Home » e-commerce

Category Archives: e-commerce

The Next Revolution: 3D XPoint™ non-volatile memories with speed and performance close to DRAM

May 19, 2016 7:45 pm / Leave a comment

UPDATE

June 20, 2017, Intel Online: How fast is Intel® Optane™ Memory? Performance results
Comparing two identical NUCs – one with Intel® Optane™ memory.

March 31, 2017, : Understanding Intel® Optane™ Memory | Intel IT Center
Learn more at intel.com/optanememory

28%	14x	2x
Overall system performance is up to 28% faster⁶ ⁷ ⁸	Increase system performance for hard drive access by up to 14x faster ⁹ ⁷ ⁸	Improve everyday task responsiveness by 2x ^{6 7} ⁸

(more…)

To watch Alisher Usmanov (Алишер Усманов)

March 22, 2014 3:19 pm / Leave a comment

Alisher Usmanov (Алишер Усманов)? WTF, you may ask. Especially in the context of ‘Experiencing the Cloud’. Those wikipedia articles will hardly explain that. So here are the reasons why I am doing such a recommendation now:

We are witnessing the biggest geopolitical play of the XXI. century between the winning Western world of the last century and the reinvigorated Russian state of the new century under the latest doctrine by Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly declared in his Balancing the East, Upgrading the West – U.S. Grand Strategy in an Age of Upheaval [Foreign Affairs, JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2012 ISSUE] article 2 years ago as:

The United States’ central challenge over the next several decades is to revitalize itself, while promoting a larger West and buttressing a complex balance in the East that can accommodate China’s rising global status. A successful U.S. effort to enlarge the West, making it the world’s most stable and democratic zone, would seek to combine power with principle. A cooperative larger West – extending from North America and Europe through Eurasia (by eventually embracing Russia and Turkey), all the way to Japan and South Korea – would enhance the appeal of the West’s core principles for other cultures, thus encouraging the gradual emergence of a universal democratic political culture.
Given the very first round of this aggressive move—happening before our own eyes in Ukraine—to capture the vast space extending from Ukraine through whole of Russia to Vladivostok, the other biggest play of XXI. century, what is best called as Mobile Cloud Computing, will unfold in a dramatically different way. China as The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower is getting Russia now, as a much closer ally against the fading Western high-tech power. This will even effect the world financial system as well, since the side who is getting the upper hand in the global social networking and related e-commerce race is also getting a dominant position in the global financial system.
Russia has already built some very close strategic ties with strategic businesses of China in this respect, especially via the activities of its most clever businessman, Alisher Usmanov. In the following I will provide a quick summary of his activities so far, as well as the current situation fast evolving because of the so called sanctions looming over the whole Russian economy (because of the “2014 Crimean crisis”).
In 2013 there was a new (maybe final before an IPO) round of Xiaomi financing which was said to be disclosed also on Sept 5. The amount was rumored as being not less than $2B and “from Chinese internet and mobile services firm Tencent (0700.HK), with Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) acting as an intermediary”. DST already invested $90 million into Xiaomi in Dec 2011, and another $216 million in Dec 2012.
Then, DST is controlled by Russia’s richest man Alisher Usmanov with $18.6B of private wealth (beginning of March 2014, “pre-sanctions against Russia”) and an additional $11.1B wealth of its two business partners also controlled by Usmanov via 100% voting rights in his USM Holdings empire. USM Holdings has three groups of assets in its portfolio: Internet (with DST and a complete Mail.Ru Goup), Telecoms (with Megafon, Russia’s second largest mobile operator in terms of revenue and subscribers and the market leader in the mobile data segment, as well as Yota, the leader of the mobile broadband sector in Russia), Media and Steel & Mining.
Tencent is controlled by Naspers (33.9%) which is also heavily invested into the Mail.Ru Group earlier (29%), and might have some minority share of DST itself, indirectly via Tencent definitely (getting not less than 10.26% of DST with a $300M investment into it in April, 2010). AlthoughNaspers’s CEO, Koos Bekker has a personal fortune of ‘only’ $580M (mid’12, so now closer to $1B probably) but has been the unquestioned leader and decision maker of the company, which has a market capitalisation of about $57B (mid’12, now much higher). Also Tencent’s own market capitalisation is not less than $88.6B (Aug 15, 2013).
Also, Venture Capital Dispatch reported in January 2013 that:

“DST Global counts Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and online retailer JingdongMall [pre April 2013 360buy] as part of its Asian portfolio. DST, alongside other private equity firms like Silver Lake agreed to buy shares in Alibaba at a tender offer of $1.6 billion in 2011. That same year, DST Global also participated in a $1.5 billion third round of funding in Jingdong [pre April 2013 360buy], with media reports stating that DST bought a 5% share in the online retailer for $500 million. … DST Global spent around $1.5 billion on both of those deals, said [DST partner John] Lindfors [responsible for the Chinese market].”
More importantly, and very recently Billionaire Usmanov Aims at China After Selling Apple, Facebook [Bloomberg, March 17, 2014]:

“Chinese companies account for about 70 percent to 80 percent of the portfolio of our foreign Internet investments,” Ivan Streshinskiy, head of Usmanov’s asset-management company USM Advisors LLC, said in an interview on March 14 in Moscow. Most of the investment is in “Alibaba, JD.com and some other companies with great potential,” Streshinskiy said.
…
“We hope that our investments in China’s Internet companies may show the same and even better returns as we had with the American companies,” Streshinskiy said. China is Russia’s largest trading partner.

Alibaba’s estimated valuation rose to an average of $153 billion last month after the Chinese e-commerce company reported surging sales. The Hangzhou-based company is starting the process for what may be the biggest U.S. initial public offering in two years. Chinese online retailer JD.com may start an IPO next quarter and be valued at more than $20 billion, according to co-owner Tencent Holdings Ltd.
…
“We are concerned with the possible sanctions against Russia but don’t see any dramatic repercussions for our business,” Streshinskiy said. “China is unlikely to impose any sanctions. So, we will be trading in rubles, yuan, Hong Kong or Singapore dollars.”

And additionally Usmanov Tightens Grip Over Russian Social Network VKontakte (1) [Businessweek, March 18, 2014]:

Mail.ru, an Internet company controlled by Usmanov, agreed to buy a 12 percent stake in VKontakte from Russian executive Ivan Tavrin, according to a statement from Moscow-based Mail.ru today. No price was disclosed. Mail.ru won’t change VKontakte’s operational control or consolidate it into its accounts.

VKontakte may be valued at $2 billion to $4 billion, said Ksenia Arutyunova, an analyst at Rye Man & Gor Securities in Moscow. The company is trying to fend off rivals including Facebook Inc. (FB:US) in Russia and leads the market with Odnoklassniki, another social network controlled by Mail.ru.

“Even though Mail.ru won’t get operational control in VKontakte, this deal is good as it’s a move in the company’s strategy of consolidating social networks in Russia,” said Konstantin Belov, an analyst at UralSib Capital in Moscow.

Mail.ru, which also has assets such as online gaming sites, jumped as much as 6.6 percent, the biggest gain in 11 months. It rose 4.2 percent to $34.58 at 9:45 a.m. in London.

VKontakte had 95 million users in December, including 61 million in Russia, researcher ComScore estimated. Facebook had 13 million Russian users and Odnoklassniki 54 million.

The stake increase also gives Mail.ru an edge over United Capital Partners, a Russian investor who holds the remaining 48 percent of VKontakte. The two shareholders have been at odds over the social network’s management, with UCP calling for the dismissal of co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Pavel Durov, whom Usmanov has supported.

Usmanov is also willing to buy UCP’s stake in VKontakte at a “reasonable price,” Ivan Streshinskiy, head of Usmanov’s asset-management company USM Advisors LLC, said in an interview in Moscow last week. UCP and Usmanov’s representatives each have two of VKontakte’s four board seats.

UCP has claimed that Durov breached his fiduciary duty by developing his own project, the Telegram messenger, separately from VKontakte. Streshinskiy said that Usmanov has been supportive of Durov as his presence in the company ensures success of the social network.

Now with sanctions looming over the whole Russian economy (because of the “2014 Crimean crisis”) the possible changes could be much more dramatic. According to Russian banks offered to go to the Chinese payment systems [Russian news and facts, March 21, 2014]:

Russian banks are affected by international sanctions because of the annexation of Crimea, could restore job by clicking on the Chinese payment system. This RDA told the deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Financial Markets Anatoly Aksakov.

So, he said, “customers will be moved to the side of the Chinese UnionPay».

Autumn 2013 Central Bank registered LLC “YunionPey” as the operator of the payment system. It became a clearinghouse “Bank of China (ELOS).” The system was founded in 2002 as an association of banks in China. It operates in more than 140 countries.

Another popular Chinese system – Alipay, a member of the Alibaba Group – the largest company online commerce. She, in particular, belong to well-known online retailers AliExpress site and Taobao. Alipay was founded in 2004. System used by more than 460,000 companies.

~~Recently~~ [it’s started much earlier, in 2011, as you could see in [4] above] Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has invested in shares of Alibaba Group, getting rid of securities Facebook and Apple.

My insert here: Leaning East: Russia moves towards China as West pushes sanctions [RT (Russia Today), March 20, 2014]

Amid the possibility of further sanctions from Brussels and Washington over Crimea – Vladimir Putin is set to address the annual session of Russia’s Union of Industrials and Entrepreneurs. Live now to RT’s Katie Pilbeam. Well the West may be threatening sanctions – but Russia’s eastern relations are unaffected. Moscow’s trade with China is on the rise – the turnover reaching 89 billion dollars last year. Most of that is made up of oil supplies being sent to Beijing, which is the world’s fastest growing energy market. Let’s get some analysis from Thorsten Pattberg, a writer and author of the book “The East-West Dichotomy”.

Now the Russian register of operators of payment systems includes 29 products including Visa and Master Card, and the revocation of the license Migom.

Earlier it was reported that the Visa and Master Card cards stopped servicing a number of Russian banks, which fell under the EU sanctions and the U.S. due to merger Crimea to Russia. President Vladimir Putin has promised that the government will help companies and their customers.

And indeed Visa explained stop service cards in Russian banks [Russian news and facts, March 21, 2014]:

In accordance with U.S. law, Visa payment system was required to suspend access to the network for organizations that came under sanctions because of Washington’s annexation of the Crimea. This writes the “Interfax” referring to the company’s statement.

The list includes the bank “Russia” and related “Sobinbank”, “SMP Bank” and “InvestCapitalBank.” Earlier it was reported that the Visa and Master Card cards stopped servicing these credit institutions.

According to the director of the Department of the Central Bank of the national payment system Batyreva Timur, because of the actions of Visa and Master Card functionality lost several hundred thousand cards issued by the three banks. … also having problems with credit organizations, which affected banks were sponsors. In this chain of “stuck” seven organizations, he said.

President Vladimir Putin said that the state will help victims of the sanctions to companies and their customers, and ordered to transfer their salary to the bank “Russia”. His example was followed by the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Just Sanctions list were more than 50 Russian and Ukrainian officials and businessmen.

In a longer term changes could well be even more dramatic as Putin: Russian companies should have transparent property structure [ITAR-TASS, March 20, 2014]

MOSCOW, March 20. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian companies should be registered on the territory of Russia and should have a transparent property structure, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Thursday.

At the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Russian president said that business people should realize their responsibility. “Russian companies should be registered on the territory of our country and should have a transparent property structure,” he noted.

Therefore, Putin stated that he had set a task to decrease the number of offshore companies in domestic economy. “Required amendments in legislative base are being drafted,” he noted.

Or as has been reported in a wider context of UPDATE 2-Putin tells Russian businessmen to bring their assets back home [Reuters, March 20, 2014]:

* Putin presses home his argument for bringing business home
* Businessmen fear widening EU, U.S. sanctions
* In case of crisis, government cannot help this time round (Adds more Putin comments, Usmanov, Potanin, background)

President Vladimir Putin told company bosses on Thursday to bring their assets home and clean up their businesses to help Russia survive Western sanctions over Crimea and an economic downturn.

Facing a possible widening of Western sanctions that may target businessmen close to Putin, some of Russia’s oligarchs are increasingly nervous about their companies’ prospects.

Some of Russia’s largest companies are registered abroad where they may benefit from lower tax rates but also may enjoy some distance from the Kremlin and feel beyond its reach.

Without referring to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region or to slowing economic growth, Putin said it would also be in the bosses’ interests to support the Russian economy.

“Russian companies should be registered on the territory of our nation, in our country and have a transparent ownership structure,” Putin told heads of Russia’s largest companies.

“I am certain that this is also in your interests,” he said, pressing home a patriotic message at a conference full of businessmen, including a front row of top oligarchs such as media mogul Alisher Usmanov and metals magnate Vladimir Potanin.

Putin waged war on the oligarchs who amassed political influence as well as vast riches under former president Boris Yeltsin, driving some out of Russia and forcing those who remained to stay out of politics.

Since then several businessmen with ties to Putin have come to dominate the corporate landscape and are now among Russia’s richest men.

His words may have made some oligarchs nervous. Usmanov’s Internet holding group Mail.Ru is registered in the British Virgin Islands, while X5 Retail Group, owned by Mikhail Fridman, who was not at the conference, is registered in Amsterdam.

Returning to the Kremlin in May 2012 for a third presidential term, Putin has urged politicians and businessmen to return from the “offshore shadows” and stop spiriting cash out of the country, a move some critics say was a move by a weakened president to ensure loyalty among Russia’s elite.

But with sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union on officials, his demands are carrying more weight, ensuring there will be little public sympathy for oligarchs who may be stung by widening punitive measures.

“Our task is not only to limit the possibilities of offshore schemes,” Putin said.

“We understand perfectly well that little can be achieved through prohibitions. The main direction of our work is in something else: it is necessary to increase the attractiveness of the Russian jurisdiction, improve the business climate, and strengthen legal guarantees and the protection of property.”

My insert here: Putin mocks US sanctions, vows not to strike back [RT (Russia Today), March 21, 2014]

Vladimir Putin has mocked US sanctions imposed on Russia, saying he will open an account at US-sanctioned Rossiya Bank. During a meeting with the country’s senior security officials he added that he won’t introduce a visa regime with Ukraine – READ MORE http://on.rt.com/x16ya5

FEAR OF SANCTIONS TO COME

The conference, days after Putin signed a treaty on bringing Ukraine’s Crimea region into Russia, was surprisingly upbeat despite the threat of deeper sanctions by the United States and European Union, Russia’s top trading partner.

Many Russians have been swept up in nationalist fervour since Moscow annexed Crimea. But bubbling under the surface, there were some doubts as to what lay ahead.

Putin’s moves in Ukraine have wiped $50 billion off Russia’s stock market this month, sent the rouble down 9 percent since the beginning of the year and further weakened Russia’s poor investment climate.

The economy grew 0.7 percent in January, a slowdown from 1.0 percent the previous month and analysts expect it to slow further as the impact of the crisis in Ukraine is felt.

“The integration of the global economy has reached such an extent that any split in economic ties cannot happen without consequences,” said Usmanov, a close ally of the Kremlin.

“Therefore we do not need sanctions.”

My insert here: Усманов: Санкции будут контрпродуктивными для обеих сторон (i.e. Usmanov: “Sanctions would be counterproductive for both sides”) [RT Russian YouTube channel, March 21, 2014]

Бизнесмен Алишер Усманов выразил свое скептическое отношение к перспективе введения санкций против России. По мнению миллиардера, такой шаг был бы контрпродуктивным для обеих сторон.

Potanin, who owns a stake in the world’s largest nickel and palladium producer Norilsk Nickel, said he had worked out a contingency plan, just in case. “Sanctions are a double-edged sword, it’s not clear who will be more hurt,” he said.

Most business owners know that this time the government will not prop them up, as it did during the 2008/2009 global financial crisis when Russia burnt through billions of dollars from its reserves to support its largest companies.

“We will watch how the situation develops, in what direction both our economy and the situation in the financial sector go,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the same conference.

Siluanov said the government would, if necessary, support Russia’s most important companies and institutions, but it did not have the resources to offer help the majority of companies.

“We do not want to be helping company owners all the time,” he said.

Putin was clear that Russia’s economy would develop on its own terms, and would do his best to reward loyal companies.

He said Russia should find ways to help Russian companies win contracts with state companies while holding competitive auctions with foreign companies to please what he called the more liberal economists in this room.

And while he knew business would like more flexibility in reducing the workforce, he would always consider the “social aspects” of these “difficult problems” – a clear reference to Russia’s monocities which are dependent on certain industries.

“We will do this,” he said. “I hope you understand me correctly.”

