Corporate China | Weibo: Xiaomi's slip, Cloudary's Hou battles depression

Fast-rising smartphone maker Xiaomi is known for its savvy marketing tactics, but the company has been on the defensive in the blogosphere this past week after a rare tactical blunder that saw it come under attack from disappointed fans. Meantime, the former CEO from the literature unit of online entertainment company Shanda was openly discussing his recent bout with depression on his microblog, following rampant speculation about the reasons for his abrupt departure from the company last month.

Xiaomi's charismatic founder Lei Jun is never at a loss for words on his microblog, constantly hyping his company's latest products and marveling at the tech world in general. But Lei was noticeably mum during a recent brouhaha surrounding Xiaomi's third generation smartphone, which has yet to go on sale but is now available for pre-orders on the company's website.

As an industry watcher, I can understand Xiaomi's decision. For technical reasons that are too long to explain here, Unicom is unlikely to offer 4G service until early 2015 at the soonest. By that time, Xiaomi is likely to be preparing for a launch of its fourth-generation model, which undoubtedly will include 4G capabilities. But including such capabilities in its upcoming third-generation MI3 would be largely superfluous, since 4G service won't be available on Unicom's network for at least another year.