek-gyu asked.

“A question here. Where do these two companies’ biggest revenues come from?”

In general, it is easy to think that AMZ is a shopping mall and Microsoft makes money by selling Windows. But the answer is… … .

“Cloud service.”

The reason people are unaware of this fact is that this service is mainly used by companies. No matter how profitable B2B is, it is bound to have a lower recognition compared to B2C.

The name of the local bakery is more familiar than Cargill, which dominates the global grain market, and the name of the parent lending company that lends right away rather than private equity rather than RCK Bros.

I probably wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t invested in Karos or Faceit. On the contrary, Taek-gyu is quicker than me on the IT side.

While President Ichikawa went to meet the representatives of a Korean game company, I looked up related materials with Taek-gyu.

If you use the Internet or SNS with your smartphone, it accesses the server to receive information from time to time. Therefore, a company that provides Internet-related services must make a server.

If so, where is the server?

Sometimes it is placed in a corner of the company or in a basement, or a data center with servers is created.

It takes enormous manpower and cost for each company to create, manage, and operate a server. Where is the ransom of a high-end IT manpower?

So large IT companies jumped into the cloud service business, which lends servers to companies in need.

Cloud service can be seen as a rental business in a virtual space.

Previously, in order to do business, you had to build your own building inside the internet space, clean it, and set up security guards to prevent theft or intrusion.

But what if someone builds a bunch of buildings and recruits tenants? Tenants can come in and out at any time, clean and manage separately, and keep them safe 24 hours a day.

Of course, you have to pay the rent, but this is much cheaper than building and managing the building yourself.

In addition to this, there are several advantages.

When an additional server is temporarily needed due to an event, etc., it is possible to increase and decrease the server capacity temporarily at an additional cost, or to use a program in the cloud at a cost.

Currently, this market is split between AMZ and MS.

AMZ, as everyone knows, started out as an internet bookstore. While providing e-books and video services, I thought about whether I could lend the remaining servers to other companies, which led to the ZWB (Z Web Service) business.

AMZ has attracted several companies to its cloud. Also, they made their online shopping mall run in the cloud.

MS is a relatively latecomer compared to AMZ.

Satya Shyamalan, who became the third CEO of Microsoft after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, entered the cloud service market instead of relying solely on Windows and Office.

As his name suggests, he was born in India and spent his childhood in India, where he later graduated from college in the United States.

In Korean terms, a person who was born and raised in Vietnam or Malaysia became the chairman of the Suseong Group.

Taek-gyu nodded his head with a impressed expression.

“It’s very different from the Korean chaebols who try to pass it down to their children somehow.”

“It’s possible because it’s America.”

It’s easy to say that people don’t care about origin and nationality as long as they have the ability, but the United States is probably the only country that actually does this.

In any case, it was a godsend for him to become CEO.

Otherwise, Microsoft would have sunk with dwindling PC shipments. However, the revenue of the cloud market is growing rapidly, and it is currently competing for the world’s number one market cap along with AMZ and Gubble.

AMZ, the first runner, as well as Microsoft, the late runner, were able to succeed because the cloud service market is growing rapidly by tens of percent every year.

Recently, beyond simply retrieving stored data, the program itself is also run in the cloud.

This is thanks to the rapid development of communication technology. When the 5G era opens in earnest in the future, the data transmission speed will become faster and the cloud service market is highly likely to expand further.

AMZ and Microsoft’s cloud is home to many companies.

The same goes for the companies we have invested in. Karos and OTK Games use AMZ, and Faceit and Arkit use Microsoft’s cloud.

Large IT companies such as Facenote and Gubble operate their own data centers, and the scale is beyond imagination.

In the past, the important assets of companies were buildings and factories, but now companies are data.

If Gobble or FaceNote loses all of the user information they have accumulated, the stock price will plummet to 1/10 right now.

Conversely, this is also the reason why large IT companies survived the unprecedented disaster called Big One.

Data centers are usually built in areas where land is cheap and cold. Therefore, there were not many data centers in Silicon Valley.

Also, before Big One came, almost all companies backed up their servers to servers in other regions. (Initially, important data are backed up in a distributed way).

At that time, IT companies also produced heartwarming scenes, such as lending each other the remaining server capacity.

Anyway, console games are all stored on CD or Blu-ray. So, you can enjoy the game even without an internet connection.

However, mobile games or online games must be connected to the server through the Internet. The higher the specification and the greater the number of users, the greater the capacity required.

Taegyu said.

“Each server has a set capacity that it can handle, and beyond that, it goes down or the connection is cut off. That’s why large online game companies make their own servers and try to operate them stably. When going overseas, entrust it to your publishing company.”

Shigeru Ichikawa left the Linix Pentagon due to friction with the management. And he created a mobile game with the support of OTK Company.