Or as has been reported in a wider context of Олигархи поговорили с Путиным «как после ареста Ходорковского» [РБК daily, March 21, 2014]

Открытая часть вчерашнего съезда РСПП [i.e. Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs] прошла без единого упоминания Крыма и международных санкций в отношении России. Слушавшие министров предприниматели ждали приезда Владимира Путина. Разговор с ним длился два часа — члены РСПП получили гарантии сохранности инвестиций в новый регион и пообещали обеспечить этим летом загрузку крымских отелей. Но со встречи они вышли «загруженными».

My insert here: Владимир Путин принимает участие в съезде РСПП [RT Russian YouTube channel, March 21, 2014]

Прямая трансляция. Президент России Владимир Путин принимает участие в работе съезда Российского союза промышленников и предпринимателей.

От министров экономического блока правительства бизнесмены ждали программных заявлений о том, как власти собираются поддерживать экономику под угрозой санкций со стороны Запада. Но глава Минэкономразвития Алексей Улюкаев ограничился признанием, что в правительстве плохо понимают, что происходит в экономике: февраль оказался неожиданно позитивным. Спад инвестиций в основной капитал замедлился с 7% в январе до 3,5% в феврале. «У нас выросли промпроизводство, потребительский спрос», — отметил он. Министр финансов Антон Силуанов отметил, что инфляция, хоть и может ускориться во втором квартале из-за ослабления рубля, во втором полугодии замедлится и по итогам года уложится в диапазон 5—6%.

Приехавший на съезд Путин отказал бизнесменам на просьбу разрешить им в одностороннем порядке переводить работников на сокращенную рабочую неделю или на смежные специальности, но поддержал идею преференций отечественному бизнесу при размещении госзаказа. По нынешнему законодательству российская продукция может быть максимум на 15% дороже импортного аналога, чтобы поставщик победил в конкурсе. «Я бы еще больше увеличил, но есть любимые вами и нами либеральные экономисты… Они говорят: а где же конкуренция, не пострадает ли качество? И это тоже правильно»,— сказал Путин.

На закрытой встрече с президентом остались члены бюро [правления] РСПП, а также глава Банка России Эльвира Набиуллина, первый вице-премьер Игорь Шувалов, советник президента Андрей Белоусов и глава администрации президента Сергей Иванов. Президент РСПП Александр Шохин рассказал РБК, что президент начал беседу с шутки. Шохин представил ему состав бюро РСПП, на что Путин ответил: «Как-то у вас хромает демократия и представительство других слоев бизнеса».

«Это был абсолютно неформальный разговор по вопросам, представляющим взаимный интерес, без заранее подготовленных докладов», — говорит Шохин. По его словам, на встрече обсуждалась ситуация, связанная с санкциями против России, «вопросы, связанные с Крымом как новым субъектом страны и возможностями инвестирования в него». «Повестка закрытой встречи была абсолютно свободной, — подтверждает пресс-секретарь президента Дмитрий Песков. — Предприниматели рассказали о своих проблемах законодательного характера, интересовались событиями на Украине, Крымом. Путин дал подробные разъяснения».

«Разговор шел два часа. Нам очень подробно рассказали хронологию украинских событий, историю про приезд в Россию Виктора Януковича. Как развивалась ситуация по Крыму. Рефреном была мысль о том, как все плохо на Украине сегодня и как плохо будет дальше», — рассказал РБК источник, знакомый с ходом встречи. По его словам, по стилистике разговор скорее походил на монолог, чем диалог. «Изначально думали поговорить и про деофшоризацию. Но предпринимателям был дан ответ в стиле «решение принято, есть законопроект — он исполняется», — говорит он. Атмосфера беседы напомнила ему общение олигархов с президентом, состоявшееся после ареста Ходорковского.

Бизнес интересовался гарантиями своих инвестиций в Крым, говорит другой участник совещания. «Спрашивали, насколько скоро российские правоохранительные органы будут полностью контролировать обстановку на полуострове, чтобы не было риска захвата российских активов радикалами», — добавил он. На вопросы про Крым отвечал помощник главы государства Андрей Белоусов. Предпринимателей не призывали срочно вкладываться в экономику полуострова, но попросили по возможности отправить работников их компаний в крымские здравницы — власти опасаются, что из-за последних событий поток туристов в Крым будет незначительным.

My insert here: Предприниматель: Через несколько месяцев все забудут о санкциях [RT Russian YouTube channel, March 21, 2014]

Российский предприниматель, председатель совета директоров корпорации «Биоэнергия» Давид Якобашвили уверен, что в скором времени ситуация с санкциями США и ЕС в отношении российских чиновников и банков успокоится. Бизнесмен уверен, что западные компании, работающие на российском рынке, смогут убедить свои правительства в недальновидности подобных решений.

«Со встречи члены РСПП выходили «загруженными». Крым — не повод для оптимизма», — говорит источник, знакомый с ходом встречи. Вице-президент РСПП Давид Якобашвили, напротив, говорит, что ему понравились и тон президента, и его настроение. «Он хочет мирного решения всех вопросов. Для нас это очень важно. Хорошо бы, чтобы никто не начинал военные действия. У меня осталось самое положительное впечатление и уверенность, что с нашей стороны не предполагается никаких агрессивных шагов. Надеемся, что не будет провокаций и с другой стороны», — поделился он с РБК впечатлениями от закрытой встречи.

My insert here:

Бюро Правления [РСПП i.e. Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs]

Бюро Правления Российского союза осуществляет оперативное руководство деятельностью Российского союза. Бюро Правления избирается Правлением на срок полномочий Правления и информирует Правление о своей деятельности. Правление вправе переизбирать членов Бюро Правления.

СОСТАВ БЮРО ПРАВЛЕНИЯ РОССИЙСКОГО СОЮЗА ПРОМЫШЛЕННИКОВ И ПРЕДПРИНИМАТЕЛЕЙ

Шохин Александр Николаевич	Президент Российского союза промышленников и предпринимателей
Абрамов Александр Григорьевич	Председатель совета директоров «ЕвразГрупп С.А.»
Алекперов Вагит Юсуфович	Президент открытого акционерного общества «Лукойл», Председатель Комитета по энергетической политике и энергоэффективности
Березкин Григорий Викторович	Председатель совета директоров Группы компаний ЕСН, Председатель Комиссии по электроэнергетике, сопредседатель Комитета по корпоративным отношениям
Бокарев Андрей Рэмович	Председатель Совета директоров ОАО «Угольная компания Кузбассразрезуголь», председательРегионального объединения работодателей «Кузбасский союз работодателей», ПредседательКомиссии по машиностроению
Вексельберг Виктор Феликсович	Председатель Совета директоров Группы компаний «Ренова», Президент Фонда развития Центра разработки и коммерциализации новых технологий «Сколково», Председатель Комитета по международному сотрудничеству
Галицкий Сергей Николаевич	Генеральный директор Розничной сети «Магнит», Председатель Комиссии по торговле и потребительскому рынку
Генералов Сергей Владимирович	Президент Группы компаний «Промышленные инвесторы», Председатель Комитета по развитию конкуренции
Дерипаска Олег Владимирович	Председатель Наблюдательного Совета общества с ограниченной ответственностью «Компания «Базовый Элемент», Председатель Комитета по экологии и природопользованию
Дмитриев Владимир Александрович	Председатель Государственной корпорации «Банк развития и внешнеэкономической деятельности (Внешэкономбанк)», Председатель Комитета по государственно-частному партнерству и инвестиционной политике и инвестиционной политике
Евтушенков Владимир Петрович	Председатель совета директоров открытого акционерного общества «Акционерная финансовая корпорация «Система», Председатель Комитета по промышленной политике
Зюзин Игорь Владимирович	Председатель Совета директоров ОАО «Мечел», Председатель Комитета по рынку труда и социальному партнерству
Казинец Леонид Александрович	Председатель Совета директоров Корпорации «Баркли»
Карачинский Анатолий Михайлович	Президент Группы компаний «Информационные бизнес системы» (IBS), Председатель Комитета по профессиональному обучению и профессиональным квалификациям
Костин Андрей Леонидович	Президент – председатель правления открытого акционерного общества Банк ВТБ
Лисин Владимир Сергеевич	Председатель совета директоров открытого акционерного общества «Новолипецкий металлургический комбинат», председатель Регионального объединения работодателей «Союз промышленников и предпринимателей Липецкой области», Председатель Комитета по налоговой политике
Мельниченко Андрей Игоревич	Председатель Совета директоров ОАО «МХК «ЕвроХим»
Мордашов Алексей Александрович	Генеральный директор открытого акционерного общества «Северсталь», Председатель Комитета по интеграции, торгово-таможенной политике и ВТО
Потанин Владимир Олегович	Генеральный директор ОАО «ГМК «Норильский никель», Председатель Комитета по корпоративным отношениям
Пумпянский Дмитрий Александрович	Председатель совета директоров открытого акционерного общества «Трубная металлургическая компания», Президент Регионального объединения работодателей «Свердловский областной союз промышленников и предпринимателей», Председатель Комитета по техническому регулированию, стандартизации и оценке соответствия
Рашников Виктор Филиппович	Председатель совета директоров ОАО «Магнитогорский металлургический комбинат», председательЧелябинского регионального объединения работодателей «Союз промышленников и предпринимателей»
Смушкин Захар Давидович	Председатель Совета директоров открытого акционерного общества «Группа «Илим», ПредседательКомиссии по лесному хозяйству и лесопромышленному комплексу
Усманов Алишер Бурханович	Генеральный директор общества с ограниченной ответственностью «Газпром инвестхолдинг», Председатель Комитета по совершенствованию контрольно-надзорной деятельности и устранению административных барьеров, Сопредседатель Российско-Канадского Делового Совета
Фридман Михаил Маратович	Член Совета директоров ОАО «Альфа Банк», Председатель Комитета по собственности
Чубайс Анатолий Борисович	Председатель Правления ОАО «РОСНАНО», Председатель Комитета по инновационной политике и инновационному предпринимательству
Якобашвили Давид Михайлович	Председатель совета директоров Корпорации «Биоэнергия», Председатель Объединенной комиссии по корпоративной этике при РСПП, Председатель Комитета по корпоративной социальной ответственности и демографической политике
Якунин Владимир Иванович	Президент ОАО «РЖД», Председатель Комиссии по транспорту и транспортной инфраструктуре

(AND THE FACTS DO NOT END HERE BUT ARE GOING TO EVEN HIGHER ECHELONS OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM. GOLDMANN SACHS AND LARRY SUMMERS ARE THE MOST NOTABLE EXAMPLES. BUT DO NOT FORGET J.P. MORGAN EITHER WHICH IS HAVING A 5% OWNERSHIP OF TENCENT AS WELL. So read The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower post completely.)

Alibaba gets Tango for its push into the U.S. and the whole Western world

March 20, 2014 12:17 pm / Leave a comment

It is a further proof point that in 2014: Jack Ma (Alibaba) going against Jeff Bezos (Amazon) et al. [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Jan 8, 2014]. It is also a critical investment as Alibaba needs to have a market leading messaging and social networking app of its own to compete with the Facebook+WhatsApp combo. The aim of Tango after the huge $215M investment from Alibaba (which is giving them 21.5% majority stake) is no less than:

… to build the WeChat of the Western world. We have all the WeChat features but each one of them is Westernized.

as was declared by Uri Raz, co-founder and CEO of Tango, in an interview to the Wall Sreet Journal. Quite an undertaking considering WhatsApp’s MAU (Monthly Active Users) of 450M and WeChat’s MAU of 355M versus that of the 70M+ MAU for Tango. Considering the details behind this announcement it is—nevertheless—quite feasible:

Tango Announcement [TangoME YouTube channel, March 19, 2014]

Tango announces a $280M round of funding led by Alibaba. Tango is a free mobile messaging service with 200M+ members. Through communication, social features and a compelling content platform, Tango members discover engaging ways to connect, get social and have fun. Download for FREE at http://www.tango.me on iOS, Android, Blackberry, Kindle Fire, and PC.

From TANGO AT-A-GLANCE [company fact sheet, March 19, 2014]

Funding

 Total funding to date: $367M

Series A – $5M (June 2010). Investors:
 MXB Holdings
 WR Hambrecht
 Long Sea Limited

Series B – $42M (June 2011). Investors: 4
 DFJ
 SPA Special Investment Fund

Series C – $40M (March 2012). Investors:
 AI SMS
 Qualcomm
 DFJ
 Long Sea Limited

Series D – $280M (March 2014). Investors:
 Alibaba [$215M from Alibaba according to Wall Street Journal, which is giving a 21.5% majority stake as the company was valued at the time of Series D founding at $1B]
 DFJ
 Qualcomm Ventures
 Access Industries
 Translink Capital
 Toms Capital
 Jerry Yang
 Bill Tai
 Alex Zubillaga

Tango’s Latest News: A Vision of The Future and a $280M Funding Round [by Uri and Eric in Tango Me Blog, March 19, 2014], note that my inserts below are from TANGO AT-A-GLANCE [company fact sheet, March 19, 2014] and the TangoME YouTube channel

We launched Tango in September 2009 out of the personal need to stay connected to our own families. It helped tremendously that both of us came from deep video technology backgrounds and had strong entrepreneurial spirits. But it was the emotional connection with family living in other parts of the world that inspired our mission here at Tango. Back then we felt that free online communication through texts, voice and video calls would remove barriers and change the world. The world agreed: we signed up our first million members in the first 10 days after launch.

Since then, we have been on quite a journey. The sheer power of free communication has changed the way we connect with others. Today, the amount of texting from over-the-top messaging apps surpasses carrier SMS. We’re proud that Tango has become a part of this industry disruption and even more excited that Tango has become a preferred place for our members to communicate and share with friends and family.

According to China’s Alibaba Invests $215 Million in Startup Tango [The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2014]

Last summer, Alibaba began blocking merchants on Taobao and Tmall from using WeChat to send promotional messages to shoppers. Tencent, meanwhile, added mobile payments last year and has been offering more services and shopping options on WeChat.

There are no immediate plans to connect the Tango app with the company’s various e-commerce services, though that could come over time, said a person familiar with the plans. Tango will operate separately from Laiwang.

Tango also expands Alibaba’s portfolio of fast-growing U.S. startups as the Chinese company tries to gain a foothold here. It led investments last year in app search-engine Quixey Inc. and two-day shipping provider ShopRunner Inc.
…
Alibaba’s cash will help Tango, based in Mountain View, Calif., to double its workforce to more than 300 this year and open up its service to more outside developers, Chief Executive Uri Raz said.
…
Mr. Raz said he began adding other services, such as games and photo sharing, after seeing the success of Asian texting apps such as WeChat, Kakao and Line. “We were looking at what happened in Japan and China,” Mr. Raz said. “It was the first time since 1999 that I saw the speed of innovation happening faster over there than here.”

From TANGO AT-A-GLANCE [company fact sheet, March 19, 2014]

What is Tango
Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.
Tango is consistently in the top 25 on Google Play and top 100 in the iTunes App Store.

Tango is available in 14 languages and has subscribers in more than 224 countries with nearly one third of its members in the U.S.

Basic Stats
Year founded: 2009
Number of users: 200M+ (if Tango were a country it would be the 5th largest in the world)
Daily user base growth: 325K (average)
Monthly active users [MAU]: 70M+
[note that WhatsApp bought by Facebook has MAU of 450M and Alibaba’s major competitor Tencent’s WeChat MAU of 355M]

Global breakdown based on DAU
 27% U.S. (North America 31%)
 20% Asia
 12% Europe
 29% Middle East
 8% Other

Platform user base demographics:
 Gender neutral
 Over half between the ages 25-44
Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, PC
Coverage: 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi
Number of iPhone/iPad users: 40% (whole user base)
Number of Android users: 60% (whole user base)
App store ranking:
 4.3 stars on Google Play
 4.5 stars on iTunes
Number of patents: 30 (4 approved – 26 pending)
Awards:
 Appy Awards: Best Communication App 2013
 About.com: Reader’s Choice 2013
 Webby nomination 2013
 Verizon’s Must Have Apps list 2013
Number of employees: 160
Total funding to date: $367M
Partners: 40+ game partners, 10+ Direct advertising partners, and Spotify on Music Messaging

While we’ve made progress on our mission to enable people to communicate, share and feel more connected, we are just beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible. The opportunity for Tango goes well beyond just providing a messaging app for free communications. We see an even bigger opportunity – one where people can have access to free communication, social networking features and enjoyable content – all within a single platform.

Over the past eight months, Tango has evolved.

We’ve introduced a content platform that is now home to more than 30 games.

My inserts here:
– Connect & Play with Tango [TangoME YouTube channel, June 18, 2013]

Tango is partnering with Gameloft, Bubble Gum Interactive, and other world-class developers to bring great games to their messaging app.

– Games developed for Tango: 35+ games live
– Game developers for Tango: 50+ developers signed

We’ve introduced new social networking features that allow members to share updates or photos and to find new friends.

