Exclusive dialogue with Nexperia Asia Pacific Tian Feng: Domestic industrial software does not need "antitrust"

Feng Tian, Senior Vice President of Nexperia Asia Pacific and Director of the Industrial Software Center

Author 丨He Sisi

Editor 丨 Wang Deqing

"Industrial software has a leverage and pivot role, it can pry the country's science and technology and industry together." Tian Feng, senior vice president of Nexperia Asia Pacific and director of the Industrial Software Center, commented on industrial software.

Nowadays, industrial software plays an extremely important role in promoting national strategies such as "industrialization" and "informatization" integration, industrial upgrading, new industrialization, and industrial development and transformation.

Relevant data show that in 2019, China's industrial software products achieved revenue of 172 billion yuan, and further growth in 2020, reaching 197.4 billion yuan, an increase of 11.2% year-on-year, it is predicted that the size of China's industrial software market will exceed 200 billion yuan in 2021.

It can be seen that China has achieved remarkable results in the development of industrial software. However, looking at the development of the global industrial software market, the scale of China's industrial software market accounts for about 7% of the global market size, and the share of foreign software companies in China's industrial software market is more than 90%.

"Serious foreign monopolies and difficulties in independent research and development" have become a common topic in the industry.

How does China Industrial Soft achieve independent research and development in the true sense? How to deal with long-term monopolies abroad? How to eliminate the idea of domestic enterprises "taking"? These have become the industry's concern and urgent need to solve the problem, taking this opportunity, Lei Feng and Nexperia Asia Pacific senior vice president, director of the Industrial Software Center Tian Feng launched an in-depth dialogue, trying to find the answer to the question through this dialogue.

The industrial standardization software market is small, and the customized software market is large

Taking simulation software as an example, as engineering software, it is a category of standard software. According to the data, the share of foreign simulation software in the domestic software market has reached 95%, and domestic enterprises only account for about 5%. This is in line with the current development trend of "China's management software is strong, engineering software is weak; low-end software is more, high-end software is less".

According to the category of industrial software, due to the low threshold of management software, it is the easiest for Chinese enterprises to do. Compared with foreign countries, Chinese management software is not easy to standardize, because management is related to the country's culture and management system, so it is necessary to provide personal service, the so-called personal service is to modify the software according to customer requirements, do secondary development, which is the reason why the management software is not standard.

In view of the great differences in the management system between China and the West, there is often a big gap between foreign management software and China, so the management software market in China is very large.

In Tian Feng's view, compared with management software, engineering software is easier to standardize, because it is Einstein who has the final say, Newton who has the final say, not the entrepreneur who has the final say, it is a matter of natural science, mechanics, chemistry, an irreversible law of nature, which is not subject to human will.

According to the "2020-2021 Industrial Software Industry Research Report" data, from the perspective of the scale of China's subdivided industrial software market, information management software accounts for the largest proportion; production control is secondary; research and development design is the least. It can be seen that in terms of industrial software with strong technical requirements, China's share is still very small.

Looking at the development of China's industrial software market, Tian Feng told Lei Feng that although foreign software accounts for a relatively large proportion of the standardized market. However, taking the simulation software market as an example, there is a hidden market in China, that is, customized software, which is not noticed by general institutions.

According to Lei Feng, customized software is a necessity in every industry, and customized software is different from standard software and cannot be copied. At present, 99% of the standard software in the industrial software market comes from foreign companies, and 99% of the customized software is developed by China itself. However, from the perspective of profit, standard general software has the highest profit, and custom software requires engineers to customize development one by one, which requires a lot of manpower.

It can be said that in the customized software market, domestic enterprises occupy half of the country.

Tian Feng further explained, "The customized market is actually a secondary development with the help of foreign software to meet the specific needs of users, which cannot be met by standard software. Custom software is to have users before making products, and standard software is to make products first and then find users. ”

Talking about Nexperia Asia-Pacific's research in industrial software, Tian Feng told Lei Feng that Nexperia mainly does independent research and development software and standard software, and has successfully developed a set of independent simulation software system - PERA SIM, choosing to do independent research and development of industrial software is a strategic choice, and the development is also the result of strategic adherence.

Foreign monopolies are serious, and there is no domestic iterative market for commodities

Tian Feng said that industrial software has a leverage and fulcrum role, it can pry up the country's science and technology and industry, and the crackdown on software is to draw salaries from the bottom of the cauldron, which is equivalent to taking away the fulcrum of a lever, and the entire leverage cannot be leveraged. The GDP of industrial software is not large, but its pivot role is very obvious.

Based on the research results of the development of the domestic industrial software market in 2019 and the survey results of more than 30 well-known industrial software supply-side enterprises and 28 head industrial software demand-side enterprises by professional institutions, 95% of the R&D and design industrial software depends on imports, and the domestically available R&D and design products are mainly used in areas with simple industrial mechanism, single system function and low industry complexity; from the perspective of the number of leading enterprises, the number of domestic enterprises is at a significant disadvantage among the top ten suppliers in various subdivisions of R&D and design.

