Page 128 - How China Is Winning the Tech Race

complement of digital maps for the Internet, CDs, PDAs (personal digital
assistants, or computerized handheld personal organizers), mobile phones,
cars, and even laptops with built-in Global Positioning Systems.
To the northwest of Beijing, more than an hour’s drive from the city
center, almost to the mountains and north of the fifth ring road, Lingtu is
tucked into the new high-tech hub of Shangdi. Here, the nine-year-old Lingtu
(which means “clever maps”) is putting itself on the map in rapidly
urbanizing China. Four local Chinese techies with not an MBA among them
who get their thrills from computerized maps have bootstrapped the
operation. Lingtu is not a successful U.S.-style business transplanted to China
by a clever Ivy League grad; it is genuinely homegrown Chinese. The firm’s
key investor, Gobi Partners, named after the nearby desert, is not a Sand Hill
Road player but is based in Shanghai. Moreover, Lingtu got its start in 1999,
not very long after digital maps first arrived, and the company’s skills in the
fine art of computerized mapmaking are quite advanced.
The hardscrabble Lingtu team was charging to go public in 2007, but
the IPO date has been delayed until 2008 or later. To get pumped up for a
public debut, a new CEO and CFO with multinational experience were
recruited who can polish up Lingtu’s image. Also, the business plan was
switched to go after consumer business, where the action is. Such deep fixes
even years into a start-up are nothing out of the ordinary for emerging
Chinese firms. Most young businesses on the Mainland spring up so quickly
that the original business plan and management team have to be scratched.
Few businesses are changing as fast as digital mapping. Look at the $8 billion
deal Nokia has recently made to acquire the U.S. map and navigational
software maker Navteq.
Lingtu’s repertoire in China is quite impressive. Besides that 3-D ren-
dering of the Forbidden City, Lingtu has digitally mapped out sites for the
Beijing Olympics in 2008 to restrict air pollution, figured out the best spot for
a hydroelectric power plant in the Three Gorges dam project, remeasured
Mount Everest, pinpointed SARS cases in Beijing during the outbreak of the
illness in 2003, and monitored the launch and reentry of China’s first manned
space flight in that year. A company in the United States would have had to
work on the World Trade Center, the Hoover Dam, the Salt Lake City
Olympics, the Apollo 11 moon landing, and the peak of Mount McKinley to
come close to doing the tasks Lingtu has performed.

102 SILICON DRAGON