My insert here:
– Find Friends Nearby with Tango [TangoME YouTube channel, July 18, 2013]

And we’ve introduced social music sharing through integration with Spotify, which means members can now send each other songs.

My inserts here:
– Tango powered by Spotify video [TangoME YouTube channel, Nov 11, 2013]

Search, listen and share songs with your friends.

– Tango music video featuring recording artist Riz – the first of its kind to be recorded using Google Glass [RizVEVO YouTube channel, Nov 11, 2013]

This is the FIRST ever music video shot entirely using Google Glass.

– Total Music Played: hundreds of millions

According to China’s Alibaba Invests $215 Million in Startup Tango [The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2014]

Tango joined with outside developers, such as game maker Gameloft Inc. and music-streaming service Spotify AB, to offer users a range of virtual activities inside the app. For example, Tango users can share 30-second clips of their favorite songs from Spotify or compete with their friends for the high score in the Gameloft title “Candy Block Breaker.” The company shares the revenue from purchases made inside the apps with the developers.

By the end of this year, Tango plans to open its software code to allow any outside developer to build games and other services for its users, Mr. Raz said.

The startup is also bolstering its revenue through mobile advertising. Last December, it began working with Twitter Inc.’s MoPub unit to sell ads within users’ news feeds and message inboxes, promoting apps made by Zynga Inc. and others.

Quite honestly, the results have blown us away. We’re excited by the 2x increase in daily engagement since last July. And we love it that our members are huge fans of music and love to send hundreds of millions of songs to their friends through Tango. These changes are reflected in huge growth in registered users: over the last year we’ve doubled to more than 200 million.

The way we see it, this is just the beginning for Tango. We believe that messaging apps will fundamentally change the way content and services are distributed. We are very excited to continue to build upon our foundation of free communications, while extending into new growth areas in social networking and content. We know that we can’t do it on our own, and for that reason, we couldn’t be more excited to announce our newest investor, Alibaba Group.

According to China’s Alibaba Invests $215 Million in Startup Tango [The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2014]

While the company has an office in Beijing and has seen rising usage in Thailand and Hong Kong, Asia isn’t currently a main area of focus for the company, Mr. Raz said.

Mr. Setton says the alliance with Alibaba will give Tango market insights that will help it beat rivals to new trends.

Rather than take on WeChat in China, Mr. Raz said he’s more focused on perfecting the model for U.S. users.

“We want to build the WeChat of the Western world,” Mr. Raz said. “We have all the WeChat features but each one of them is Westernized.”

Together with some of our prior investors, Alibaba has lead a $280 million Series D funding round. [$215M from Alibaba according to Wall Street Journal, which is giving a 21.5% majority stake as the company was valued at the time of Series D founding at $1B.] As part of this financing, Michael Zeisser from Alibaba will join our Board of Directors. We welcome Alibaba’s investment in Tango. We know that we will be able to benefit from Alibaba’s expertise.

More on Tango as it is:

Tango – Connect, Get Social, Have Fun! [TangoME YouTube channel, March 12, 2014]

Tango is a free mobile messaging service with 200 million members. Through communication, social features and a compelling content platform, Tango members discover engaging ways to connect, get social and have fun. Tango is available on iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, Blackberry, Kindle Fire and PC and works across platforms and networks. Download the app at http://www.tango.me.

Let’s Play – Tango [TangoME YouTube channel, Feb 21, 2014]

The award-winning messaging app now powers games around the world. Connect & Play with hundreds of millions of people around the world! Play with Tango!

Tango Free Voice, Video, and Text [TangoME YouTube channel, Sept 10, 2012]

Now you can send pictures with all of your Tango friends, or try playing out new game during a video call!

and its first year anniversary was proudly celebrated with the following achievements: Tango Turns One! [TangoME YouTube channel, Sept 30, 2011]

Check out the many milestones Tango achieved it’s first year out to market!

Tango’s market position as per Since Facebook Owns WhatsApp, Here Are 5 Alternative Messaging Services [ReadWrite, Feb 25, 2014]

You shouldn’t feel forced to relinquish your messaging data to Facebook.

Facebook stunned the tech world last week when it scooped up the messaging application WhatsApp for $19 billion.

The deal was largely heralded as a win for both sides: Facebook gained a much-needed service it hasn’t yet delivered on, and the small startup cashed in big time. But the downside of the acquisition fell heavily on the shoulders of users—those 450 million people [MAU – monthly active users] whose private data is now in the hands of Facebook.

If you’re a WhatsApp user who wants to break up with Facebook, or someone looking for a great new messaging application, we’ve put together a list of mobile messaging apps you should try.

Telegram

Almost five million people signed up for Telegram after Facebook bought WhatsApp. As a messaging service, it is sleek and easy to use.

Telegram, which is built by a Berlin-based nonprofit, is cloud-based and heavily encrypted so users can use several devices to access their messages and documents including both mobile and desktop. The company also claims Telegram is a free service that will remain so in the future, meaning no advertisements or subscription fees will ever be levied on customers.

Telegram is available on iOS and Android. Developers can access and implement the app’s API through Telegram’s open source code.

Wickr

Snapchat’s sophisticated competitor Wickr brings government-strength security and encryption to your messages. Wickr lets you send self-destructing messages, documents, photos, videos and voice calls that disappear after a select amount of time.

Wickr is entirely anonymous, as the application doesn’t ask for any of your personal information. Wickr is also exceeds top secret and HIPAA compliance, so people in medical, law enforcement, and journalism fields can feel confident using Wickr for secure messaging knowing it can’t be traced or reproduced.

Wickr is available on iOS and Android.

Line

Line is one of the most popular messaging services on the market for free voice and video calling.

The app is massively popular internationally, especially in Asia, and it finally entered the U.S. market earlier this year. Line is more than just a simple messaging application—it has branched out to offer in-app games and a variety of standalone apps like Line Camera and Line Tools. While the app is free, additional services like stickers and games provide revenue for the company. In the first quarter of 2013, Line made $17 million off sticker sales alone.

Line is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry.

Kik

Kik is the world’s first messaging application with a built-in browser. The application boasts over 100 million users, a majority coming from North America and Western Europe.

Kik has over 30 HTML5 experiences built into the application for sharing pictures, videos and gaming, according to the company, and recently launched the in-app browser. Kik has also created open source tools to help developers build and optimize their websites for mobile.

Kik is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry.

Tango

Tango, like Line, offers an all-inclusive social app with games, music, video, and voice and text messaging. The San Francisco-based company says the app has ~~150~~ million [200 million as of March 19, 2014] users.

Because of the additional features that extend beyond voice calling and messaging, users of more traditional messaging services like WhatsApp may find the interface a bit confusing, but users can personalize their profiles to find and make friends or discover people you may know nearby.

Tango is available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone [was on WP7 back in 2011, but it is not on WP8].

Breaking Up Is Hard

It’s inconvenient to switch to an entirely new messaging service, especially if all your friends are dedicated to one app. But you shouldn’t feel forced to turn over your data to Facebook either. All these applications provide messaging services that rival WhatsApp, without the commitment to Facebook services, meaning you’re not turning over your mobile phone book and payment information to the social network in exchange for an efficient messaging service.

Amazon may hike Prime cost as earnings disappoint and further challenges lay ahead of the company for which it needs to adjust its business model and expand its operations

January 31, 2014 12:28 pm / Leave a comment

… first time after 9 years

The main attraction of Prime is that the shipping service is bundled with a mature streaming video service for the price of Netflix’ service only:
Amazon or Netflix [Brent Byron YouTube channel, Dec 5, 2012]

Comparison of Amazon prime and Netflix streaming video services. Both amazon and netflix have movies and tv shows, some of the same titles, but netflix has many more movies available than amazon (20,000 vs 12,000). You can also bundle the dvd service with streaming service on netflix. Price is similar for the two services. Amazon gives free shipping on some items with prime accounts, but has no dvd rental service, just streaming. I’m an affiliate of netflix.

but wait:

Is the Amazon Prime service worth it? [Clark Howard: Save More, Spend Less YouTube channel, Jan 17, 2014]

Considering joining Amazon Prime for the free shipping and free streaming video service this holiday season? Here’s why you may want to rethink that move…

Amazon’s miss on holiday quarter [CNBC, Jan 30, 2014]

Tom Forte, Telsey Advisory Group; David Pearl, Epoch Investment Partners; Natali Morris, independent technology reporter; and CNBC’s Jon Fortt discuss Amazon’s fourth quarter earnings report.

Amazon.com posted quarterly results Thursday that fell short of expectations and handed in a weak revenue outlook.

Additionally, Amazon said during its conference call it may increase the cost of its popular Amazon Prime subscription by $20 to $40 due to higher fuel and other shipping costs.

There were no immediate details on when or how Amazon would make the decision during the call. The company did not disclose the exact number of Prime customers.

“We have added massive selection and digital content to the service—Kindle owners lending library, Prime instant video,” according to CFO Thomas Szkutak during the call. “It’s great value for customers. We see customers love it and we will continue to make that better over time.”

In December, Amazon said that its Prime service had a “record-setting holiday season.” According to the company, more than 1 million people signed up in the third week of December alone. Prime members get free two-day shipping on eligible items, free streaming of 150,000-plus movies and TV episodes, and free e-book borrowing from a library of more than 475,000 titles.

The world’s largest Internet retailer posted earnings of 51 cents a share on sales of $25.59 billion, versus expectations for 66 cents a share on sales of $26.06 billion, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

In addition, the company posted current-quarter sales guidance of between $18.2 billion and $19.9 billion, missing expectations for $19.67 billion.

The company said international sales gained just 13 percent, lower than Wall Street forecasts for around 14 percent to 15 percent.

Shares initially shed nearly 10 percent in extended-hours trading before gradually recovering from lows. The stock rallied nearly 5 percent during the regular session Thursday. (Click here to get the latest quotes.)

The stock has had a stellar run since the lows of 2009, with shares surging close to the $400 mark by the end of 2013.

“It’s a good time to be an Amazon customer. You can now read your Kindle gate-to-gate, get instant on-device tech support via our revolutionary Mayday button, and have packages delivered to your door even on Sundays,” said CEO Jeff Bezos in the company’s press release. “In just the last weeks, Forrester, YouGov, and ForeSee have all ranked Amazon #1—and we believe we’re just scratching the surface of what world-class customer service can be.”

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon plans to move into the mobile payments business, offering brick-and-mortar retailers a checkout system that uses Kindle tables as soon as this summer, citing sources.

Recently, Amazon also expanded its grocery delivery service to two new U.S. cities, introduced Sunday package delivery with the Postal Service and reached agreements to build warehouses in several states.

Amazon Prime TV Commercial via @RichBTIG [BTIGResearch YouTube channel, Jan 2, 2014]

Aired on IFC network on 12/29/13 Richard Greenfield & Brandon Ross, BTIG http://www.btigresearch.com

From Amazon.com’s Management Discusses Q4 2013 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, Jan 30, 2014]

Tom Szkutak – Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President:

For Q1 2014, we expect net sales of between $18.2 billion and $19.9 billion or growth of between 13% and 24%. This guidance anticipates approximately 30 basis points of unfavorable impact from foreign exchange rates.

GAAP operating income, or loss to be between a $200 million loss and $200 million in income, compared to $181 million in income in the first quarter 2013. This includes approximately $350 million for stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets.

We anticipate consolidated segment operating income, which excludes stock-based compensation and other operating expense to be between a $150 million loss and $850 million, compared with $441 million in the first quarter of 2013. We launched Prime in the U.S. nine years ago with free, unlimited two-day shipping on one main items in an annual membership priced at $79. Today Prime Selection is growing to over 19 million items.

Even as fuel and transportation cost have increased, the $79 price has remained the same. We know the customers love Prime as the usage of the shipping benefit has increased dramatically since launch. On a per customer basis, Prime members are ordering more items across more categories with free two-day shipping than ever before.

With the increased cost of fuel, transportation as well as the increased usage among Prime members were considering increasing the price of Prime between $20 to $40 in the U.S.

…

In terms of details of how we would roll out the Prime price increase that we are considering, you have to wait on that, but certainly as I mentioned, it’s something that we haven’t had any increase in the nine years. Customers certainly love Prime.

The available units for shipment have grown dramatically from one million to over 19 million over the last nine years. We haven’t had any price increase. Customer usage, on a per customer basis, has gone up pretty dramatically, given the selection and the convenience of the service. So that’s why we are considering, of course during this nine year period, shipping cost have gone up a lot, fuel cost have gone up a lot. So that’s certainly the basis for us taking a look at it but in terms of the details, we will be back when we make those decisions back to customers.

…

We have added a lot of new services to Prime beyond this shipping benefits you mentioned it owners and then library. Certainly video, Prime Instant Video we are investing very heavily, and so those are certainly costly. Those aren’t the reasons for the price increases that were contemplating. That decision again is just based on – we have not done our price increase nine years. Shipping costs have gone up if you look back very considerably over the nine-year period.

Customers like the service, they are using it a lot more and we have a lot more selection. They are using it lot more and so that’s the reason why we are looking at the increase.

In terms of the international growth, the growth was solid, with revenue [exchange] of 15%. The unit growth was considerably faster than that, primarily because third-party growth we saw very strong and certainly FBA [Fulfillment by Amazon – Build your Business with Amazon Services] is a component of that and when you think about the capacity that we built it for not only for retail, but also for our third parties and we are able to offer your our FBA items through Prime as well, so we are very happy with the capacity that we have built across the world, including our international operations and that’s reflect in the results that you are seeing.

…

Yes, we like it the way it is. Yes. But again, if you look back at what we have done, you can’t expect that we might do going forward, but certainly we have had, in the U.S., Prime in place for nine years. We have added a massive selection during that time period. We have also added, this is on the physical side and we have also added digital content as well to the service in the U.S. with Kindle Owners’ Lending Library as well as Prime Instant Video and so it’s a great value for customers. We see that customers love it and we are going to continue to try and make that even better for customers over time.

…

We are seeing customers like the digital content. We are seeing great engagement, we are not breaking out in terms of the form, but again we are seeing great engagement. We do track very closely the Prime customers to come from free trials for examples.

They come through the pipeline for digital content from free trial standpoint, we track those conversions and we see that’s growing very nicely. We do look at customers that use our Prime Instant Video, what are their shopping patterns look like both side of digital content.

Beyond the free content we have on there, do they buy more digital content and certainly we are seeing nice growth in digital content because of that, because they do. They also do a lot of shopping physical categories as well, so those things we are tracking very closely and it’s a great pipeline for us as customers look at the total value proposition for Prime, including digital content.

Amazon Prime Instant Video VS Netflix Streaming [DaVirtualGeek YouTube channel, Jan 23, 2014]

A quick look at the differences between the two popular streaming services Amazon Instant Video and Netflix. More Details Below. Pricing and Selection: Netflix Streaming: $7.99 per month or $95.88 Annually. Netflix says, “We have thousands of other movies & TV episodes available to watch instantly ” Amazon Instant Video (Included with Amazon Prime) $79.99 per year. $39.99 per year for students. Amazon says they have, “41,000 movies & TV episodes” JOIN Amazon Prime Student FREE: http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info?ie=UTF8&refcust=WS5HDYTCDR66IVLIYTE55GDU2U&ref_type=generic

From: Amazon.com Announces Fourth Quarter Sales up 20% to $25.59 Billion [press release, Jan 30, 2013]

…

Highlights

Amazon announced a record-setting holiday season for Amazon Prime, the annual membership program with tens of millions of members worldwide. Amazon is working hard to increase capacity for the Prime program. In December, Prime was so popular that Amazon limited new Prime membership signups during peak periods.
Prime Instant Video selection increased from 33,000 to more than 40,000 movies and TV episodes in 2013.
Selection in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library in 2013 grew from 250,000 books to more than 475,000 books-books that Kindle owners with a Prime membership can borrow for free with no due dates.

…

Amazon Studios debuted new original series Alpha House and Betas. The first three episodes are available for all customers to enjoy, with the remaining episodes available exclusively on Prime Instant Video.
Amazon Prime Instant Video will be the exclusive premium subscription home for Extant [see: Amazon and CBS Corporation Announce Exclusive Content Licensing Agreement for New CBS Series Extant—Produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television and Starring Halle Berry [Jan 8, 2014]], a serialized drama starring Halle Berry and produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television. The drama will premiere on the CBS Television Network in June with unlimited streaming of all the series’ episodes available four days after their initial broadcast on CBS.

