Apart from selling coffee, Starbucks is the most Internet-savvy technology company.

Starbucks, a coffee-themed chain of self-service photo studios, has become a regular in Top 10 along with Apple Google Amazon on Fortune's list of the most acclaimed companies.

Why is a coffee seller so praised? Obviously not because it makes good coffee, in fact, it is more pretentious to say that Starbucks coffee is not good at going to Starbucks now.

But inadvertently said that like to drink Starbucks Shanghai Sinan Mansion Zhenxuan black apron with the black hawk VA388 coffee machine hand-brewed coffee appears to be the most pretentious. After all, there are only 50 or 60 selected stores in the country, while there are only three black hawk VA388 coffee machines in the country. at the same time, this coffee machine is also a competition machine for the WBC World Barista Competition.

(black Hawk VA388 Coffee Machine)

The reason Starbucks is more praised than Microsoft, or Facebook, is more likely to be that it has really affected people's lives and become a role model for technology companies.

Jack Ma said Starbucks is a great company and Taobao should learn from Starbucks and become a way of life. Fortune also wrote that Apple, which is not doing well recently, should learn from Starbucks' business strategy.

The first people to like Starbucks were that Bill Gates' father had sleepless nights in Seattle for many reasons, perhaps because the Microsoft Windows blue screen was too harsh, or because the roar of Boeing planes was too harsh, and most likely, because Starbucks coffee was too refreshing.

Yes, Microsoft, Starbucks and Boeing are all rooted in Seattle, and so is Amazon. Little is known about Starbucks' soul, the father of current CEO Howard Schultz and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

(Gates and son)

At first, Starbucks was just a coffee store in Seattle. Howard Schultz quit his well-paid job nine years after Starbucks was founded to become the marketing director of the humble store. He urged Starbucks bosses at the time to transform Starbucks from a store selling beans to restaurants and other cafes to a cafe that surround the aroma of coffee and let customers enjoy a pleasant time.

As a result, the boss didn't listen to Howard Schultz, and Schultz walked away from another coffee chain, Tiantian Coffee.

(Schultz is at Starbucks Origin Store in Seattle)

In 1987, Schultz came back two years after leaving Starbucks, but this time he took venture capital with him to buy Starbucks. In the end, the lawyer entrusted by Schultz to buy Starbucks was Bill Gates' father, William Gates.

Before retiring, Gates Sr. was a partner in one of the largest law firms in town, and the company was also a legal representative for Schultz, who was just an enterprising young man who wanted to develop the coffee industry.

This is what Gates senior said of Schultz:

As a professional lawyer, his eyes will surely shine when he sees someone like Schultz bring business plans like Starbucks. Schultz has a rare talent, he is tenacious and decent. He is a legend. "

To some extent, Gates Sr. witnessed the rise of two great companies. Microsoft is obsessed with using technology to change the way people work, while Starbucks has been using technology to change the way people live.

Why do so many people like Starbucks? The Starbucks home page has been liked more than 36 million times on Facebook, much higher than Nike or Adidas. Starbucks is also the first home page on Facebook to break tens of millions of likes.

In 2013, Starbucks had more than 25 million customers a week, more than the population of Shanghai, while the number of US app users exceeded 13 million last year, more than the population of Guangzhou.

This shows that Starbucks is not only welcomed by authorities such as Fortune, but also popular with ordinary users.

At first, however, this was not the case. In June 1999, Schultz announced to the outside world that Starbucks was transforming from a coffee company into an Internet company. So Starbucks launched a portal, sold coffee and kitchen supplies online, and invested $20 million in an online chat company. What is waiting for Schultz is not applause from the outside world, but the share price plunged 15% on the day.

Yes, even during the frenzy that the dotcom bubble is about to burst, investors don't think coffee sellers should embrace the Internet so aggressively.

If Schultz were as short-sighted as the investors at the time, Starbucks would not be where it is today. It turns out that the technology and Internet genes he injected into Starbucks more than a decade ago is why Starbucks is so strong today.

What is most praised is Starbucks' layout of mobile payments, for which Schultz even invested $25 million in mobile payments company Square in 2012 to become a director of the company.

Last year, 9 million of Starbucks consumers in the US made their purchases through mobile payments each week, accounting for 20 per cent of total transactions.

(Starbucks and Uber became the first supporters of Apple Pay)

Launched the mobile app in 2009, added the mobile payment function to the app in 2011, and made its debut as an Apple Pay third-party partner in Square,2014 in 2012. Starbucks is not so much the beneficiary of mobile payment as one of the promoters of mobile payment.

