Apple is officially launching iPhone in China with China’s Unicom.  According to Sina.com, the first iPhone was sold in the Sanlitun (三里屯) Apple Store in Beijing.  This Apple Store was open for business at 8 PM on Oct. 30 (Beijing Time).  Within a few minutes after it was opened, 6-8 customers have already purchased their iPhones.

The weather in Beijing is a little chilly today, but there is still an influx of Chinese iPhone enthusiasts coming out to support the iPhone official launch in China.  A set of pictures has been brought to you for this milestone event that Apple has in China.

First iPhone Customer

First iPhone Receipt

iPhone Launching Party in China

iPhone Store in Sanlitun

iPhone Enthusiasts in Beijing

Promising Future for Apple in China

Chilly Weather Can't Stop the Apple Fans

Via Wabei

Related posts:

1. 20 Most Inspiring and Useful Web Design Blogs A good site design is one critical element that makes...
2. My Official 7 Predictions On Web Trends In 2010 I just had my birthday on March 13, which...
3. 11 Blogs That Help You Become a Social Media Expert Social media has become more and more important in our...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Lately, there has been a lot of buzz about Kai-Fu Lee’s departure from Google. I’ve read reports from both Business Week and Tech Crunch. Although they have excellent coverage on the story, there still seems to be some mixed understandings from the general public.

Hence, I’ve compiled an English version of Kai-Fu Lee’s latest blog post on Sina, telling the story all by himself about why he is leaving Google.  This post was originally published at 10:17 am on 9/7/09, Beijing Time (10:17 pm, 9/6/09, EST). Now his post has amassed 663 comments with 28,531 overall views.  here is what he says:

“Today, I announced to form my own company Innovation Works.

Looking back at my career, it seems my life has always been serving for three purposes – Innovation, China, and Youth. As a matter of fact, Innovation Works is being built on those three things. Although this new company seems to be a milestone transition in the Chinese history, it is actually just a natural continuation of what’s happening now in China.

So what is Innovation Works? Plain and simple, it is a combination of angel investing and innovative products. As a company, we nurture great ideas and create innovative products. Our goal is to spin off products that present promising futures in a later time and form a company for each of them. Then we will look elsewhere for other risky investment opportunities as far as innovative products are concerned. In a nutshell, Our vision is to generate more and more high-tech products.

Innovation Works is the incubator for all innovative entrepreneurs. We hire talented people, nurture their ideas, train them, and help them grow. Not only me, there are also other renowned business leaders and investors who are willing to mentor our team, among which are Liu Chuan-zhi (Founder of Lenovo), Yu Minhong (Founder of New Oriental Education), Tai-Ming Gou (Founder of Foxconn), and Steve Chen (Founder of YouTube).

Innovation Works will help develop angel investing opportunities in China. Angel investors are rare to see nowadays in this country. In the US, the entire Web 2.0 era couldn’t have happened without angel investors. People such as Larry Page, Steve Jobs, and Sergey Brin have all benefited from angel investing companies. To catch up with the US trend, Innovation Works is striving to match excellent business ideas with ambitious and innovative entrepreneurs. By providing enough funding, we can help those people make their ideas a reality.

Why are we able to double or even triple your success rate? Here are our advantages at Innovation Works:

• Sufficient resources, including legal, financial, and infrastructure services;
• Shared software platforms, and Search Engine Optimization services;
• The best engineer teams and our ability to pair them up with other talented individuals in other specialized fields;

In China, Innovation Works is a new concept, which is unprecedented. Furthermore, I believe our business model fits the particular circumstances in China. What would be an important add-on to our venture is my own technical background, the accumulated experience I gained through last 20 years’ hard work at Google and Microsoft, business relationships I’ve developed, my impact in the tech industry, my global vision, and my ability to communicate well. All those added together would greatly enhance our chance to succeed. In the next 10 years, I believe we can create about 50 innovative and successful companies, and 500 well-accomplished entrepreneurs, improving China’s global recognition and impact!

Last but not least, I would like to cite the last paragraph of the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Something ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,and I -
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I draw the parallel between this poem and Innovation Works because we, hereby, have chosen the road no one else has taken.”

To summarize his post, I would agree with his reasoning.  China is a rising dragon.  To seize opportunities, it means he must sacrifice. It would be interesting to hear your perspectives on his story. For further reading, I recommend “Interview: Google China’s Kai-Fu Lee Debuts Innovation Works” (Newsweek) and “Will China’s Best Coders Flock to Kai-Fu Lee’s New Incubator?” (TechCrunch).

Related posts:

1. How Big Will Google Get? (Google 2009 Recap) We are living in a very interesting day and age....
2. 15 Essential Google Tools for Successful Business People Google is probably the greatest Web 2.0 company we...
3. Google's Top 30 Innovatively Simple Holiday Logos In 2009 In 2009, Google experienced accelerating growth. The search giant seems...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

News has been spread out about Danyong Sun’s suicidal incident in China at 3:33 am on July 16^th (Beijing Time).  Danyong Sun, a 25-year-old with a bachelor degree from Harbin University of Science and Technology, was assigned to handle 16 fourth generation iPhone prototypes.  The samples were prepared for Apple but only 15 were found later.   As a result, Mr. Sun was blamed, event beaten and investigated for the loss of the iPhone 4G prototype.

Due to high pressure and constant harassment, Mr. Sun jumped off from a high rise building and committed suicide on July 16^th.  Currently, Chinese officials are investigating this incident in details.  Apple is holding off its action until more details are revealed.

The following is one of the text messages that Mr. Sun sent to his girlfriend at 1:48 am on July 16^th. It states: “Darling.  I feel so depressed.  Can’t believe this is actually happening in a Fortune 500 company.  Not only was my cell phone being taken against my will and apartment being illegally searched, I was even beaten.  You take care of yourself.  Don’t let our family know about this.”

The news has since been brought to our attention internationally.  Foxconn, the world’s biggest manufacturer of cell phones, is one of Apple vendors.  Should they be held accountable for this suicidal incident?  What should they do to strengthen their management system?  Share your comments below.

Related posts:

1. First Official iPhone Customer Was "Born" in China (Pic) Apple is officially launching iPhone in China with China’s Unicom....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.