…

About Amazon.com

… The new Kindle Fire HDX features a stunning exclusive 7” or 8.9” HDX display, a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor, 2x more memory, and 11 hours of battery life, as well as exclusive new features of Fire OS 3.0 including X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, Prime Instant Video downloads, and the revolutionary new Mayday button. The all-new Kindle Fire HD includes an HD display, high-performance processor and dual speakers at a breakthrough price. …

Related (only for the last 365 days):

Amazon Enjoys Record-Setting Year for Marketplace Sellers

More than a billion units worldwide were ordered from Marketplace Sellers, including local businesses of all sizes, on Amazon during 2013

The number of active Marketplace Sellers using the Fulfillment byAmazon service grew more than 65 percent year-over-year worldwide

Amazon today announced a record-setting year for Marketplace Sellers with businesses of all sizes selling on Amazon. In 2013, Marketplace Sellers on Amazon sold more than a billion units worldwide, cumulatively worth tens of billions of dollars. Marketplace Sellers around the world also continued rapid adoption of Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), a service that Marketplace Sellers can choose to have Amazon ship their products directly to customers and offer Amazon Prime benefits, FREE Shipping, simple exporting to customers around the world, easy returns for orders placed on Amazon and great customer service. The number of active Marketplace Sellers using the FBA service grew more than 65 percent year-over-year worldwide.

The Amazon Marketplace, which consists of more than 2 million Marketplace Sellers of all sizes worldwide, experienced record growth during the busy holiday selling season. On Cyber Monday, more than 13 million units were ordered worldwide from Marketplace Sellers on Amazon, growing the total units ordered by over 50 percent year-over-year.

“It has been an incredible year for Marketplace Sellers including popular brands and businesses of all sizes selling on Amazon. Our customers have told us they appreciate the hundreds of millions of products listed by Marketplace Sellers that range from all types of apparel to a vast selection of electronics items,” said Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace. “Our goal every day is to make selling onAmazon as easy as possible. Fulfillment by Amazon is a wonderful service as it gives all Marketplace Sellers the option of warehousing their inventory in our fulfillment center network. It has been a game changer for sellers because their items become eligible for Prime benefits, which drives their sales and benefits consumers with additional Prime selection.”

…

“We experienced explosive sales growth for items listed on Amazon, 10x sales increases in some cases, when offering attractive holiday deals. For many items, all available inventory was sold out within an hour of the deal posting! We are already making selling on Amazon a core component of our marketing and sales planning for holiday 2014 and beyond,” said Mike Mitchell, COO for MMP Living, a home goods and toy retailer based in Colorado. “By leveraging Amazon’s FBA program we were able to focus on sourcing and offering products of the highest quality, knowing that Amazon’s world-class infrastructure will handle getting our products out to customers quickly. With the focus always on the customer coupled with the fastPrime Shipping options, Amazon is second to none.”

Amazon and CBS Corporation Announce Exclusive Content Licensing Agreement for New CBS Series Extant—Produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television and Starring Halle Berry [press release, Jan 8, 2014]

Prime Instant Video to be the exclusive subscription streaming home for Veronica Mars TV show in deal with Warner Bros. domestic Television Distribution

With Prime Instant Video fans can catch-up on all three seasons of the Veronica Mars series before the movie debut on March 14

Amazon and A24 Announce Exclusive Content Agreement Making Prime Instant Video the Only Premium Subscription Service to Offer Films from A24 [press release, Nov 21, 2013]

Exclusive film distribution deal brings A24 movies such as Spring Breakers and The Bling Ring to Prime Instant Video

Amazon and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Announce Expanded Content Licensing Agreement for Prime Instant Video [press release, Oct 22, 2013]

Deal includes Vikings, the #1 new cable series of the year in the U.S. along with popular MGM films for Prime members to stream instantly

CBS’s Under the Dome Now Available for Exclusive Online Subscription Streaming on Prime Instant Video [press release, June 28, 2013]

Amazon Prime members can now watch Under the Dome episodes on an unlimited basis just four days after their initial broadcast

Under the Dome is also available for purchase and download exclusively on Amazon Instant Video

Amazon Expands Agreement with PBS to Bring Even More Popular TV Shows to Prime Instant Video [press release, June 26, 2013]

Prime members now have access to even more episodes of NOVA,Masterpiece, and documentaries from Ken Burns along with PBS KIDS programs such as Caillou, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood andWild Kratts

PBS KIDS programming available to customers with Kindle FreeTime Unlimited

Amazon and Viacom Announce Multi-Year Video Licensing Agreement; Adds a Selection of TV Shows Available Exclusively on Prime Instant Video [press release, June 4, 2013]

Prime Instant Video is adding thousands of episodes fromNickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV and COMEDY CENTRAL—including a collection of subscription TV shows customers won’t find anywhere else—with favorite kids shows like Dora the Explorer, Go, Diego, Go!,Blue’s Clues and The Backyardigans, all available to Kindle Fire customers with FreeTime Unlimited

Multi-year deal will bring Amazon customers the TV shows and movies they want to watch, when they want to watch them, and on any device they want to watch them on—including Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, Roku and more

Prime Instant Video Adds Exclusive Subscription Streaming Access to Popular NBCUniversal Shows Covert Affairs, Defiance, Grimm, Hannibal and Suits [press release, May 16, 2013]

Also as a part of the agreement with NBCUniversal, popular children’s shows including Curious George and Land Before Time will be available to customers with Kindle FreeTime Unlimited

Scripps Networks Interactive’s Popular Lifestyle Shows from HGTV, DIY Network, Food Network, Cooking Channel and Travel Channel Coming to Prime Instant Video and Amazon Instant Video [press release, Feb 28, 2013]

Prime Instant Video is now home to previous seasons of popular shows like Rachael Ray’s Week in a Day, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Cupcake Wars, House Hunters, Iron Chef America, Chopped, and Throwdown With Bobby Flay

This is the first online-only subscription distribution deal for Scripps Networks Interactive

Amazon’s Prime Instant Video Named the Exclusive Online Subscription Home of FX Series Justified [press release, Feb 26, 2013]

Fan-favorite series The Shield will also join the Prime Instant Video catalog for Amazon Prime members to instantly stream at no additional cost

Amazon recently announced that PBS favorite series Downton Abbeyand the anticipated summer series Under the Dome from CBS will soon be available exclusively on Prime Instant Video

Amazon and CBS Announce Expanded Content Licensing Agreement [press release, Feb 13, 2013]

Amazon Prime members now have more of their favorite CBS series to choose from for instant streaming, at no additional cost on hundreds of devices

New programming now available to Amazon Prime members includes America’s Next Top Model, Everybody Loves Raymond, Undercover Boss, United States of Tara and more

Amazon and CBS Corporation Announce Content Licensing Agreement for Prime Instant Video To Be Exclusive Online Subscription Home for CBS’s Under the Dome [press release, Feb 11, 2013]

New TV series based on Stephen King novel and produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television to premiere on CBS Television Network in June

Amazon Prime members will have unlimited access to series episodes just four days after broadcast and Under the Dome will also be available for purchase and download exclusively on Amazon Instant Video

Prime Instant Video to be the Exclusive Subscription Streaming Home for Carnival/Masterpiece Co-Production “Downton Abbey” on PBS [press release, Feb 1, 2013]

Subscription streaming of “Downton Abbey” — the most watched TV series of all time on Prime Instant Video — to become exclusive toAmazon

2014: Jack Ma (Alibaba) going against Jeff Bezos (Amazon) et al.

January 8, 2014 4:21 pm / 1 Comment on 2014: Jack Ma (Alibaba) going against Jeff Bezos (Amazon) et al.

What will happen in 2014 on the U.S. e-commerce market as a consequence of that?

This is something new to you? I suggest to read first my previous three analyses:
– The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower [Aug 13, 2013]
– The value of Taobao.com and TMall.com in China, as well as outside [Sept 2, 2013]
– Alibaba to secure “centuries” of the future of an already “US$150 billion ecosystem of consumers, merchants and business partners” via an internal partnership (rejuvenated each year) of top executive owners (with just 10% of shares) also controlling the board [Oct 3, 2013]
If still in doubt read Amazon Vs. Alibaba: Game On [Seeking Alpha, Dec 26, 2013]

1. In 2013 the following strategic investments were already done in the U.S.:

2. Also because Jack Ma [is] Person of the Year by the Financial Times [CCTV News YouTube channel, Dec 30, 2013] for very good reasons

According to the Financial Times Person of the year: Jack Ma [Dec 12, 2013] this was given for a number of reasons from which I will quote only the following two excerpts:

Alibaba’s sales now exceed those of eBay and Amazon combined and make up about 2 per cent of China’s gross domestic product. Seventy per cent of all Chinese package deliveries come from Alibaba sales. Roughly 80 per cent of Chinese ecommerce transactions are conducted through Alibaba’s sites. And this is probably just the beginning, considering more than half of China is still offline. With 600m people using the internet and counting, China will soon overtake the US as the world’s biggest ecommerce market.

That 2% of China’s GDP would be about US$177 billions (given the forecast of 7.6% growth for 2013 and US$ 8230 billion for 2012 as per http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp). According to China’s economy projected to grow steadily, dynamically: economists [Xinhua, Jan 6, 2014]: “China was likely to maintain steady growth of 7.5 percent to 8 percent in real terms in 2014”. This means that Alibaba’s sales only (i.e. without Alibaba’s financial services, see below) contribution to China’s 2014 GDP could easily surpass US$200 billions by the end of this year.

Mr Ma is now setting his eyes on a new goal: shaking up Chinese finance. This has sent shockwaves through the staid, state-dominated financial sector and shows that his ambitions extend well beyond online retail.

3. Indeed, these January 2014 quotes from the Chinese media are providing extraordinary evidence regarding Jack Ma’s new goal of shaking up Chinese finance:

Tuning up for 2014 reform (2) [Jan 5]:

Carr at North Square Blue Oak … points out that e-commerce giant Alibaba Group’s Yu’ebao fund lured 100 billion yuan($16.5 billion) away from the country’s bank deposits in just four months.

“New innovative financial products such as this are already causing quite a lot of disruption to the financial system,” she says.

China Exclusive: Internet finance transforms China’s financial landscape [Jan 7]:

Last year was widely seen as “ground zero for Chinese Internet finance,” partly because of the phenomenon involving “Yu’E Bao (Leftover Treasure)”, a personal online finance product introduced in June by Internet giant Alibaba. It allows users to place their driblet savings — no less than one yuan — into a money market fund.

As of the end of 2013, Yu’E Bao had 43.03 million users with aggregate deposits of 185.3 billion yuan (30.4 billion U.S. dollars), the biggest single public fund in China. Internet finance has for the first time become part of life for many Chinese people.

China to set up fully private banks in 2014: CBRC [Jan 6]:

China will set up three to five fully private banks on a trial basis this year in a bid to further open up the banking sector to domestic and foreign capital, China’s banking regulator said Monday.

Private capital will be introduced to restructure current banking institutions or set up new ones bearing their own risks, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said in a work meeting.

Strict procedures and standards will be set for the pilots, with demanding set-up criteria, limited licenses, enhanced supervision and a risk handling system, according to the CBRC.

The CBRC will try to relax the threshold for foreign capital to enter China’s banking sector and ease Renminbi operation requirements, while more policies will be issued to support banking reform in the Shanghai free trade zone and financial reform pilot zone.

Tech in China 2013: High Hopes of Disrupting Domestic Financial Market excerpt #1:

The reform plan China’s central government released in November 2013 allows qualified private investors to set up banks.

Shanda, the veteran online gaming company, is the first Internet company that settled in the newly established Shanghai Free Trade Zone, planning to build Internet-based financial business and a joint bank there.

3rd payment firms enter the fray [Jan 7]:

Third-party payment companies, after a decade of fast development, are providing not only payment services but also services traditionally provided by banks, such as loans.

Among these companies, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd – China’s largest e-commerce company – has gone further than others. Alibaba plans to set up Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Services Group to consolidate its online payment and micro loan businesses, and provide financial services for consumers and small and micro enterprises – those with an annual turnover of less than 30 million yuan (4.8 million U.S. dollars).

The company has made it clear that its two main business arms will be e-commerce and financial services based on its huge e-commerce data. The latter is thought to be a challenge to banks and may change the financial industry landscape due to the use of Internet technology and the huge amount of data that records users’ history and habits.

“For the past 13 years, Alibaba hasn’t thought of challenging anyone, but creating something new instead,” Alibaba’s Chairman Jack Ma said at an industry forum late March when asked whether his company aims to challenge banks.

“Banks are getting a bit nervous. But I think that getting nervous is good, and it would be strange if they aren’t,” Ma said.

“If banks weren’t nervous, China’s small and micro businesses would be nervous,” Ma added, hinting that banks fail to provide enough services to help small and micro enterprises raise funds.
…
Last year [i.e. in 2013], the total transaction volume processed by third-party payment companies reached 3.8 trillion yuan [$628B], an increase of 76 percent year-on-year, according to domestic research company Analysys International.

While the biggest player in the sector, Alipay …originally acted only as an escrow between sellers and buyers, third-party payment companies are now offering a wide range of services, such as payment and settlement services, and micro loans.

Alibaba plans to launch a credit payment service for its mobile users, which gives them a certain credit limit based on their Alipay records.

Tech in China 2013: High Hopes of Disrupting Domestic Financial Market excerpt #2:

It takes only one click to transfer the balance in an Alipay account to Yuebao on either the website or the mobile app, Alipay Wallet. The mutual fund is managed by THFund, a mutual fund company Alibaba bought a controlling stake in in 2013 — THFund raised to the second biggest mutual fund company in terms of the total assets under management in 2013, up from lower than 50th one year ago, thanks to Yuebao. Users can use the money in Yuebao for online shopping anytime they like.

Yuebao’s slogan is “14 times of the return from banks”. It sounds attractive, but Yuebao doesn’t perform better than the average mutual funds. The convenience must be a key factor in attracting users. Another attractiveness is Yuebao shows returns daily.

Tech in China 2013: High Hopes of Disrupting Domestic Financial Market excerpt #3:

Apart from running a mutual fund by using user’s balance, there’s a bigger picture for Alipay.

Before long, several Chinese Internet companies launched online mutual funds and gave them similar names, such as Suning’s Yifubao, but none could be the same with Yuebao.

Alipay itself was established for Alibaba’s e-commerce marketplaces. When one user uses money in Yuebao for shopping on Alibaba’s platforms, that will be translated into transaction-based commission to Alibaba. If Yuebao is widely recognized and users would always deposit money into it, users don’t have to make payments through banks anymore. When it comes to the mutual fund itself, the more users on board and more money tansferred into it, the lower, theoretically, the risk.

Fan Zhiming, president of Alifinance for Domestic Market, said at an event last month that they’d possibly make Yuebao a default that any balance in an Alipay account would buy the mutual fund automatically.

Alifinance, the finance arm of Alibaba Group, has already disrupted China’s finance sector with services like Alipay and small loans for online retailers.

WeChat to face tougher competition in 2014 [Jan 2]

Instant messaging app WeChat has helped Chinese internet giant Tencent become the first company to secure a position in the mobile internet market, but it is expected to face greater competition from rivals, the Shanghai-based First Financial Daily reports.

One of the chief rivals is the Alibaba Group. An employee of the e-commerce business leader told the newspaper that the company was planning to target WeChat in four areas — telecom services, its own IM app Laiwang [with a free data plan], vendors on its online platforms, and through the celebrities using the Sina Weibo microblogging service.

Sina and Alipay Launches Weibo Payment, to Fight against WeChat Payment [Jan 7]

Sina launched a payment solution, Weibo Payment, together with Alipay today. It is already available with the 4.2 version of Sina Weibo app released yesterday. Fan Zhiming , head of Alifinance for Domestic Market, made it clear that Weibo Payment is aimed at WeChat Payment when it comes to the convenience of making payments online or offline, and social shopping. He asked the audience to “forget about WeChat Payment” at the press conference today, saying Weibo Payment will perform better.

From now on all the items from Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall shared or shown as ads on Sina Weibo will have a “buy” button that will lead users to make payments directly with Alipay.
…
Alibaba, the parent company of Alipay, made a strategic investment in Sina Weibo last year, with not only cash but also a promise of bringing in no less than $380 million worth of advertising revenue for Sina Weibo through displaying Taobao/Tmall items in the next three years.

4. No wonder that Alipay has made significant inroads into the U.S. market during 2013:

Airlines, hotels and other travel enterprises can now easily connect to the more than 800 million Chinese account holders on the Alipay platform via the UATP Network.
“Alipay is dedicated to meeting the needs of China’s vast and growing pool of keen overseas travelers by making it easier for them to pay for air tickets, book hotels, rent cars and make other travel-related purchases online from the world’s leading airlines and accredited travel agencies.”

