By Herman Lai, posted Aug 31, 2011 at 11:30 AM, 1,497 views,

Meizu CEO vs Xiaomi CEO: Friend Becomes Enemy

Meizu is very popular among the folks in China, but the recent Xiaomi phone seems to make Meizu’s founder Jack Wong jealous and feeling awkward that he was being utilized by Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun.

What did Lei Jun do? According to Jack Wong said on Meizu’s forum:

“I am not afraid of him (Lei Jun), but I am simply sick of him. He used to pretend to be interested in investing in Meizu and approached me through his guanxi (connection) with leaders of the High Tech Zone. He got me to tell him all about how Meizu was running — from phone design, production, supply chain, marketing and even financial operation. He totally got me with his “sincerity.” So do not talk about them, leave me alone, please!”

Jack Wong was being too nice to a potential investor. He is very angry and posted this on the forum:

MIUI is a company funded by Lei Jun, including that browser, which seems to have been made out of the UC browser. After knowing all this, I feel regret for communicating with him on everything about Meizu. I even discussed the design doc of the M9UI with him. MIUI as a company is shameless, so please do not discuss anything about them here. Lei Jun made no formal response to this, but has since stopped mentioning Meizu on Weibo.

Does that mean MIUI is a knockoff of Meizu UI? Allegedly, Xiaomi’s Miliao (group messaging) app was blocked on Meizu M8.

On the other side, Lei Jun said on his Weibo:

I, along with all fans, am eagerly expecting the M9. Meizu is a dedicated company which I adore. I wish the M9 and J Wong success. Android is a ferocious marketplace, and the M9 will bear huge pressure if it comes out late.

We are excited to see how the next-gen Meizu smartphone (Meizu M9 MX) combats against Xiaomi low price high-end smartphone by the end of this year.

Source: ChinaVenture via Penn Olson