When Zhou Hongyi first logged on to the internet six or seven years ago as an engineer for Beijing computer firm Founder, he was awe-struck by the information-gathering power at his fingertips.
But at the same time he was dismayed at having to use the English alphabet to search for anything of substance.
'The people who invented the internet originally felt that as long as you could type 'www' and then something in English letters that it was pretty easy already,' the 33-year-old Mr Zhou said. 'But they clearly didn't think in terms of the average computer user worldwide.'
The fact that most Chinese computer users do not speak or write English gave Mr Zhou a business idea, and the young man convinced his wife, Helen Hu, and four colleagues at Founder to quit their jobs and set up their own company in 1998.
In 1999, with the help of venture capitalists, they had launched their first product, the 3721 Chinese search engine. It revolutionised the internet world for Chinese users: all they had to do was download the free search engine and type in Chinese characters to search the Web.
'We wanted to create a system where everyone could use the internet,' said Mr Zhou, who today is the president of Beijing 3721 Technology. 'I felt the internet would proliferate. The key was to lower the barriers... to make it have mass appeal and not only be a tool for experts.'
Since 1999, 3721 has come to dominate the Chinese PC market. All Chinese PCs made today come with the firm's software and nearly 90 per cent of all PCs in China have the search engine.