Among the U.S. online retailers that’s begun accepting Alipay this year is iHerb Inc., No. 204 in the Internet Retailer. In the first six months of accepting the Chinese payment method, iHerb’s sales on the cn.iHerb.com subdomain of its web site aimed at Chinese consumers increased 244.52% compared with the prior six-month period and 684.15% compared with the same period a year earlier
Without disclosing the total number of U.S. sites accepting Alipay … there are about 10 web sites in the U.S. that already are generating more than 100 Alipay transactions per day. They include the e-commerce sites of retailers Gap Inc. Direct, No. 19 in the 2013 Top 500, and Forever 21, No. 353; travel site Travelzoo; web domain registrar GoDaddy and peerTransfer, which handles tuition payments for international students.
Meantime Alibaba Microfinance Service Group’s share structure revealed [Xinhua, Nov, 2013] which will clearly help in capitalisation of Alipay for U.S. expansion as well:

HANGZHOU, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) — Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, holds less than 7.3 percent of shares in the newly founded Alibaba Microfinance Service Group, revealed a shareholding structure report on Friday.

Forty percent of the shares are held by over 20,000 staff of the Alibaba Group and the Alibaba Microfinance Service Group, said the report.

That 40 percent, part of an incentives scheme to make “all staff shareholders,” includes Ma’s shares.

Ma also holds 7.3 percent of shares in the Alibaba Group.

The other Alibaba Microfinance shares are expected to be acquired by strategic investors in the future, according to the report.

Alibaba set up the Microfinance Service Group in March to integrate its payment and micro payment businesses.

The Alibaba Microfinance Group is not included in the portfolio of Alibaba Group’s much-discussed initial public offering.

5. As in addition to all that and according to How Alibaba Views International Expansion and Mobile: A Discussion With Joe Tsai [Forbes, Dec 11, 2013]

One man who was with Jack from the beginning was Joe Tsai. Alibaba’s longtime CFO, Joe recently moved up to Vice Chairman of the group and is actively involved in the group’s recent strategic investments.

I spoke to him recently about Alibaba’sinternational expansion plans and how it’s adapting its e-commerce platform for the mobile age we now live in.

1. Up until now, most Americans think about Alibaba Group as a Chinese-focused company. What are your thoughts on international expansion for the group?

We think of international by what we can do in a cross-border context. It’s one thing to think of exporting from China, which is what we have done a lot to date. But it’s another to situate ourselves in other countries. We’re just starting to do that.

We’ve always had a cross-border B2B business.

We also have AliExpress which is growing and scaling nicely. The concept for AliExpress is to bring Chinese manufacturers online and make a global B2C marketplace. eBay has done a cross-border marketplace well. AliExpress focuses on consumer markets in developing countries. For example, we are the largest e-commerce site in Russia. We are also looking a lot at South America right now.

The next cross-border opportunity: there are millions of overseas Chinese in North America, Europe and Australia. They all want to buy from Taobao. How do we bring them back? Every overseas Chinese consumer is like 3-4 native Chinese consumers in terms of purchasing power. There’s no language problem with them coming to our website, but we have to work on payment and logistics.

And on the flipside, we want to bring hundreds of millions Chinese to shop in the United States. This is something which American merchants get excited about. With AliPay, we can enable Chinese consumers sitting in their home country to shop on, say, Saks Fifth Avenue, pay us in RMB, and we make sure merchants get the currency of their choice and handle logistics.

For us, international means starting with the cross-border opportunity. By analogy, if you look at how Facebook has grown in different countries, they started with cross-border as well. Facebook early adopters in foreign countries were all friends with people in the US. That’s how they built a critical mass of Brazilian early adopters who had friends in the US. Later on, those early adopters pulled in other Brazilians to the platform and Facebook suddenly hit critical mass around the world.

2. Recently, Alibaba made key investments in Sina Weibo, AutoNavi, and ShopRunner in the US. Tencent is rumored to be making an investment in Snapchat and has been seeing great success with WeChat. Baidu has bought 91 Wireless. The online video space is extremely hot right now in China. How does Alibaba think about taking your core e-commerce services to mobile and dealing with such threats as the proliferation of Android and messaging platforms?

E-commerce is one segment that’s perhaps the most complex when it comes to mobile. You not only have to deal with browsing and selection but logistics and payment, which implies issues of reliability and security. Mobile adoption in e-commerce is a lot slower than in other consumer Internet verticals. For example 50% of GMV on Amazon and eBay is not from mobile. It’s more like 15%-20% – even though in the social networking context, like facebook, more than 50% of the users access the service from mobile devices. Today, we are seeing high teens mobile penetration from mobile GMV in China.

We could sit here and be complacent about the rise of mobile because Taobao and Tmall have very good positions having captured large shares in mobile commerce, but we’re feeling the opposite. We’re seeing the future and we feel a strong sense of urgency when it comes to mobile.

Mobile commerce could really disrupt the traditional marketplaces in the PC environment. In mobile, there’s not a lot of screen room. E-commerce marketplaces are conducive to larger screens. People want to save time on a mobile small screen. Therefore, the whole model could be disruptive.

So, with mobile, we are shifting from a model of pulling users to pushing messages out to users. Ebay’s web site is a destination. That’s pull. In contract, mobile enables every merchant to push whatever message to a huge audience.

Alibaba Bet On Wireless Business With ALL IN Strategy, Aiming At 30% Market Share For Laiwang [TechNode, Oct 21, 2013]

Alibaba takes Laiwang, an IM tool released 4.0 version this September, as a breakthrough point for wireless business. The market share of Laiwang is expected to reach 30% in a bid to guarantee better user experience and to facilitate the expansion of other services.

Different to similar IM tools of WeChat and EasyChat, Laiwang targeted at pure friend interaction platform by introducing new features such as, burn after reading, an automatic message eliminating service, and the right to establish groups with up to 500 members. The company has launched large-scale promotion activities for Laiwang both internally and externally.

To complete the product lineup, the company will also zero in on Mobile Taobao, Ali OS as well as an imminent O2O [Online to Offline] service. The newly added users of Mobile Taobao exceeded 100 million in the first half of this year, while number of active users tripled that of the same period of last year. Sina Weibo account of Mobile Taobao-like Weitao recorded more than 50 million visitors.

Because of the disruptive elements of mobile, we’re not standing still. We have to move out of our comfort zone of e-commerce. We have to be more eclectic. While the Taobao app is already one of the most popular apps in China with hundreds of millions mobile users, you will see us doing our own messaging platform. We have something competitive to WeChat. It has a lot to do with e-commerce, if you make it large enough. Within the Taobao app we also have a “mini-app” that enable merchants to stay connected to their customers who subscribe to get feeds. This is a very good tool for merchants to retain their existing customers, which lowers their cost of churn and ultimately lowers their cost of having to acquire new customers to replace the churn.

YunOS 2.3 云OS (Aliyun OS 2.3)
[Multicorechina.com YouTube channel, Dec 16, 2013]

Introducing the YunOS 2.3

Alibaba merges two cloud subsidiaries [WantChinaTimes.com, Jan 8, 2013]
Aliyun and net.cn [http://www.net.cn (万网 – WAN network or universal net) which is known as HiChina (en.hichina.com) in English], two cloud computing internet service companies under China’s largest internet company Alibaba Group, will be merged as a new company retaining the Aliyun name. … Net.cn’s services will remain unchanged, offering its users cloud computing and cloud emails with the continually upgrading system. The website is the largest domain name system provider and virtual server industry leader in China. …

Telecom licenses granted by MIIT [Global Times, Dec 26, 2013]

China’s top telecommunications watchdog issued licenses to the first batch of domestic mobile virtual network operators on Thursday, an attempt to further reshape the country’s telecom industry.

This move enables a total of 11 private firms – including e-commerce platform jd.com, cloud computing service provider net.cn, and Beijing-based communication service company DiXin Tong – to purchase mobile telecom services from the three State-owned telecom carriers and resell the services to consumers under their own brands, according to a statement released Thursday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

As the parent company of net.cn, e-commerce giant Alibaba said in an e-mail sent to the Global Times Thursday that the license will help the company to offer customized telecom services to online shoppers and retailers, allowing it to further extend its e-commerce ecosystem.

We’re also doing an operating system for smartphones. The core strategy is to give users an experience that connects their hardware device to content and services in the cloud. It’s an alternative to Android where an Android device is isolated from cloud-based services.

In mobile, the boundaries between e-commerce, communications, social networking, etc., become blurred.

Sina Weibo, often known as the Twitter of China, is a way for merchants who have Taobao store-fronts to stay in touch with their customers and for consumers to share what they like on Taobao, and that’s in part what drove our strategic investment in Weibo. AutoNavi is not just a provider of navigation and map services. They have one of the most popular “local services” apps in China that enable users to find restaurants and entertainment based on their locations. Local services will play a big role in e-commerce in the future.

We will continue to find all kinds of new ways to reach our users in ways that best suit this new mobile environment we operate in.

6. Also Alibaba spinoff moves further into the cloud [People’s Daily, Dec 25, 2013]

A division of the e-commerce giant readies to take on US competition

E-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will extend its cloud-computing services to overseas markets in March, as it attempts to grab a share of the public cloud arena from archrivals such as Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp.

Aliyun, Alibaba’s spinoff cloud-computing division, is scheduled to set up data centers outside China to provide cloud-computing services to local enterprises and Chinese companies’ overseas operations, the company announced on Tuesday.

By building platforms for companies to manage and store data in the cloud, Aliyun will become the first Chinese company to reach out to the foreign public cloud segment, days after its US counterpart Amazon announced the launch of a similar services in China.

“After five years of development and three years of commercialization, Aliyun is able toprovide sustainable services to customers, backed by its resourceful parent, Alibaba,” said Aliyun director Zhang Jing.

The service recently gained the world’s first gold certification for cloud security from the British Standards Institute, a business standards company, which further guarantees its reliability, Zhang noted.

Zhang declined to disclose the first destination for Aliyun’s global outreach. But he implied two options: the United States (Amazon’s birthplace) or Southeast Asia, thanks to its proximity to domestic businesses.

As the country’s largest cloud-computing platform, Aliyun provides cloud computing services for hundreds of thousands of Chinese websites and e-commerce vendors, banks, game developers and others.

Three-fourths of the 188 million orders generated from the Nov 11 online sales day were processed by the Alibaba cloud-computing system.

Alibaba has made a consistent push into domestic cloud- computing enterprises. InSeptember, Alibaba acquired personal cloud storage service Kanbox.

In August, ChinaSoft International Ltd announced a strategic agreement with Aliyun and the Lishui municipal government for a State-funded cloud project in Zhejiang province.

Aliyun may team up with local telecom carriers to avoid local regulatory restrictions, Zhang noted.

7. Finally, as the result of extreme lucrativeness of organic growth in 2014 Alibaba to extend $8 billion loan to end 2014, buying more time for IPO: sources [Reuters, Dec 11, 2013]

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Wednesday it is seeking to extend the draw-down period of an $8 billion loan from January next year, a move people familiar with the e-commerce company’s plans said would buy it more time to launch an IPO.

The original expiry date of the draw-down period on the loan was January 30 of next year, according to the deal terms. Alibaba wants to extend that to December 31, 2014, sources familiar with the discussions said.

“We have plenty of cash on the balance sheet and there is no need to draw down at this time, so we are extending the availability of funds to maintain flexibility,” the company said, without specifying a new date.

Alibaba said the funds will be used for corporate purposes. It has already used $5 billion from the loan facility to refinance its debt.

The $8 billion loan is a key part of Alibaba’s IPO plan, and the extension to the end of next year signals that the public float is remains a long way off.

China’s biggest e-commerce firm has struggled to reach an agreement with Hong Kong regulators over a partnership structure it hopes to use as part of an initial public offering (IPO), a deal that expected to be worth around $15 billion and which may take place next year.

Public comments by its founder Jack Ma and a statement from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in recent months, however, have raised the possibility of a Hong Kong listing.

The company has yet to outline a date or venue for the IPO. Under an agreement with its second biggest shareholder Yahoo Inc., Alibaba has incentives to complete an IPO before December 2015. [Note that Yahoo! Inc. is required to sell its 208mn shares of Alibaba concurrent with the IPO.]

All 22 lenders involved with the loan must agree to the extension.

The banks have until December 20 to respond to the extension request, and those responding in favor before Friday will get an “early bird” fee of $50,000 from the company if the move succeeds.

Note that there is no information yet on whether the banks extended their loans to Alibaba. The delay of the IPO is, however, so lucrative to the company that I would be rather surprised if it won’t be done. According to a latest analysis What’s the Best Way to Play 2014’s Hottest IPO? [The Motley Fool, Jan 6, 2014] “it’s not unrealistic to foresee a $200 billion valuation” even as Alibaba stands today. With all those extraordinary opportunities in Chinese finances, telecom etc. (described above) that valuation could increase significantly during the year. This means that the Alibaba Group will have much more new capital coming under Jack Ma’s control. And that is even more threat to Jef Bezos (Amazon) et al.

It is also important that Alipay is not part of that Alibaba Group IPO, so getting the strategic investors’ money (60%) will also significantly increase the additional capital that will come under Jack Ma’s control.

Details about Jack Ma and his strategic moves for the U.S. market in 2013

You can best understand the personality of the chairman of the Alibaba Group from Jack Ma Commencement Address at HKUST [Jim Erickson YouTube, Nov 8, 2013]

Alibaba Group founder and executive chairman Jack Ma gives the commencement address to the 2013 graduating class at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on Nov. 8, 2013.

So his devotion to the problems of the society is a quite inherent thing which was driving his life and still will continue to do so, as evidenced by this part of Jack Ma’s Last Speech as Alibaba CEO [Tech in Asia, May 13, 2013]:

Moving forward, I will be doing things that I’m interested in, such as working on education and the environment. Besides work, let’s work hard together to improve China. Let the water be clear, the sky be blue, and the food be safe. Everyone, please! (Jack Ma kneels down to the audience).

According to the Financial Times Person of the year: Jack Ma [Dec 12, 2013]:

But there is another reason for choosing Mr Ma this year: his decision in May to step down as Alibaba’s chief executive at the age of 48 to devote himself to tackling some of China’s biggest problems – in particular its looming environmental disaster.

The Resignation Speech of Jack Ma, the CEO of Alibaba Group [TofuSquare YouTube channel, May 15, 2013]

Yu Ma (Jack Ma), the CEO of Alibaba Group resigned from his CEO position on May 10th. The Alibaba Group is one of the most influential companies in China, and Yu Ma is one of the iconic figure for Chinese internet, e-commerce and high-tech industry . TheAli Group owns one of the largest online shopping platforms in China, Taobao. The Ali Group held a 40,000 people party in Hangzhou, China to celebrate Taobao’s 10th anniversary. Accompanying with the melody “Ali, Alibaba, Alibaba is a happy young man…” The CEO of Alibaba “Yun Ma” stepped down from his CEO position. Tofusquare have translated his speech for those of you who are interested.

According to Jack Ma TNC Board in China [The Nature Conservancy’s China Program, June 3, 2013]

Amid much fanfare, on May 10 Jack Ma stepped down as CEO from Alibaba, the business he built from scratch in his hometown of Hangzhou that is now one of the biggest companies in the world. On the very next day, May 11, he assumed the role of his latest endeavor: to help restore China’s environment by becoming the Chairman of the Board for The Nature Conservancy’s China Program.

Meanwhile with Jack Ma concentrating on a big strategic role as chairman of the Alibaba Group one must consider Alibaba’s Future IPO Plans [BizAsiaAmerica YouTube channel, July 14, 2013]

Phillip Yin interviews Ronald Wan of the Hong Kong Securities Institute on the future plans of Chinese E-commerce giant Alibaba to go public

The preparation for the IPO certainly includes international expansion plans as well. U.S. is already the place where one can see that:

Alibaba Group unveils U.S.-based investment organization [press release, Oct 22, 2013]

Strategy to back entrepreneurs with a focus on Internet commerce and emerging technologies

SAN FRANCISCO – Oct. 22, 2013 – Alibaba Group announced that it has established a U.S.-based investment organization that will look to back entrepreneurial teams working on innovative platforms, products and ideas with a focus on Internet commerce and emerging technologies.

Michael Zeisser, who joined Alibaba after leading Liberty Media Corp.’s strategies in digital media and Internet commerce for nearly a decade, heads the team. Zeisser created and oversaw Liberty Media’s eCommerce Group, a roll-up of specialty online retail companies where he worked closely with entrepreneurs and senior executives in growing the group’s annual revenues to $1.5 billion. Prior to Liberty Media, Zeisser was a partner in the Media and Private Equity practices of McKinsey & Co. Zeisser will assume the role of Chairman of US Investments for Alibaba Group.

“Alibaba is run by entrepreneurs, and we believe in supporting entrepreneurs with great vision and a strong sense of mission for their companies,” said Joe Tsai, Executive Vice Chairman of Alibaba and head of Alibaba’s strategic investments. “We are extremely excited to have someone of Michael’s caliber and experience to lead our investment efforts in the U.S. The team has been active over the past several months and we have already completed a few investments in the U.S. by partnering with terrific entrepreneurial teams.”

