Since last year's premier li keqiang, proposed "the" Internet + "action plan", formed a nationwide upsurge of Internet "industry". Not only the traditional automobile companies are actively study of unmanned, automatic driving technology, a large number of Internet companies also poured into the car, trying to build ecological car network, the leading Internet companies such as BAT are set to break into the layout.
Recently, baidu and changan reached a strategic cooperation, to make "smart car"; And ali group Gao Deze and jaguar land rover reached cooperation, jointly launched several screens Internet navigation products.
Among them, as the second sign of the Chinese Internet, Internet race nature of AB is a wonderful drama; But for as many as hundreds of young have decades of history, to dominate the world auto giants, rolling in the Internet generations is not trustworthy. They need fresh blood to his eternal vitality, rather than as a decaying old man in the grave.
So the question comes, have begun to layout car networking ali and baidu, who will eventually be big car companies favor?
Strategic positioning: ali platform, baidu to control
Positioning determines a company in a position in the industry chain, can smooth together with upstream and downstream. In general, ali and baidu for itself in the automotive industry positioning is clearer.
Ali's car networking idea is a platform as a whole, the currently has three clear developing route planning: sales, service and the vehicle. Specifically: 1, ali car division leading car Internet business, will take on all matters related to the electricity; 2, ali Internet automobile application and service system mainly revolves around two large navigation and audio, and one of the most important is dominated by gold navigation. 3, Internet car business. In cooperation with manufacturers, ali main ability for the cloud and the underlying operating system, opening up to the platform, make more intelligent vehicle products. This part of business now is mainly composed of ali yunOS team is responsible for.
Compared with ali gold, baidu in the networking the thinking of the action basically continue phones: rob entrance, control user attention and time. Baidu launched Carnet, 2014 by the year 2015, Carnet evolved to Carlife, networking and baidu area LBS service and the car O2O business together, rise to life service entrance layout. Similar practices in mobile phone industry appeared once before, after the Internet companies to enter the fast down mobile phone in the form of subsidies overall prices - baidu hardware does not care about profits, after all, for Internet companies, the number of active application is one of the most important, high price low popularity, of course, is a good thing. This play in the automotive circle line not line is one thing, but baidu's train of thought is clear: the traditional automobile hardware, become the carrier of baidu core application.
From this perspective, ali is set up based on the car of the original industrial chain, basically covering the car companies focus on all aspects, including product, technology, marketing, sales, data, etc., for car companies eager to use the Internet to upgrade, or a more comprehensive solution; Baidu, in contrast, although seemingly also gives automakers into this concept car networking solution, but overall is inherent in the mobile Internet, misses the point about the law of the auto industry, if the train of thought to success is the success of baidu, for established automakers door can only be good or ill luck is uncertain.
Product strategy: ali gold steady progress, baidu held down
Product strategy, then determines the enterprise's attitudes towards the industry. AB pair was divided in this level.
Ali's automotive business has always been more low-key, practical. Scott map as a subsidiary of alibaba, for example, its data, technology and products are an important part of ali in the networking of the first world war. It is reported that gold car at present and the future layout are around "humble" navigation "Internet" : the existing product layout, A - LINK and AMAP AUTO application service designed to help users quickly connect car driving with the cloud, data update, real-time traffic, smart to avoid congestion, etc.
Obviously, core competitive advantage lies in the gold market based on Internet and the ability to map two cross-border integration, formed a complete upper body (products) and the lower half (data) competitiveness; Started with the Internet baidu car networking is lack of the data is an important point, the traditional map data vendors accumulation deficiency in the field of the Internet. And with car companies, is basically along the production, the commercialization of err on the side of thinking ahead. At present, Honda, jaguar land rover, and manufacturers such as changan, geely has accepted ali gold Internet navigation, began to use in mass production product. Although conceptually wasn't sexy, but the key is to implement.
Baidu chose the exalted skyer way in December last year, baidu driverless cars in the road test at a time. Since then all the voices of baidu almost fell on the concept of "unmanned". But for baidu brain and existing self-driving technology can achieve the goal, there are still a lot of people are in doubt. Actually baidu a brisk walk in the field of driverless cars, driving the production building cars, a large part of the reason is to share it in the race for the bat, disadvantage of pressure on the strategic layout of the mobile Internet, at the same time, baidu post bar, search buckets and other products negative image shot. Baidu now very need to have such a pioneer in the industry have a major breakthrough in the topic, at least in this period of time, to maximize the effect of public relations, relieve the baidu brand.
To be fair, invested millions on the road is not difficult to make an experimental car and the accumulation of basic technology is not just shout slogans, need more feet on the ground. In baidu is put forward to realize the driverless cars in five years production goals, progress has also been rapid gold on autopilot. The gold on the high precision map's first commercial orders, object recognition and vehicle control and also is one of the few truly achieve unmanned vehicle production level Delphi the depth of the strategic cooperation of manufacturers, in the car with cloud, are done with the aid of ali cloud resources integration.
Future is not just to see who shout the slogan of the car networking louder, nor see who show more cool stuff. Loud slogans may attract more eyeballs, eventually need real ability to accumulate. But even if have the technical strength to do the product, also need to look at tonality and car companies bosses out - work together, to get, rather than replaced, in order to go further.
