A tale of two icons

Zhang Shuxin, Beijing Information Highway Corp

Zhang Shuxin's career path was changed dramatically by e-mails in 1994.

During a trip to the United States, she learned of e-mail for the first time when she exchanged business cards and found unique addresses on the cards.

At that time Zhang was managing a variety of businesses, including organizing concerts for pop stars and operating a beeper business after leaving a government organization in 1991.

"I found it (e-mail) to be a brand new tool for communications and I believed it could change the future of the communications sector," she recalled having said in a speech in Peking University in 2001.

In 1995 Zhang pawned all her belongings to the bank and with 15 million yuan she launched Beijing Information Highway Corp to provide Internet access and e-mail services to average people.

Later the firm even bundled Internet access, e-mail services, computers and modems to sell them together to consumers.

In 1996, Zhang's firm erected a billboard in Zhongguancun, which later grown in China's hi-tech hub, which reads "How far are Chinese away from the information highway? 1,500 meters to the North". In fact the billboard pointed to Information Highway's headquarters in Zhongguanchun.

The billboard made Zhang an icon in China's Internet history.

In 1997, Zhang's firm controlled 80 percent of the Internet access market in China. In the perceptions of many Internet users, Information Highway equaled the Internet and the firm's website is now believed to be the first Internet portal in China.

However, in 1996 the former China Telecom launched ChinaNet and rapidly undercut Information Highway with much cheaper Internet access fees

Intense competition led to a huge financial loss for Information Highway and disagreements with the firm's investors forced Zhang to quit in 1998, making her the first "martyr" in China's Internet sector.

"However, Zhang was a major figure who helped popularize the Internet in China," says Mao Wei, diredctor of China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

Charles Zhang, Sohu.com

In China's red-hot Internet industry, Charles Zhang is the real thing. The 44-year-old entrepreneur has turned his start-up Sohu.com into one of the best success stories in China's cyberspace since he launched the Chinese-language portal 10 years ago.

In 1995 Zhang joined Internet Securities Inc (ISI) and helped the US firm establish its China operations. Zhang's job was quite simple: he collected economic statistics and data published by Xinhua News Agency and China Daily and posted them on ISI's website, which could be accessed by those monitoring China's economic activities.

That helped Zhang understand "the basics" of the Internet. Eventually "we realized the Internet is an open platform for sharing, but unfortunately many people didn't get it", he says.

That led Zhang to launch Sohu.com in 1998 as a portal where Internet users can access and share a variety of information and resources. In 2002 NASDAQ-listed Sohu.com became the first company in China's Internet sector to report a quarterly profit.

However, many other once-high-flying Internet companies are now just vague memories at best. Beijing Information Highway Corp collapsed and AsiaInfo, the first Chinese internet company to list on NASDAQ, is now little known after it chose to become a system integrator.

"They went the wrong direction," says Zhang. "In fact, almost all the Internet companies which chose to build an open platform for sharing eventually were a success."

Sohu.com reported a 90 percent year-on-year revenue growth in the latest quarter. Its shares are now traded more than three times of its IPO price in the NASDAQ in 2000.

In 2005 Sohu.com became the first Internet company in Olympics history to sponsor the event, which has significantly leveraged its brand.

Zhang expects the upcoming Games to give a major boost to Sohu.com's online business, especially the advertising.

"For us, the battle has just begun," says Zhang, who is still overseeing Sohu.com's daily operations. "Running an Internet company is like launching a rocket. Chances of failure are big. You are either up or down."

(China Daily 03/17/2008 page2)