Three U.S. companies have recently announced that they received growth capital funding from Alibaba. They are Fanatics, the leading online retailer of officially licensed sports merchandise; ShopRunner, a platform for top retailers providing free 2-day shipping to online shoppers; and Quixey, a leading developer of search technology that enables users to search for content within mobile apps.

Other members of Alibaba’s U.S. investment team include Peter Stern, a senior banker from the technology, media and telecoms M&A team at Credit Suisse in New York who advised Alibaba on the landmark $7.6 billion stock repurchase from Yahoo in 2012; and Danielle Wong, a Stanford undergraduate who recently received her MBA from the Yale School of Management. The team will be based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

About Alibaba Group:

Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. Since it was founded in 1999, the China-based Alibaba Group has developed leading businesses in consumer e-commerce, online payment, business-to-business marketplaces and cloud computing. Alibaba Group operates Taobao Marketplace (www.taobao.com), China’s most popular online shopping destination; Tmall.com (www.tmall.com), China’s leading online platform for merchants offering quality, brand-name goods to consumers; Juhuasuan (www.juhuasuan.com), a group shopping platform; eTao (www.etao.com), a comprehensive shopping search engine; Alibaba.com (www.alibaba.com) and 1688.com (www.1688.com), leading business-to-business marketplaces for small businesses engaged in international trade and domestic China trade, respectively; and Alibaba Cloud Computing (www.aliyun.com), a developer of platforms for cloud computing and data management. Alipay (www.alipay.com), the most widely-used online payment service by consumers and merchants in China, is an affiliate of Alibaba Group.

Regarding Fanatics and ShopRunner here is: Self-Made Billionaire Michael Rubin: E-Commerce Is Rapidly Changing [Entrepreneur YouTube channel, Nov 27, 2013]

The owner of Rue La La, Fanatics and ShopRunner was bankrupt in his teens. But today, at 41, he is worth almost $3 billion. Find out more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/230138 Related: Why This Company Wants You to Change Your Underwear http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/229810 Why Bitcoin’s Future Is Bright http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/228099

Score! Web Sports Retailer Fanatics Inc.Tops $3 Billion Valuation [The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2013]

One online retailer has quietly grown into one of America’s largest Web merchants by carving out a lucrative niche: sports apparel.

The company, Fanatics Inc., this week raised $170 million in a new funding round. That more than doubles the retailer’s valuation to $3.1 billion from just a year ago, according to a person familiar with the deal’s terms.

In an interview, Michael Rubin, chief executive of Fanatics’ parent company Kynetic LLC, said the retailer expects to pull in $1 billion in revenue this year, up from $800 million last year, through a focus on sales—primarily online—of officially licensed jerseys, mugs, jackets and other such merchandise. He said the company is profitable, without providing specifics, and he has no plans to take it public.
…
The new funding comes from Singapore state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., said Mr. Rubin. Temasek gains a seat on the Jacksonville, Fla., company’s board, he said.

A spokesman for Temasek confirmed the investment, but declined to discuss specifics. An Alibaba representative declined comment.

Mr. Rubin said the money would, among other things, help Fanatics increase its $500 million inventory, fund an overseas expansion and bolster its distribution, including a planned new warehouse in the Western U.S. “We think there’s huge potential in sports apparel and for Fanatics to grow,” said Mr. Rubin. “We’ll be looking at Western Europe and Asia as places to move into.”

Fanatics adds 800 seasonal jobs for upcoming holiday season [USA01 YouTube channel, Oct 21, 2013]

Fanatics is the world’s largest online retailer of officially licensed sports merchandise and they’re adding 800 seasonal jobs.

Sports E-Commerce Leader Fanatics Launches Mobile App for iPhone and Android [press release, Nov 13, 2013]

November 13, 2013 – JACKSONVILLE, FL – Fanatics, Inc. announces the launch of its first-ever mobile app for iPhone and Android devices. The leading online retailer of officially licensed sports merchandise is continuing to ensure sports fans receive the best possible shopping experience, including easier access to the largest assortment of team gear on smartphones.

The new Fanatics app provides sports fans worldwide with mobile access to more than 250,000 products from over 700 teams. Users have the ability to browse through merchandise, save their favorite teams and find the best quality gear from all major leagues, including the NFL, NCAA, MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, PGA and UFC. App users also have access to the free Fanatics REWARDS program, which offers free 3-day shipping on everything plus 5% Fan Cash™ on orders over $50 and 10% Fan Cash™ on orders over $100.

“Launching the Fanatics mobile app is an exciting time for our company as we continue to expand our reach to sports fans,” said David Katz, SVP and GM of Mobile for Fanatics. “With Fanatics growing so quickly and sports over-indexing on mobile, it was crucial that we get a great, user-friendly commerce app for fan gear out to our users. And this is just the start since location information and real-time data will allow us to build on this start and create even better experiences for passionate fans.”

About Fanatics

Fanatics is a leading online retailer of officially licensed sports merchandise and provides the ultimate shopping experience to sports fans. As a Top 50 Internet Retailer Company, Fanatics comprises the broadest online assortment offering hundreds of thousands of officially licensed items via its Fanatics (www.fanatics.com) and FansEdge (www.fansedge.com) brands. In addition, the company powers the e-commerce sites of all major professional sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, PGA), major media brands (NBC Sports, CBS Sports, FOX Sports) and e-stores for over 200 collegiate and professional team properties.

ShopRunner Helping Retailers Boost Sales, CEO Says [ShopRunner YouTube channel, May 14, 2012]

June 20, 2012 (Bloomberg) — Michael Golden, president and chief executive officer of ShopRunner, talks about the company’s business strategy and services for retailers. He speaks with Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” (Source: Bloomberg) Learn more about ShopRunner athttp://www.shoprunner.com

Alibaba Leads $206 Million Investment in ShopRunner [The Wall Street Journal, Oct 10, 2013]

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has led a $206 million investment in a rival to Amazon.com Inc., AMZN +1.38% one of its biggest U.S. moves as the Chinese e-commerce giant considers an initial public offering here.

Alibaba invested in ShopRunner Inc., which offers unlimited two-day shipping from retailers including Toys “R” Us Inc. and RadioShack Corp. RSH -2.62% for a $79 annual fee. American Express Co. AXP +1.27% has also taken a small stake in ShopRunner.

The deal values ShopRunner at about $600 million, said a person familiar with the matter, and completes a funding round in which Alibaba previously chipped in about $70 million. It isn’t clear exactly how much Alibaba invested, but it did put in most of the funding, this person said. As part of the deal, eBay Inc. EBAY +1.58% sold its prior 30% holding in ShopRunner for a profit, the person said.
…
Alibaba has had designs on the U.S. for years. It operates two U.S.-facing websites, traditional online marketplace Aliexpress.com and Alibaba.com, a business-to-business sales site. In 2010, it struck a deal to sell goods through eBay’s marketplace. In June, Alibaba took a minority stake in Fanatics Inc., also controlled by ShopRunner-parent Kynetic LLC, as part of $170 million funding round.
…
“The U.S. market in the long run is very interesting to us,” said Joe Tsai, Alibaba’s executive vice chairman and co-founder in an interview. “Coming into this market is about learning about American consumers and how the market operates.” Mr. Tsai said he expects ShopRunner to be competitive with Amazon over time. One analyst says that won’t be easy.
…
ShopRunner is headed by Scott Thompson, the former PayPal president who resigned as Yahoo’s chief executive last year after a flap over a flawed biography in a company regulatory filing.

Mr. Thompson, who joined ShopRunner in July, said the cash injection will help the company grow more quickly, including adding new retailers. “We’re staking out a place in mobile, hiring more engineers that will allow us to evolve our business,” Mr. Thompson said. He said the company is also hiring additional salespeople.

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. plans to join as soon as this month, said John Koryl, a division president. “Our customer wants to know she’ll get her item in two days,” he said. “This is a good experiment to see how it goes.”

The ShopRunner funding round marks another milestone for Kynetic CEO Michael Rubin, who sold e-commerce consultancy GSI Commerce to eBay in March 2011 for $2.4 billion; the unit is now called eBay Enterprise. The June round in which Alibaba participated valued Kynetic at $3 billion.

ShopRunner takes a 2% to 5% cut of goods purchased from merchants’ websites by members of the loyalty program, Mr. Thompson said. And it is one of few alternatives for merchants hoping to branch out into e-commerce while not relying too heavily on Amazon. The company doesn’t disclose revenue or profitability.

Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership with American Express giving many U.S. cardholders free memberships, a potential pool of tens of millions.

Scott Thompson, Ousted Yahoo CEO, Named New CEO of ShopRunner [FinancialNewsOnline, July 23, 2012]

From Fnno.com, this is the Financial News Network. While a lot of attention has been paid to Marissa Mayer being named the new CEO of Yahoo, it seems her predecessor has a new job as well. Scott Thompson, the previous CEO of Yahoo has been named the new CEO of ShopRunner.

ShopRunner is a subscription service that partners with over 60 online retailers. Customers pay a monthly fee, and are then able to reap the benefits of exclusive deals with certain retailers, and receive free shipping. Thompson was previously a board member for the company, as early as when he was the president of PayPal.

Thompson’s previous position at Yahoo lasted only four months after which he was forced to depart amid allegations he lied about his qualifications. ShopRunner’s current CEO, Mike Golden, will remain with the company as president. For more coverage and analysis of the business world follow us on Twitter @FNNOnline or check out our website at fnno.com

Quixey – Introducing the New Android App [quixey YouTube channel, Oct 22, 2013]

Quixey is the best place to find and discover apps on Android. Download it for free on Google Play here: http://bit.ly/1cVpC74 Learn more about the product at http://www.quixey.com/androidapp

Announcing Quixey on Android, a Better Way to Find Apps! [Quixey News, Oct 23, 2013]

Today we’re super excited to announce the launch of our first direct to consumer product, now available for free on Android — download it from Google Play right here and read about it on the product page!

Until now, most app search has been based on titles and keywords, which requires users to know the name of an app before they can search for it. With Quixey, all you have to do is describe what you want to do in natural language. For example, “tune my guitar” or “identify wines.”

Beyond that, we’ve included a bunch of fun and engaging new features. Whether you know what kind of app you want, or just have a minute to find something new, there’s something for everyone. Here’s what Quixey on Android offers:

Search – App search that works. You don’t need to know an app’s name to get great results. Search for apps by describing what you want to do and we’ll find apps to help.

Trending – Check out the latest and greatest apps. No matter who you are – parent, student, teacher, traveler, athlete, gamer, musician – we have the top trending apps picked for you.

Browse – Browse through categories and subcategories. Take our browse wheel for a spin to find the perfect app for you (not available on Gingerbread OS).

Sample – Curious what types of apps are out there? Check out our sample queries to see what other people are searching for.

Quixey is in beta and we’re committed to building an amazing product that you love. Submit your feedback from within the app (in the information section) or send an email to androidapp@quixey.com. Thanks and have fun finding great new apps!

[Tech Talk Video] The Functional Web: The Future of Apps and the Web [quixey YouTube channel, March 4, 2013]

CTO Liron Shapira gives a talk about the future of apps and the Functional Web at Box HQ in Los Altos on Feb 27, 2013.

The Functional Web is also explained by him in this Quixey blog post of March 7, 2013.

Quixey Secures $50M in Series C Funding Led by Alibaba Group [Quixey News, Oct 3, 2013]

Today we’re thrilled to announce we’ve officially closed our latest round of funding! Series C is led by Alibaba Group, with new investor GGV Capital, and participation from existing investors Atlantic Bridge, Innovation Endeavors, Translink Capital, US Venture Partners, and WI Harper.

“Next year, 95% of the world’s population will have mobile access, and by 2016 people will use 1.5 billion smart mobile devices. Quixey is at the epicenter of this brave new world, and this investment will ensure that we continue to expand globally,” said Tomer Kagan, Quixey CEO and Co-Founder. “Apps have moved from novelty to a major factor in purchasing decisions for consumers and we’ve only just started to scratch the surface of what they can do.”

We’re very excited to be working with a company on the level of Alibaba, whose mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. Since its inception, it has developed leading businesses in consumer e-commerce, online payment, business-to-business marketplaces and cloud computing, reaching Internet users in more than 240 countries and regions.

Joe Tsai, Executive Vice Chairman at Alibaba, is equally as excited to be working with us. As he says, “Innovation is at the heart of Alibaba’s culture, so backing entrepreneurs who are developing forward-thinking technology is what we love to do. Quixey has a great vision for the future and a fantastic team to see it through.”

The additional $50 million, which brings our funding total to $74.2 million, will be used to further develop our market leading Functional Search™ technology, which currently allows users to find apps by describing what they want to do. With the flexibility to bolster our already strong roster of talented employees, we’ll now be able to focus on going deeper and deeper into apps, bringing users the information and functionality they want quicker than ever before.

“Building user-centric products is what Quixey is about. We should be the starting point for every mobile device,” said Guru Gowrappan, EVP, Product and Marketing at Quixey. “We give users a more natural way to search for the things that makes their lives easier. That’s the core of our Functional Search™ technology and the core of the company.”

Ever since launching in 2011, we’ve been working hard to bring the build the best possible product for our users. This is a huge benchmark for us as it allows us to make our vision for the future of apps and the web a reality much faster than originally possible. If you have any questions about the funding round, please send us a note at press@quixey.com. Look out for more big announcements in the coming months!

Alipay service gains rising popularity [CCTVcomInternational, July 17, 2013]

Alipay’s Yu E Bao, an online payment platform in China, is rapidly gaining popularity amongst online retailers and shoppers.

China’s answer to PayPal expands into the U.S. [Internet Retailer, Sept 27, 2013]

Three hundred million Chinese consumers shop online, and most of them have accounts with Alipay, the PayPal-like online payment service owned by Alibaba Group Ltd., operator of China’s top online marketplaces. In a move that could make it easier for Chinese shoppers to buy on U.S. e-commerce sites, Alipay is now promoting itself as a payment option for U.S. e-retailers.

Among the U.S. online retailers that’s begun accepting Alipay this year is iHerb Inc., No. 204 in the Internet Retailer. In the first six months of accepting the Chinese payment method, iHerb’s sales on the cn.iHerb.com subdomain of its web site aimed at Chinese consumers increased 244.52% compared with the prior six-month period and 684.15% compared with the same period a year earlier, says John McCarthy, director of marketing at iHerb.

…

Leading Alipay’s international expansion is Jingming Li, whose title is chief architect and acting president of the newly formed Alibaba International Financial Service Unit. Based at Alibaba’s U.S. headquarters in Santa Clara, CA, Li sees a big opportunity in enabling Chinese shoppers to pay with a method that they use widely in China, not only to shop online but also to pay utility and other bills offline in China.

Li notes that China’s increasingly affluent middle- and upper-class consumers made 83 million trips abroad last year [in 2012] and spent $100 billion while traveling. In addition, he says, they spent 20 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) buying directly from e-commerce sites outside of China. They’re especially interested in buying baby products, apparel and luxury goods.

They would buy more, Alibaba reasons, if they could pay with the Alipay accounts they use in China. “That’s where our international focus will be, helping our members continue to use their Alipay accounts outside of China,” he says.

…

Without disclosing the total number of U.S. sites accepting Alipay, Li says there are about 10 web sites in the U.S. that already are generating more than 100 Alipay transactions per day. They include the e-commerce sites of retailers Gap Inc. Direct, No. 19 in the 2013 Top 500, and Forever 21, No. 353; travel site Travelzoo; web domain registrar GoDaddy and peerTransfer, which handles tuition payments for international students.

International web sites can boost sales by accepting Alipay because many Chinese consumers don’t have credit cards from Western brands like Visa and MasterCard, Li says. Plus, he says, “They are in the habit of using Alipay. If a merchant is willing to use Alipay as a form of payment it gives a lot more trust and confidence to the consumer who may be purchasing an airline ticket from a foreign carrier for the first time.”

Li would not disclose Alipay’s fees, but says they are lower than the fees charged by major credit card brands like MasterCard and Visa. Chinese consumers typically fund their Alipay accounts from their bank accounts, which eliminates much of the risk that credit card issuers take on when they extend credit to cardholders. McCarthy of iHerb says the fees he pays are comparable to what he pays for other payment methods, and that he views the fees as “attractive.”

…

Chinese consumers & global travel [BizAsiaAmerica YouTube channel, Nov 20, 2013]

Li Jingming, Vice President of Alipay International appears on CCTV to discuss Alipay’s potential global expansion.

Alibaba restructures Alipay’s parent, Jack Ma’s share reduced [Reuters, Nov 1, 2013]

The online payment affiliate of China’s biggest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Ltd will be restructured to attract new strategic investors, in a move that will reduce the shareholding of Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma in the affiliate.

Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co Ltd will be restructured as a new company in which 60 percent of its shares will be offered to new strategic investors, Lucy Peng, head of the restructured entity, said in a letter published on its official Weibo microblog account on Friday.

