[Digg: A Value Chain without Reliance]

[The Mystery of QQ's Birth]

Tencent QQ has repeatedly created miracles in China's Internet. However, the more familiar something is, the easier it is to overlook the stories behind it. The stories behind Tencent QQ are as fascinating as its business achievements. QQ was originally named OICQ and had another lesser-known name, TIM (Tencent Instant Messager).

[Birth Mystery]

*IT Manager World* once published a substantial article about Tencent and interviewed Mr. Pony Ma. Everyone knows that Tencent QQ was an "accidental success," like a plant that failed to grow when carefully cultivated but thrived when planted unintentionally. Originally, it was a project designed for internal communication for a certain company, but the project was abandoned due to a failed bidding process. At that time, Mr. Ma had just founded Tencent. "Should we do it ourselves? We don't have the resources! Should we sell it? The price is too low." Back then, Tencent only intended to sell QQ (then called OICQ) for 30 million RMB (who knows how much it would be worth now?). However, no one was willing to take it over. Who could have predicted Tencent's success today? Seeing their "child" (Mr. Ma seemed to like referring to OICQ this way) unwanted, they were truly heartbroken. They didn't want to sell it, but they also couldn't continue developing it. So, Tencent uploaded OICQ to their homepage for netizens to freely download, treating it as a test.