At this time, the financial situation was not so good, so instead of building our own server, we used ZWS, AMZ’s cloud service. And this was also the case with Lost Fantasy Online.

As much as we were able to save money and manpower for server management and operation, it was a great help to focus on game development.

Servers for general online games are divided by country, but Serana plans to operate an integrated server regardless of country.

The question is whether the ZWS you are currently using can provide the capacity needed by a VRMMORPG. If not, then you may have to stop extending the service.

However, seeing AMZ, our game may become a hit in the future, so I cannot tell you to increase the capacity as much as possible first.

It is understandable that President Ichikawa is concerned.

Actually, if you think about it, this is not just an OTK Games problem.

Karos’ autonomous driving system is accumulating huge data even at this moment, and on Faceit, pornography that should be viewed over decades is updated in one day. In addition, M Pizza’s customer data, Akit’s software, and AI are all in the cloud. Here’s the car infotainment service.

In fact, everything is data.

Now, OTK Company does not need to enter the cloud service market and compete with existing companies, but it is necessary to build its own data center.

“The problem is that this is usually not a big deal.”

A data center isn’t just about smashing servers.

The most important thing is stability and security.

It should not be down or destroyed, and data should not be leaked due to hacking, etc. For this reason, cloud service providers are putting their lives on the line for stability and security.

The location of the data center is also important.

“Realistically, Korea is not suitable for building a data center.”

“Because of North Korea?”

“Well, there is a reason, but the bigger reason is that the investigative agencies scrape away all the information that is not available with just one word.”

Prosecutors and the National Intelligence Service did not hesitate to openly request personal information from companies, as well as intercept them in real time.

As the controversy arose, Neotin said that it would immediately delete the server data and no longer provide any further information. After the announcement was made, CEO Neotin was called to the National Audit Office and was investigated by the prosecution on charges of illegal gambling at a Las Vegas casino, not only because he was mistreated by the ruling party lawmakers at the time.

The basic mindset of the government is that individual privacy can be lightly ignored for the public interest.

What kind of data center would you build in a country like this?

On the other hand, American companies never hand over personal information without due process. That’s why companies all over the world trust and use the cloud services of Microsoft and AMZ.

* * *

I asked the doctors of Karos and Faceit about the construction of the OTK data center (tentative name).

[There is no problem right now, but I think it is necessary in the long term. As the number of vehicles increases, the data will also increase. We need to build a data center before it’s too late.]

This is the opinion of Carlos CEO Daryl Sagan.

[The demand for high-definition porn is growing. Currently, porn is evolving beyond 4K to 8K. We need to create an integrated server more than A-Tube and Netplay to serve more porn.]

I don’t need to tell you which company CEO this is, right? Just open your mouth to porn… … .

We met President Ichikawa again.

How much to build the initial server capacity is a matter that needs to be approached very carefully. The most important thing to consider here is the expected number of concurrent users.

Taking a restaurant as an example, we built a large restaurant with the expectation that a lot of customers would come, but if only a few people don’t come, we will incur construction and interior costs. Conversely, if we build a small restaurant that we don’t expect that many will come, but there are hundreds of people, we have to send it back most of the time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . —-

“How many concurrent users do you expect?”(Read more @ wuxiax.com)

President Ichikawa carefully answered my question.

“I think over 20 million people.”

“Yes?”

When Taek-gyu asked the question as if it was absurd, President Ichikawa coughed in vain.

“Of course, you may think that there are too many. But it is quite possible.”

Taek-gyu and I looked at each other’s faces.

It is not easy to predict which game will hit how much. However, we already know that this game will have 100 million concurrent users. Knowing this alone, it is possible to predict to some extent the required capacity of the server.

Before I even opened my mouth, Taek-gyu said.

“Twenty million is nonsense. If you do that, you will be ruined.”

President Ichikawa desperately persuaded Taek-gyu.

“I will definitely do it. Trust me.”

“No, what about 20 million people? It takes 100 million people to do that.”

“… … Yes?”

This time, it was President Ichikawa’s turn to surprise.

He widened his eyes and opened his mouth wide. Even team leader Jeong Ki-hong, who was interpreting next to him, was surprised.

“100 million people? Really?”

Taehyung nodded his head.

“Yes. Assume that there are 100 million concurrent users, and you need to create a server in advance accordingly. What’s the loss if you send back customers who come to play?”

After a while, President Ichikawa came to his senses and said:

“Come on, wait a minute. 100 million is too much.”

Taek-gyu raised his thumbs up.

“What do you mean? If you are the father of Lost Fantasy, Shigeru Ichikawa, you can do it! Leave the data center issues to us and focus on development. Me and gamers around the world will only trust Mr. Ichikawa! But why do you look like that? Where are you bad?”

“… … Oh no.”

The legend of the game world, Shigeru Ichikawa, had a face that looked like he was about to die.