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Qihoo 360 Case Essay

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2012-09-1-242-1
April 12th, 2012

Qihoo 360 Technology Co.
This case was jointly prepared by Prof. Bingsheng, CKGSB YANG CKGSB Center. and Guchuan, Case TENG

On March 30th, 2011, Qihoo 360 Technology Co. (hereinafter referred as “Qihoo” or “Qihoo 360”), founded less than 6 years ago, started to trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: QIHU). On the first day of trading, Qihoo 360 opened at $27, a massive 86.2% above the issue price, and closed at $34, generating a first-day yield of 134.5% and raising $175 million. At the end of its first day of trading in the US, Qihoo 360 had a market capitalization of $3.96 billion and ranked 6th among all Chinese firms listed in the U.S., higher than New Oriental, Sohu, and Shanda. …show more content…

Later, a number of other features were added to 360 Safe Guard, including system cleanup. By June 2007, the market share of its monthly unique users grew to 28.11%.

Trojan Cleanup
In the 2nd half of 2007, the developers of malicious software chose two distinctive paths. One group terminated such software, while the other turned to viruses and Trojans. Thus, Zhou decided to enter the field of Trojan cleanup. Unlike anti-malicious software, the anti-Trojan segment had been dominated by major anti-virus developers. However, having analyzed the technological differences, Zhou believed that there were opportunities for Qihoo in this area. As Zhou noted, “Trojans are distinguished from conventional viruses in that they require simple technologies, which means an accelerated lead time in development. In some cases, a developer can create a Trojan in just a few days after proper training. Thus, the number and variations of Trojans keep increasing. In general, anti-virus developers launch only one cleanup program every year, supplemented by periodic updates. Facing fast changing Trojans, the conventional anti-virus engine technologies are less capable.”
2012-09-1-242-1

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Qihoo 360

In June 2007, Qihoo added a new feature of Trojan cleanup to 360 Safe Guard. After entering this segment, Qihoo expanded its user base to 100 million.

360 Anti-Virus: The Creation of Free Security Service
While the introduction of the free 360 Safe Guard was somewhat accidental,

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