Tian Feng believes that foreign monopoly is an inevitable result. In any country, the more powerful the industry, the higher the demand for industrial software. At this time, after foreign manufacturers see the continuous growth of China's industrial volume and market size, they will definitely take measures to suppress and restrict industrial development by monopolizing the industrial software market and thus attacking China's economy.

Foreign manufacturers take the United States as an example, and their attack on China has two sets of combination fists, that is, trade war and science and technology war, trade war is to fight industry, let your products can not be sold, science and technology war is to fight innovative things, industrial software is one of the most important aspects.

It is understood that at present, most domestic enterprises use pirated software and come from abroad.

The influx of pirated software is mainly based on China's lack of protection in intellectual property rights, Tian Feng gave Lei Feng an example, the difference between software and hardware is that software can be obtained for free through decryption, but hardware cannot. For example, Apple's mobile phone cannot be decrypted, so it is necessary to buy an Apple mobile phone or an imitation machine, which is also caused by the domestic "heavy hard and light soft" thinking.

Foreign monopolies are not how much money others have taken from the domestic market and how much income they have gained, but monopolized the entire industrial software market, making domestic software unable to survive, Tian Feng further explained.

As we all know, due to the low threshold of management software, most Chinese enterprises started with management software and made remarkable achievements in this regard. However, after investigation, it was found that some domestic enterprises used domestic ERP software in the early stage of creation, but when the enterprise developed to a certain scale, because the domestic software function was difficult to support business needs, the enterprise replaced the domestic ERP software with foreign software, and the phenomenon of reverse localization appeared.

In this regard, Tian Feng explained that the emergence of this situation, on the one hand, is not because of the poor technical level, but because China has no commodity iteration of the market, whether it is commodity iteration or technology iteration is cooperating with foreign manufacturers. On the other hand, due to the large input costs, worried about not being able to recover the cost, domestic enterprises dare not do it, in short, because the domestic industrial software market demand is small.

Tian Feng said that at present, there are many enterprises that have entered the industrial software, one is to follow the trend of industrial software, the second is to have a code base, and the third is to get state financial support and speculate enterprises. The blind entry of these enterprises is extremely detrimental to the benign development of industrial software.

Talking about the entry of Nexperia Asia Pacific, he said that Nexperia Asia Pacific started by selling foreign software, and after selling to a certain extent, it had the ability to develop independently and began to develop customized software. Then, through business judgment, the development of standardized software began. This is a process of natural business development, not a smart move to do autonomous simulation software.

Four "new tracks" have emerged, and anti-monopoly does not exist

"In China, whether it is individuals, enterprises or countries, they all think that using other people's software is taking advantage. Only now do I realize that stealing someone else's things kills myself. ”

At present, China's industrial software is in a critical stage of the lack of more key core technologies, from the introduction of applications to independent research and development, and the establishment of technology iteration capabilities.

Nowadays, domestic enterprises have gradually realized the seriousness of foreign monopolies, and the attitude of Chinese people to domestic industrial software has long been "incomparable".

In Tian Feng's view, although the phenomenon of foreign monopoly is still serious, there is no anti-monopoly statement, mainly because there are 4 new tracks in China that have resisted foreign monopolies to a certain extent.

He interprets it mainly from four aspects:

First, military enterprises, the U.S. government does not allow U.S. companies to sell simulation software to China's military industry. At present, this track does not require companies to go to antitrust. Second, companies like Huawei that are included in the entity list, these companies that are stuck in the neck naturally cannot use foreign software, so this belongs to a new civilian product track.

Third, the state began to pay attention to the protection of intellectual property rights, cracked down on piracy, and a new space was released.

Fourth, because the cost performance is not high, foreign manufacturers rarely touch small and medium-sized enterprises, which is also a new track.

That is to say, there is no need to compete with others for at least three years, and most companies are currently doing spare tire plans and alternative plans. Taking simulation software as an example, in 3 to 5 years, the technical level of domestic simulation software should be able to reach 70% or 80% of the international level.

Tian Feng said frankly, of course, there are also some enterprises that need anti-monopoly, for these enterprises, Nexperia Asia Pacific proposed a set of enterprise empowerment system, it is not a software, but a consulting process, in this process to bring software into, to a certain extent, can achieve the replacement of foreign software.

Write at the end

In order to achieve the goal of manufacturing power, we must get rid of the long-term monopoly of foreign countries, abandon the "take" doctrine, and realize the independent research and development of industrial software.

At the end of the interview, Tian Feng stated that industrial software is a luxury. In fact, the current level of China's industry is not high, and the demand for industrial software is not high. Foreign software is very good, but 70% or 80% of the functions of Chinese companies are not used, just as we will not use 80% of the functions of Word, the same is true of industrial software.

Companies understand the importance of just needs, scrutinize their needs, and choose the software they need rather than the most expensive one. Don't just buy the best software from abroad, because its features far exceed your needs.

The state gives correct guidance, adjusts the industrial software procurement system and approval mechanism accordingly, eliminates the luxury goods system, and lets enterprises not spend a lot of money to buy luxury goods.