Ma will see his shareholding reduced from 80 percent to about 7 percent in the new company, or no greater than his shareholding in Alibaba Group, according to the letter.

The restructured company, to be known as Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Services Group, will hold Zhejiang Alibaba’s 100 percent stake in unit Alipay, as well as its shareholding in Alibaba’s micro-finance unit, Zhongan Insurance, and Tianhong Asset Management Co.

Alipay is China’s biggest third-party payment platform, providing payment solutions to 460,000 merchants, and with 800 million registered accounts.

The remaining 40 percent in the new company will be offered to nearly 24,000 employees at Alibaba Group and Zhejiang Alibaba, said Peng, former chief executive of Alipay. That includes the share held by Ma.

The announcement on Friday will have no impact on existing agreements with Alibaba and the group’s shareholders SoftBank Corp and Yahoo! Inc, Alibaba spokesman John Spelich said.

In 2011, Ma sparked a public dispute with Alibaba Group’s biggest outside investors when he separated Alipay from Alibaba. Ma said at the time that new Chinese government regulations on third-party payment services required the changes.

The companies later settled, in a deal that guaranteed Alibaba 49.9 percent of Alipay’s earnings prior to an initial public offering, and as much as $6 billion if Alipay sells shares to the public.

“Today’s announcement underscores that employees of both Alibaba Group Holdings and Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Services Group are being incentivized to work hard to achieve success for the company,” Spelich said.

Alibaba Group, through Alipay, is introducing a variety of financial services to complement its e-commerce businesses. Besides Alipay, which provides users with an online payment system, the Hangzhou-based company has also started fund and insurance sales, as well as small loan finance.

In June, Alipay launched Yu E Bao, a fund management platform, allowing Alibaba customers to directly invest cash from their Alipay account into a money market fund managed by Tianhong Asset Management Co.

The Zenglibao fund is the most successful fundraising by any mutual fund in China this year, with managed assets reaching 55.7 billion yuan ($9.14 billion) at the end of September.

Alibaba also received approval this week from China’s securities regulators to act as a third party for the online sale of fund products on its Amazon-like Taobao.

China’s Alipay teams with U.S. network [BizAsiaAmerica YouTube channel, Nov 20, 2013]

Mark Niu reports on how Alipay is making it easier for Chinese to book flights and hotels online by partnering with the U.S. company UATP. Subscribe to BizAsiaAmerica: http://goo.gl/FMKaBj Follow CCTV America: Twitter: http://bit.ly/15oqHSy Facebook: http://on.fb.me/172VKne

UATP and Alipay Unite to Help the U.S. Travel Industry Tap into the World’s Top-Spending Travel Market [press release, Nov 5, 2013]

Airline and Travel Payment Summit, Chicago, – November 5, 2013 – UATP announced today that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Alipay, China’s leading third-party online payment solution, to enable the U.S. travel industry to offer Chinese consumers a convenient and trusted way to book and pay for overseas travel.

With minimal change to their existing backend systems, airlines, hotels and other travel enterprises can now easily connect to the more than 800 million Chinese account holders on the Alipay platform via the UATP Network. These consumers are extremely comfortable with online purchasing and enthusiastic about high-quality international products and overseas travel.

China’s increasingly affluent middle- and upper-class consumers made 83 million outbound trips in 2012. China has been the world’s fastest-growing tourism source market for the past decade and it is now also the world’s top tourism spender. Chinese travelers spent a record US$102 billion in 2012 to surpass the U.S. and Germany, both with spending close to $84 billion.

“After years as the most widely used online payment platform in China, Alipay is thrilled to join forces with UATP in this milestone collaboration. We are excited to help U.S. businesses satisfy eager Chinese consumers,” said Jingming Li, vice president and chief architect of Alipay International. “Alipay is dedicated to meeting the needs of China’s vast and growing pool of keen overseas travelers by making it easier for them to pay for air tickets, book hotels, rent cars and make other travel-related purchases online from the world’s leading airlines and accredited travel agencies.”

“We look forward to partnering with Alipay and working with them in this mutually beneficial opportunity,” said Ralph Kaiser, president and CEO, UATP. “We see further growth in outbound travel as inevitable for China. Matching the strength of the UATP Network with Alipay’s proven success, we are confident that we can bring the best that both companies have to offer to this booming market.”

Launched in 2004, Alipay is a cross-border payment solution that provides an easy and secure platform to make and receive payment over the Internet. Alipay partners with more than 180 financial institutions and supports transactions in 15 foreign currencies. It had more than 800 million registered accounts as of December 2012.

UATP is a comprehensive payment solution that airlines offer to reduce the high cost of credit card use and provide vital data for accurate travel management. UATP’s corporate program and data tools, DataStream and DataMine, supply Level III Data for all air and rail travel, and folio-level data for hotel stays.

For more information, visit http://uatp.com and http://global.alipay.com

No wonder that the British Prime Minister, David Cameron and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson are now courting Jack Ma as evidenced by the recent Alibaba Gets a British Touch [BizAsiaAmerica YouTube channel, Dec 26, 2013] video report:

Richard Bestic reports from London where UK brands are set to be promoted on China’s T-Mall.

Xamarin: C# developers of native “business” and “mobile workforce” applications now can easily work cross-platform, for Android and iOS clients as well

November 15, 2013 2:25 pm / 1 Comment on Xamarin: C# developers of native “business” and “mobile workforce” applications now can easily work cross-platform, for Android and iOS clients as well

… while other cross-platform applications, i.e. “applications for consumers only” are prohibited for C# developers by the still high price of Xamarin, which essentially applies to indie and start-up developers only

The mobile application development technology behind this, from the cloud to the clients, was extensively covered in Windows Phone 8: getting much closer to a unified development platform with Windows 8 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Nov 8, 2012] post of mine (including the cross-platform possibilities with Xamarin already), and then continued in Windows Azure becoming an unbeatable offering on the cloud computing market [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 28, 2013] and Microsoft partners empowered with ‘cloud first’, high-value and next-gen experiences for big data, enterprise social, and mobility on wide variety of Windows devices and Windows Server + Windows Azure + Visual Studio as the platform [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 10, 2013] posts for the cloud part.

Note: Decide for yourself how that “consumers only applications by indie and start-up developers” type of exclusion will effect the cross platform development needs, after you take a look at the current state of the evolution of smartphone and tablet markets:

Q3’13 smartphone and overall mobile phone markets: Android smartphones surpassed 80% of the market, with Samsung increasing its share to 32.1% against Apple’s 12.1% only; while Nokia achieved a strong niche market position both in “proper” (Lumia) and “de facto” (Asha Touch) smartphones
[‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Nov 14, 2013]

The tablet market in Q1-Q3’13: It was mainly shaped by white-box vendors while Samsung was quite successfully attacking both Apple and the white-box vendors with triple digit growth both worldwide and in Mainland China
[‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Nov 14, 2013]

Details

For one of the problems solved now by Microsoft see my Obstacles for .NET on other platforms [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 15, 2013] post.

To understand what is the situation now I will start with:

Phil Haack working at GitHub “doing crazy”:

In: Cross Platform .NET Just A Lot Got Better [Haacked blog, Nov 13, 2013]

Not long ago I wrote a blog post about how platform restrictions harm .NET. This led to a lot of discussion online and on Twitter. At some point David Kean suggested a more productive approach would be to create a UserVoice issue. So I did and it quickly gathered a lot of votes.

…

Phil Haack – Customer Feedback for Microsoft http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/users/40986152-phil-haack:

Remove the platform restriction on Microsoft NuGet packages 4,929 votes
Phil Haack shared this idea and gave it 3 votes · Sep 26, 2013

COMPLETED · Visual Studio team (Product Team, Microsoft) responded
Thanks a lot for this suggestion and all the votes.

We’re happy to announce that we’ve removed the Windows-only restriction from our license. We’ve applied this new license to most of our packages and will continue to use this license moving forward.

Here is our announcement:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/11/13/pcl-and-net-nuget-libraries-are-now-enabled-for-xamarin.aspx

For reference, the license for stable packages can be found here:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=329770

Thanks,
Immo Landwerth
Program Manager, .NET Framework Team

Phil Haack commented · Nov 13, 2013

Amazing! Thanks! This is great!

Bravo!

Serious Kudos to the .NET team for this. It looks like most of the interesting PCL packages are now licensed without platform restrictions. As an example of how this small change sends out ripples of goodness, we can now make Octokit.net depend on portable HttpClient and make Octokit.net itself more cross platform and portable without a huge amount of work.

I’m also excited about the partnership between Microsoft and Xamarin this represents. I do believe C# is a great language for cross-platform development and it’s good to see Microsoft jumping back on board with this. This is a marked change from the situation I wrote about in 2012.

then will go to S. Somasegar, Corporate Vice President of the Developer Division at Microsoft:

In: Visual Studio 2013 Launch: Announcing Visual Studio Online [Somasegar’s blog, Nov 13, 2013]

… Microsoft and Xamarin are collaborating to help .NET developers broaden the reach of their applications to additional devices, including iOS and Android …

…

Partner News

With today’s launch of Visual Studio 2013, we have 123 products from 74 partners available already as Visual Studio 2013 extensions. As part of an ecosystem of developer tools experiences, Visual Studio continues to be a platform for delivering a great breadth of developer experiences.

Xamarin

The devices and services transformation is driving developers to think about how they will build applications that reach the greatest breadth of devices and end-user experiences. We’ve offered great HTML-based cross platform development experiences in Visual Studio with ASP.NET and JavaScript. But our .NET developers have also asked us how they can broaden the reach of their applications and skills.

Today, I am excited to announce a broad collaboration between Microsoft and Xamarin. Xamarin’s solution enables developers to leverage Visual Studio, Windows Azure and .NET to further extend the reach of their business applications across multiple devices, including iOS and Android.

The collaboration between Xamarin and Microsoft brings several benefits for developers today. First, as an initial step in a technical partnership, Xamarin’s next release that is being announced today will support Portable Class Libraries, enabling developers to share libraries and components across a breadth of Microsoft and non-Microsoft platforms. Second, Professional, Premium and Ultimate MSDN subscribers will have access to exclusive benefits for getting started with Xamarin, including new training resources, extended evaluation access to Xamarin’s Visual Studio integration and special pricing on Xamarin products.

…

followed by the Microsoft and Xamarin Partner Globally to Enable Microsoft Developers to Develop Native iOS and Android Apps With C# and Visual Studio [Xamarin press release, Nov 13, 2013]

Xamarin, the company that empowers developers to build fully native apps for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac from a single shared code base, today announced a global collaboration with Microsoft that makes it easy for mobile developers to build native mobile apps for all major platforms in Visual Studio. Xamarin is the only solution that unifies native iOS, Android and Windows app development in Visual Studio—bridging one of the largest developer bases in the world to the most successful mobile device platforms.

A highly competitive app marketplace and the consumerization of IT have put tremendous pressure on developers to deliver high quality mobile user experiences for both consumers and employees. A small bug or crash can lead to permanent app abandonment or poor reviews. Device fragmentation, with hundreds of devices on the market for iOS and Android alone, multiplies testing efforts resulting in a time-consuming and costly development process. This is further complicated by faster release cycles for mobile, necessitating more stringent and efficient regression testing.

The collaboration spans three areas:

A technical collaboration to better integrate Xamarin technology with Microsoft developer tools and services.
Aligned with this goal, Xamarin is a SimShip partner for Visual Studio 2013, releasing same-day support for Microsoft’s latest Visual Studio release that launched today. In addition, Xamarin has released today full integration for Microsoft’s Portable Library projects in iOS and Android apps, making it easier than ever for developers to share code across devices.
Xamarin’s recently launched Xamarin University is now free to MSDN subscribers. The training course helps developers become successful with native iOS and Android development over the course of 30 days. Classes for the $1,995 program kick off in January 2014, with a limited number of seats available at no cost for MSDN subscribers.
MSDN subscribers have exclusive trial and pricing options to Xamarin subscriptions for individuals and teams.

Get a 90-day trial to Xamarin, sign up for Xamarin University for free (normally $1,995), and save 30-50% on Xamarin with special MSDN pricing.
All the productivity you love in Visual Studio and C#,
on iOS and Android.

The broad collaboration between Microsoft and Xamarin which we announced today is targeted at supporting developers interested in extending their applications across multiple devices, said S. Somasegar, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Corporation. With Xamarin, developers combine all of the productivity benefits of C#, Visual Studio 2013 and Windows Azure with the flexibility to quickly build for multiple device targets.

According to Gartner, by 2016, 70 percent of the mobile workforce will have a smartphone, half of which will be purchased by the employee, and 90 percent of enterprises will have two or more platforms to support. Faced with high expectations for mobile user experiences and the pressures of BYOD, companies and developers alike are looking for scalable ways to migrate business practices and customer interactions to high-performance, native apps on multiple platforms.

To meet this need to support heterogeneous mobile environments, Microsoft and Xamarin are making it easy for developers to mobilize their existing skills and code. By standardizing mobile app development with Xamarin and C#, developers are able to share on average 75 percent of their source code across device platforms, while still delivering fully native apps. Xamarin supports 100 percent of both iOS and Android APIs—anything that can be done in Objective-C or Java can be done in C# with Xamarin.

In just two years, Xamarin has amassed a community of over 440,000 developers in 70 countries, more than 20,000 paying accounts and a network of over 120 consulting partners globally.

We live in a multi-platform world, and by embracing Xamarin, Microsoft is enabling its developer community to thrive as mobile developers, said Nat Friedman, CEO and cofounder, Xamarin. Our collaboration with Microsoft will accelerate enterprise mobility for millions of developers.

The groundbreaking partnership was announced as part of the Visual Studio Live 2013 launch event in New York City. In addition, Xamarin and Microsoft have teamed up with the popular podcast, .NET Rocks!, for a 20-city nationwide road show featuring live demos on how to use Visual Studio 2013, Xamarin and Windows Azure to build and scale mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows. For a full list of cities and to sign up for an event, please visit: xamarin.com/modern-apps-roadshow

About Xamarin
Xamarin is the new standard for enterprise mobile development. No other platform enables businesses to reach all major devices—iOS, Android, Mac and Windows—with 100 percent fully native apps from a single code base. With Xamarin, businesses standardize mobile app development in C#, share on average 75 percent source code across platforms, and leverage their existing skills, teams, tools and code to rapidly deliver great apps with broad reach. Xamarin is used by over 430,000 developers from more than 100 Fortune 500 companies and over 20,000 paying customers including Clear Channel, Bosch, McKesson, Halliburton, Cognizant, GitHub, Rdio and WebMD, to accelerate the creation of mission-critical consumer and enterprise apps. For more information, please visit: xamarin.com, read our blog, and follow us on Twitter @xamarinhq.

as well as the PCL and .NET NuGet Libraries are now enabled for Xamarin [.NET Framework Blog, Nov 13, 2013] post

Earlier today, Soma announced a collaboration between Microsoft and Xamarin. As you probably know, Xamarin’s Visual Studio extension enables developers to use VS and .NET to extend the reach of their apps across multiple devices, including iOS and Android. As part of that collaboration, today, we are announcing two releases around the .NET portable class libraries (PCLs) that support this collaboration:

We are making portable Microsoft .NET NuGet libraries available under a new license that enables use on all platforms. This includes HttpClient, Immutable Collections, SignalR, ODataLib and several others. Beyond that, we intend to use this license going forward.
We are also making the RTM version of the portable reference assemblies available for use on all platforms. This announcement builds on the announcement we made a month ago around the RC release of these reference assemblies.

Microsoft .NET NuGet Libraries Released

Today we released the following portable libraries with our new license, on NuGet.org:

Async for .NET Framework 4, Silverlight 4 and 5, and Windows Phone 7.5 and 8
Microsoft ASP.NET SignalR .NET Client
Microsoft BCL Build Components
Microsoft BCL Portability Pack
Microsoft Composition
Microsoft Compression
Microsoft HTTP Client Libraries
Microsoft Immutable Collections
ODataLib

You can now start using these libraries with Xamarin tools, either directly or as the dependencies of portable libraries that you reference.

We also took the opportunity to apply the same license to Microsoft .NET NuGet libraries, which aren’t fully portable today, like Entity Framework and all of the Microsoft AspNet packages. These libraries target the full .NET Framework, so they’re not intended to be used with Xamarin’s iOS and Android tools (just like they don’t target Windows Phone or Windows Store).

These releases will enable significantly more use of these common libraries across Windows and non-Windows platforms, including in open source projects.

Cross-platform app developers can now use PCL

Portable class libraries are a great option for app developers building for Microsoft platforms in Visual Studio, to share key business functionality across Microsoft platforms. Many developers use the PCL technology today, for example, to share app logic across Windows Store and Windows Phone. Today’s announcement enables developers using Xamarin’s tools to share these libraries as well.

