Conspiracy talk was buzzing through the microblogging realm this past week, as numerous executives weighed in on two major news events in the China tech world. One of those saw Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) finally unveil its new iPhone 6, only to mysteriously yank China from its global launch map without any explanation. The other saw executives speculating on the significance of and reasons behind the surprise defection of Zhang Yaqin, a longtime China-based Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) executive who abruptly left the company for a job at leading Internet search company Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU).
I've previously written about both of these stories with my own thoughts on what was happening behind the scenes. But these tech executives are more familiar with the local industries, and their observations almost certainly come closer to the truth of what was really happening with these two big stories. The first of those came when Zhang Yaqin announced his departure from Microsoft, where he had previously worked for 16 years, most recently as head of the software giant's Asia R&D operation
based in Beijing.I previously remarked that Zhang's defection reflected the rise of a new generation of homegrown Chinese tech firms that could offer competitive employment opportunities to match the big multinationals like Microsoft. Zhang himself wrote about his decision, but was diplomatic and simply said that he had finished his mission at Microsoft and was ready for
a new challenge.
Several other tech executives pointed out that Zhang was just the latest high-profile Chinese to leave a big multinational for a domestic company, and pointed to former Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) executives Lee Kai-fu and Lin Bin as examples of similar defections. Lee was Google's former China head who left the company five years ago to start his own technology incubator, Innovation Works, in Beijing. Lin was also a high-ranking Google official who left to co-found fast-rising smartphone maker Xiaomi.
Wang Xiaochuan, president of search engine Sogou, had the most to say about Zhang's departure in a series of posts, and even published his own list of other Chinese executives who had left big multinationals to work at
domestic companies. He theorized that Zhang's departure reflected a major shift in technology innovation, as Internet service companies like Baidu took over many of the R&D functions traditionally dominated by software companies
like Microsoft.Zhang Hongjiang, CEO of Kingsoft (
3888.HK), one of China's leading homegrown software makers and himself a former Microsoft executive, concurred that Zhang Yaqin's defection marked the
end of an era. Fu Sheng, CEO of Kingsoft's security software unit Cheetah Mobile (NYSE: CMCM), predicted more such defections to come, likening Microsoft to a dinosaur destined
for extinction. It may be a bit premature to forecast Microsoft's demise, though I do expect we'll see a rising wave of similar executive defections from big tech multinationals as the number of major homegrown Chinese tech firms gets bigger.
