Redcore Times

About Redcore Times

Redcore Times (Beijing) Technology Ltd., also operating under the name Yunshipei, was established by founder and CEO Chen Benfeng, a former Microsoft engineer, alongside co-founder Gao Jing. Chen, an alumnus of the University of Science and Technology of China and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, drew upon his experience working on Internet Explorer at Microsoft to launch the venture. The company initially focused on a product called "Yunshipei" (yunshipei.com), which translates to "Cloud Adaption," a solution designed to help enterprises make their PC-based websites and systems compatible with mobile devices using HTML5 technology.

The firm's primary market consists of large to medium-sized enterprises and government bodies in China seeking to modernize their IT infrastructure for the mobile era. Its business model centers on providing a comprehensive platform that facilitates mobile office capabilities. This platform includes features for adapting existing PC applications for mobile use, which is presented as a way for companies to significantly improve productivity. Revenue is generated by selling this enterprise mobility solution to clients. The core technology, initially marketed as "cloud adaption," evolved into a broader secure work platform.

In August 2018, the company gained significant attention when it announced a 250 million RMB Series C financing round for its Redcore browser. The company promoted the browser as a domestically developed product with a proprietary core, intended to break the market dominance of foreign browsers. However, it was soon discovered that the Redcore browser was built upon Google's open-source Chromium project. This revelation led to widespread criticism and accusations of false advertising. In response, Chen Benfeng and the company issued an apology, clarifying that Redcore was indeed based on Chromium but included innovations in security and enterprise functionality. The company stated its key innovations were a feature to make enterprise applications invisible to external threats, the Yunshipei mobile adaption technology, and a secure browser with capabilities like private DNS and encrypted caching.