In order to survive, Smartisan has sold some of the tech-related patent rights to Bytedance, a Chinese internet technology company working in the field of AI. While addressing the media at the launch event of a new social app, Chat Bao, Smartisan’s founder revealed that the financial condition of the company is not too bad but to survive a back-up is a must. In another revelation, according to Yicai, Smartisan’s No. 2 employee XiaoPeng has resigned from the company and has joined Oppo’s subsidiary, Realme as a design director.
XiaoPeng joined the Realme last year in the month of December. Oppo announced its new sub-brand, Realme in May 2018. The motive of the Realme is to compete against Redmi devices in India. Realme is purely made in India device, as it is manufactured in India using Oppo’s production line. Their first device Realme 1 gained a good number of sales.
In-depth, Smartisan employees have been asked to re-sign the contracts with Bytedance for the six-month probation period. As per new terms, employees have to surrender the equity of Smartisan and sign a new contract to sustain in the company.
There are many confusions in the new Bytedance acquisition of tech-related patents from Smartisan. Many departments and resources have been re-aligned to different works within the company. Now, Smartisan’s Bullet Messenger resources have been aligned to the Bytedance’s K-12 education, an education-related product. Bytedance is popularly known for their work in the AI field. Moreover, they have launched plenty of education-related products for students last year. Even, they have launched an app which offers a content related to culture, audio books, wealth management, etc.
Earlier, Luo approached many big giants in China such as Baidu, Ali and others for a possible merger, but due to lack of interest things didn’t work for Smartisan.
Now we hope this new shift in Smartisan would help them to recover from the financial crisis.
(Source)
