From the perspective of market prospects, Kupan is facing multiple challenges from traditional IT and mobile terminal manufacturers, operators and major Internet enterprises; From the perspective of profit model, it is difficult for domestic users to pay for storage space, and the platform opening and value-added services are even more illusory. According to the research report of Forrester Research, an American research company, the global scale of cloud computing last year reached 40.7 billion yuan, of which the market value of cloud storage products has exceeded 4 billion dollars so far. According to Taneja Group, the market value will reach 10 billion dollars in 2014.
The domestic cloud storage product Kupan was released in January 2011. At the beginning of its establishment, it received millions of RMB investment from angel investor Xue Manzi. In January 2011, it completed a round A of ten million dollar financing, and in October 2011, it was again awarded by American venture capital institutions DCM Round B financing of 20 million US dollars participated by Leading Investment and Haina Fund. Gu Zhicheng, founder and CEO of Kupan, recently revealed that Kupan has more than 8 million registered users.
The cool disk model itself is modeled after the Dropbox in the United States. Gu Zhicheng once said that he was also a loyal user of Dropbox, and didn't mind being considered a copycat Dropbox. In the United States, where cloud computing is more mature, once the concept of cloud storage was proposed, it has been supported by many manufacturers. The most popular cloud storage service abroad is Dropbox in the United States, which keeps synchronized on multiple terminals such as PC, smart phone and tablet computer, so that users can access the latest files anytime and anywhere. Of course Dropbox is just one of them. Amazon has a free online storage service, CloudDrive, and Box.net with sharing features. Google launched Google Storage, while Apple's iCloud for mobile phones and tablets has huge potential with its huge user base market.
The prospect is worrying
For the development prospect of Kupan, there are challenges from many aspects. First, there is competition among similar products. One of the main competitors of Kupan and the first cloud storage online disk in China, "115 network USB flash drive", was launched as early as May 2009. Relevant data shows that the number of users exceeds 20 million. Although Gu Zhicheng said that the advantage of Kupan compared with domestic products is that it is the first cloud storage service supporting full platform in China (including PC, Android, tablet, Symbian, etc.). However, it is difficult to say whether this advantage has core competitiveness, and competitors will inevitably follow up.
Secondly, challenges from traditional IT vendors and other large enterprises. Many traditional IT vendors, including Dell, EMC, HDS, HP, NetApp, Scale Computing, etc., account for 40% of the primary I/O cloud storage market. In the next four years, these vendors will form a monopoly situation. For example, HP has launched a number of cloud storage product lines, which can meet the needs of different customers. Many manufacturers are creating next-generation solutions with scalability and efficiency advantages. The leading manufacturers in cloud architecture will be able to lead the design and promotion process of different types of solutions. However, once these manufacturers, which occupy terminal and core technologies and have large user scale and reputation, launch their personal cloud storage services, they obviously have the advantage of getting the best of everything. Although domestic cloud storage started late, it has developed rapidly. Huawei, Lenovo and other domestic giants have launched their own cloud storage products.
For a large part of users of Cool Disk, the attraction lies in the cloud storage and sharing services of mobile terminals, which are facing competition from operators and mobile phone manufacturers. China Mobile's "Feixin+" is defined as an integrated communication platform, which focuses on four major applications: Feichat, Caiyun, SNS community and personal cloud. Caiyun, similar to Apple's iCloud, is a personal storage upload and download platform provided by China Mobile for users. It is reported that Caiyun is not only compatible with Apple's iOS, but also applicable to Android and other mobile phones. China Telecom also has its own e-Cloud, which provides 100G free cloud storage space for users who choose China Telecom's 10 megabyte and above optical fiber home service, and can synchronize collaborative information on multiple devices. By bundling multiple services together, operators with many users will have their own competitive advantages in the future of cloud storage.
Mobile phone manufacturers have also launched their own cloud storage services. For them, cloud storage is also a way to stick users. Put the data on the corresponding cloud, and users may give priority to the same products when they buy mobile phones next time. Based on the two mobile phone operating systems iOS and Android, Apple and Google have successively provided their own cloud services, such as Coolpad's "Cool Cloud" service in China, which provides personal information synchronization and file storage for Coolpad mobile users. Huawei launched its own cloud phone, while the chairman of Xiaomi Technology Lei Jun It also integrated Jinshan's fast disk service into Xiaomi's mobile phone. The products provided by each mobile terminal will obviously be more professional than the third-party Kupan, which is likely to be the common choice of users in the future.
Tencent, which occupies a large number of mobile terminals, also provides free cloud storage space for users who use QQ products on their mobile phones, such as QQ online disks. In terms of space capacity, QQ cloud storage is not dominant. However, Tencent has a large number of users based on acquaintances and many existing novels, games and files shared by friends on the platform, so its competitiveness cannot be underestimated. Other products involved in cloud storage include Sina's micro disk, Thunderbolt's portable disk, 360 cloud disk, Jinshan Express disk, etc.
For cloud storage, it is likely that many traditional manufacturers and Internet enterprises will share this market in the future, and it will be difficult for several companies to dominate this market.