Starbucks, which has more than 10,000 stores in the United States, does have the ability to influence the tech world.

Wi-Fi wireless network, which is as important as air today, was not popular more than a decade ago. In 2001, Wi-Fi and HomeRF became wireless network standards. In the end, Wi-Fi won due to two important factors: one is that Apple iBook became the first notebook to integrate Wi-Fi, and the other is Starbucks, which has supported Wi-Fi widely since 2002.

(Starbucks'US network is provided by Google)

Starbucks is not only an important supporter of Wi-Fi, but also currently the fastest free Wi-Fi provider in the United States, reaching 9Mbps (about 1MBytes per second), more than twice as fast as second McDonald's.

In addition, customers in Starbucks stores can read paid content such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Economist for free through the free Wi-Fi network.

(Starbucks charging wirelessly, plug-in devices can charge iPhone)

Also facing the competition for standards is wireless charging. Starbucks has already promoted the PMA wireless charging standard in places such as San Francisco and Boston. After the two wireless charging standards alliance of PMA and A4WP merged into AirFuel Alliance, their rivals are only Qi standards.

Starbucks and Google are close comrades in Wi-Fi construction and wireless charging technology, and Starbucks teamed up with Google to build a higher-speed network because it thought the Wi-Fi network provided by AT&T was too bad. Moreover, Google is also one of the initiators of the PMA wireless charging standard.

People like to call Starbucks a lifestyle company, and Schultz strongly advocates the concept of "third space". The so-called third space means that Starbucks wants to create a third familiar and unfettered space outside the home and work environment, where people can naturally socialize and other activities.

When the mobile Internet has become an integral part of people's lives, as a pioneering enterprise of the mobile Internet, Starbucks naturally enjoys the dividend of becoming a way of life first. Behind this silent change that nourishes everything, Starbucks' forward-looking layout has become the key.

Starbucks fourth Space Starbucks soul Schultz faded out of Starbucks management for a while, but Schultz returned to the front line as CEO after both the US economy and Starbucks were in crisis in 2008.

The Starbucks mobile client launched in 2009 can be seen as an iconic signal. The deeper reason can be traced back to Starbucks' appointment and structure.

(Starbucks COO Kevin Johnson)

In addition to insisting on investing heavily in technology and the Internet, Starbucks has set up a venture capital division and appointed its chief digital officer (CDO). COO Kevin Johnson, who took over last year, was the head of Microsoft's Windows and online divisions before moving to Juniper Networks, the world's second-largest router maker, as CEO, a standard technology industry.

In 2012, Adam Brotman (resigned), a former senior vice president of Starbucks Digital Venture Capital, was given a new task as chief digital officer.

This position brings together all Starbucks digital projects-web, mobile, social media, digital marketing, Starbucks Card and e-commerce, Wi-Fi, Starbucks digital networks, emerging in-store consumer technologies-to be managed by Brotman.

Brotman explains that Starbucks' digital business is as important to the company's continued success as it is to selling coffee:

"Digitalization helps our shop assistants and companies tell our stories, build our brands, and connect with our customers."

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pintrest, including China's Wechat and Weibo, the culture built by Starbucks in these positions is what Starbucks calls the fourth Space.

Starbucks is the most popular food company on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest, and Schultz must be unhappy with Starbucks being classified as a food company.

Starbucks is full of feelings on social networks. Not only are countless people discussing photos and likes on this topic, but Starbucks is simply a master in taking the initiative to find a sense of existence.

Starbucks has a full set of Emoji emoticons, but its usability is worrying.

Starbucks launched Starbucks Star Eye filter with Starbucks card theme on Snapchat.

Starbucks Starbucks card members can evaluate music on Spotify, and Spotify will adjust the list of songs played in Starbucks stores based on this. Spotify's paid subscription members can get stars by listening to music and can exchange for free coffee at Starbucks stores.

The Starbucks app in the United States can order not only coffee takeout, but even Uber.

The innumerable embrace of the mobile Internet has made Starbucks a part of the Internet life of many users and a so-called fourth space element.

Since Schultz returned to Starbucks CEO, Starbucks shares have risen 13-fold in the six years from 2009 to 2015, while Starbucks has seen rapid growth in store openings and earnings figures, but what underpins Starbucks' vision for the future is mobile payments, a Loyalty Program that fosters customer loyalty.

In 2009, or back in 1999, Starbucks' investment in the future enabled Starbucks to win the future.