In Visual Studio, you’ll continue to use Portable Class Library projects but will be able to reference them from within Xamarin’s tools for VS. That means that you can write rich cross-platform libraries and take advantage of them from all of your .NET apps.

The following image demonstrates an example set of .NET NuGet library references that you can use within one of your portable libraries. The .NET NuGet libraries will enable new scenarios and great new libraries built on top of them.

You can build cross-platform libraries with .NET

This announcement also benefits .NET developers writing reusable and open source libraries. You’ve probably used some of these libraries, for example Json.NET. These developers have been very vocal about wanting this change. This announcement greatly benefits those library developers, enabling them to leverage our portable libraries in their libraries.

Getting started with portable libraries and Xamarin

You can start by building portable libraries in Visual Studio, as you can see in the screenshot above. You can take advantage of the portable libraries that we released today. Write code!

You’ll need an updated NuGet client, to take advantage of this new scenario. Make sure that you are using NuGet 2.7.2 or higher, or just download the latest NuGet for your VS version from the Installing NuGet page.

We are working closely with Xamarin to ensure that our NuGet libraries work well with Xamarin tools, as well as PCL generally. Please tell us if you find any issues. We’ll get them resolved and post them to our known issues page.

Thank You

Thank you for the feedback on UserVoice. With today’s announcement, we can mark the request to Remove the platform restriction on Microsoft NuGet packages as complete. Thanks to Phil Haack for filing the issue. Coupled with our collaboration with Xamarin, .NET developers have some compelling tools, especially for targeting mobile devices.

Both Microsoft and Xamarin want to see this scenario succeed. We’d love your feedback. Please tell us how the new features are working for you.

This post was written by Rich Lander, a Program Manager on the .NET Team.

[Some] Comments

Immo Landwerth [MSFT] 13 Nov 2013 1:24 PM

Thanks a lot for the kind words!

@Curt: We absolutely understand that PCL support in Visual Studio express editions is super important to many of our developers. That’s why it’s on our list. However, I can’t promise that we actually end up delivering it in the VS 2013 time frame. As you’ve seen today, there is a lot of great stuff going on and resources are always more scarce than one would hope.

Gz 14 Nov 2013 4:19 AM

Xamarin is great but their pricing is insane! even with the MSDN discount. We’re a tiny start-up development house that has benefited from the MS BizSpark programme and we simply cannot stretch to paying out a thousand bucks per platform, per year, per developer – mobile isn’t even a revenue generator for us – it would merely be extending some functionality from our main apps to mobile and we’d give it to customers for free. I know they have a free & an indie edition blah blah blah but we wanna work in VS. The good news is that Xamarin will soon have a competitor in this space that could potentially blow them out of the water with full VS support and direct access to native APIs on each platform (iOS, Android & Mac) and their pricing will be less than 1/3rd of Xamarin’s. I’ve been sworn to secrecy about it but expect to have a cost-effective Xamarin alternative before the end of the year. (No I don’t work for the company, just got some info about it recently).

Stilgar 14 Nov 2013 8:30 AM

I second the need for PCLs in Express editions. Otherwise your company’s constant claims that the tooling for Windows 8 and Windows Phone development is free is pure hypocrisy.

and end finally with New and improved EULA! [WCF Data Services Blog, Nov 13, 2013] post:

TL;DR: You can now (legally) use our .NET OData client and ODataLib on Android and iOS.

Backstory

For a while now we have been working with our legal team to improve the terms you agree to when you use one of our libraries (WCF Data Services, our OData client, or ODataLib). A year and a half ago, we announced that our EULA would include a redistribution clause. With the release of WCF Data Services 5.6.0, we introduced portable libraries for two primary reasons:

Portable libraries reduce the amount of duplicate code and #ifdefs in our code base.

Portable libraries increase our reach through third-party tooling like Xamarin (more on that later).

It took some work to get there, and we had to make some sacrifices along the way, but we are now focused exclusively on portable libraries for client-side code. Unfortunately, our EULA still contained a clause that prevented the redistributable code from being legally used on a platform other than Windows.

OData and Xamarin: Extending developer reach to many platforms

We are really excited about Microsoft’s new collaboration with Xamarin. As Soma says, this collaboration will allow .NET developers to broaden the reach of their applications and skills. This has long been the mantra of OData – a standardized ecosystem of services and consumers that enables consumers on any platform to easily consume services developed on any platform. This collaboration will make it much easier to write a shared code base that allows consumption of OData on Windows, Android or iOS.

EULA change

To fully enable this scenario, we needed to update our EULA. We, along with several other teams at Microsoft, are rolling out a new EULA today that has relaxed the distribution requirements. Most importantly, we removed the clause that prevented redistributable code from being used on Android and iOS.

The new EULA is effective immediately for all of our NuGet packages. This means that (even though we already released 5.6.0) you can create a Xamarin project today, take a new dependency on our OData client, and legally run that application on any platform you wish.

Thanks

As always, we really appreciate your feedback. It frequently takes us some time to react, but the credit for this change is due entirely to customer feedback. We hear you. Keep it coming.

Thanks,
The OData Team

Alibaba to secure “centuries” of the future of an already “US$150 billion ecosystem of consumers, merchants and business partners” via an internal partnership (rejuvenated each year) of top executive owners (with just 10% of shares) also controlling the board

October 3, 2013 3:39 pm / Leave a comment

With Michael Dell acquiring the rest 84% stake in Dell for $2.15B in cash, before becoming the next IBM, and even getting the cash back after the transaction [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 8, 2013] on Sept 12, 2013 approved by Dell stockholders (for $13.88 per share in cash against the originally proposed $13.65) we had a clear evidence that in these turbulent and extremely fast changing market and business conditions the traditional way of corporate governance is becoming a significant strategic obstacle. Here we have an even more glaring example. Especially because of The value of Taobao.com and TMall.com in China, as well as outside [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 2, 2013] and the role those key assets of the Alibaba Group are playing for The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 13, 2013].

Alibaba slams HK exchange after IPO talks fail [South China Morning Post, Sept 30, 2013]

A senior Alibaba executive sharply criticized the Hong Kong stock exchange for not allowing the Chinese e-commerce giant to go public with its unique management structure, forcing it to shift efforts to the U.S for the potentially mammoth listing.

The company dropped plans this week to hold an IPO in the southern Chinese financial center because the stock market wasn’t willing to make an exception to its listing rules. Instead, it’s looking to New York for an initial public offering that analysts estimate could value the company at more than $100 billion.

That would dwarf the tech world’s other hotly anticipated share offering by Twitter, which is estimated to have a market value of $10 billion.

In a column posted late Thursday on Alibaba’s blog, Vice Chairman Joe Tsai said “Hong Kong must consider what is needed in order to adapt to future trends and changes.”

Tsai said the company had ended its discussions for a potential listing. It’s the first public acknowledgement that it has dropped its plans for an IPO in Hong Kong, which Tsai said was the company’s “first choice” because most of its business is in China.

Hangzhou, China-based Alibaba failed to persuade the Hong Kong stock exchange to grant it an exception from listing rules to allow it to maintain a “partnership” structure in which top executives, who own 10 percent of the company, retain control of the board.

Chairman Jack Ma has described the partnership system, which currently includes 28 people, as essential to preserving the company’s innovative culture.

Ma, a former English teacher, founded Alibaba in 1999 as a platform linking Chinese suppliers with retailers abroad. It has expanded in consumer e-commerce with its Taobao and Tmall platforms, which are among the world’s busiest online outlets.

China has the world’s biggest population of Internet users, and while it trails the U.S. and Japan in total e-commerce spending, the Boston Consulting Group forecasts it will rise to No. 1 by 2015.

Alibaba’s proposal failed because it was at odds with the Hong Kong exchange’s principle of treating all shareholders equally.

Tsai challenged the exchange over its rigidity.

“The question Hong Kong must address is whether it is ready to look forward as the rest of the world passes it by,” he said.

Alibaba’s two biggest shareholders, Yahoo and Japan’s Softbank, issued statements backing Alibaba.

“In a fast-moving technology market, it’s critical that a company’s leadership can continue to preserve its culture and set its strategic course for the future,” said Jacqueline Reses, chief development officer at Yahoo, which owns a 23 percent stake. She added that the U.S. Internet company believes Alibaba’s system reflects “the desire to govern the company for long-term success while also balancing the rights of shareholders.”

Masa Son, founder of Softbank Corp., which owns 35 percent, said he was “supportive” of the company’s structure.

Alibaba has not yet chosen an exchange or set a timetable for a U.S. listing. But it has hired U.S. law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to help advise on the IPO and plans to hire underwriters soon, said a source familiar with the matter who was not allowed to speak publicly.

Goldman Sachs has estimated that a share sale could value Alibaba at as much as $105 billion.

Alibaba’s profit in the first three months of the year tripled to $669 million on revenue that rose 71 percent to $1.4 billion, according to Yahoo’s latest quarterly earnings.

Impact of Alibaba s IPO decision [CNN via VBG NewsTV YouTube channel, Oct 2, 2013]

Alibaba Offers an Alternative View of Good Corporate Governance [Joe Tsai on Alizila blog, Sept 26, 2013]

Until recently, Alibaba was in dialogue with Hong Kong capital markets regulators on how to translate our guiding philosophy into a form of corporate governance in connection with a potential listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As a company with most of our business in China, it was natural for Hong Kong to be our first choice.

We proposed a governance structure that would enable Alibaba’s partners – key people who manage our businesses – to set the company’s strategic course without being influenced by the fluctuating attitudes of the capital markets so as to protect the long-term interests of our customers, company and all shareholders.

It has been said that Alibaba threatens the “one-share-one-vote” principle. Nothing is further from the truth. We never made any proposal that involved a dual-class shareholding structure. A typical dual-class structure allows those who hold high-vote shares to out-vote the rest of shareholders on all corporate matters. Our governance structure preserves significant rights of shareholders, including the unfettered rights to elect independent directors as well as rights to vote on substantial transactions and related party transactions.

Why do we insist on our governance structure? Our overarching objective is to maintain the Alibaba culture. For the past 14 years, Alibaba operated with the ethos of helping the “small guy” to succeed, as embodied in our mission: “to make it easy to do business anywhere”. This clear sense of mission, long-term focus and commitment to values defines the “Alibaba culture” and it is what makes us successful.

At the same time, we have also noticed that many great companies quickly deteriorate after their founders leave; in the same vein, a number of successful founders have also made fatal mistakes. The final governance structure we have selected is to replace founders with partners. The reason is simple – a group of partners who cherish the same culture and ideals is more likely to carry forward our principles and make good decisions for all stakeholders with a long-term view. And in the decade to come, those partners will be guided by these principles when grappling with inevitable disruption and competition.

We believe this partnership system is the right way to build a sustainable business: partners are peers and, without bureaucracy or rigid hierarchy, they solve problems through collaboration. Partners are not just managers but they are owners of the business with a keen sense of responsibility. The partnership is rejuvenated each year through admission of new partners and, as such, it provides both continuity and longevity because it is a living body. With this system, we believe we can sustain the flame of innovation and constantly improve the talent pool of people who run the Alibaba business.

Those who lack appreciation of our partnership philosophy may view our proposal merely as a founder wanting to preserve control. We could not have a more different objective. Over the past 14 years, we have never sought to control this company through the shareholding structure and we will not begin to do so now. What we want to establish is a mechanism to safeguard the Alibaba culture and we hope that the company’s future is sustainable beyond the life of any one founder. (In fact, Alibaba did not have one or two founders, but 18 founders. In a sense, we have operated as a partnership from Day One.) Our hope is to achieve a mechanism for safeguarding the development of the company “to last 102 years,” i.e. spanning at least three centuries starting from 1999, the year we were founded.

As the largest e-commerce marketplace operator in the world and a custodian of a US$150 billion ecosystem of consumers, merchants and business partners, our commitment to openness, transparency, sharing and responsibility is at the core of our value system.

We fervently believe maintaining an innovative culture and company mission are the essence of success in this disruptive world we operate in. Our governance structure is a creative way to address the core issues that matter to shareholders while staying true to who we are – which we cannot, and will not, change.

As an e-commerce company, we are deeply aware of the disruption that is brought about by the Internet across all industries, and the capital markets are not exempt from this disruption. As a social enterprise, we will strive to drive and promote this type of innovation. We welcome a debate about models of good governance for a business like ours in the 21st century.

We understand Hong Kong may not want to change its tradition for one company, but we firmly believe that Hong Kong must consider what is needed in order to adapt to future trends and changes. The question Hong Kong must address is whether it is ready to look forward as the rest of the world passes it by.

Joe Tsai is a co-founder and Executive Vice Chairman of Alibaba Group

Background from the point of view of philosophies behind stock exchange regulations:
Breakingviews: Hong Kong’s Alibaba loss is New York’s gain? [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Sept 26, 2013]

Chinese Internet giant Alibaba has chosen New York over Hong Kong for its $15 billion IPO. Breakingviews’ Peter Thal Larsen and Rob Cox debate the pros and cons for the company and the exchanges.

Background on the stakes in question:
– How e-commerce is changing China [CNN via TheBreakingNewss YouTube channel, Sept 30, 2013]

The gentleman on the left is David Wei (Vision Night Capital) who was CEO of Alibaba since 2006 till his resignation in February 11, 2011. See: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/22/why-alibabas-ceo-had-to-go/

– How Alibaba unlocked the door to online shopping in China [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Oct 1, 2013]

Nearly a decade ago Alibaba Group launched Alipay — China’s answer to online payment giant PayPal. Today it’s seen as the magic password at the gate of China’s online commerce treasure trove.

Note that Alipay was “the largest online platform in the world in terms of registered users, transactions and total payment volume” back in 2011 according to Forbes. The above video shows that now it has a dominant position in China (which is also the largest e-commerce market in the world this year):

Background about the Alibaba Group and Alipay relationship (in order to see that the closing statement in the above video of not getting any benefit from Alipay is not true for the would be new shareholders of Alibaba):

Alibaba Group, Yahoo!, and SoftBank Reach Agreement on Alipay [press release, July 29, 2011]

Alibaba Group, Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), and SoftBank (TYO:JP:9984) today announced they have reached an agreement in which Alibaba Group will continue to participate in Alipay’s future financial performance, including a future IPO or other liquidity event. The agreement is consistent with the two agreed-upon principles established at the outset of the negotiations: structure the inter-company relationship between Alipay and Taobao in order to preserve the value within Taobao and, by extension, within Alibaba Group; and provide that Alibaba Group is appropriately compensated for the value of Alipay.

Key Terms of the Agreement:

The agreement establishes the following:

The agreement preserves the existing relationship between Taobao and Alipay. Alipay will continue to provide payment processing services to Alibaba Group and its subsidiaries (including Taobao) on preferential terms.
Alibaba Group will license to Alipay certain intellectual property and technology and provide certain software technology services to Alipay and its subsidiaries. Alipay will pay to Alibaba Group, prior to a liquidity event, a royalty and software technology services fee, which consists of an expense reimbursement and a 49.9% share of the consolidated pre-tax income of Alipay and its subsidiaries.
Alibaba Group will receive no less than $2 billion and no more than $6 billion in proceeds from an IPO of Alipay or other liquidity event. The exact proceeds to Alibaba Group will be determined by multiplying the total equity value of Alipay by 37.5%, subject to the foregoing floor and ceiling amounts.

“Over the last few months, we have worked cooperatively with our partners at Yahoo! and SoftBank to reach an agreement that serves the interests of all parties,” said Jack Ma, Alibaba Group Chairman and CEO. “This agreement is good for Alibaba Group and its stakeholders, including customers, employees and shareholders. Most importantly, Alipay was able to secure the license it needed to continue operating.”

“This is a good outcome for Yahoo! and for our shareholders, as well as all the parties to this agreement,” said Carol Bartz, Yahoo! CEO. “As a result of this constructive process, we have an agreement that preserves the value of Taobao, provides for profit sharing at Alipay, and creates a structure to allow Alibaba Group to participate if Alipay’s value is realized in an IPO or other liquidity event. Alibaba Group and its management team have an impressive track record of value creation and we look forward to participating in Alibaba Group’s—and Alipay’s—continued success.”

“This agreement was in part made possible by the strong long-term relationship and trust that exists between the principals at Alibaba Group, SoftBank and Yahoo!, and also lays the foundation for Alibaba Group to continue its impressive growth under the dynamic leadership of Jack Ma,” said Masayoshi Son, SoftBank CEO. “Alibaba Group is a clear leader in the China Internet business, the largest and fastest growing market in the world, and the close relationship with Alipay will allow Alibaba Group to strengthen that leadership position in the years to come.”

Alipay provides payment processing services to Alibaba Group and some affiliates, including Taobao, and to third parties. Taobao is China’s largest online retail website. Alibaba Group’s principal shareholders include Yahoo!, SoftBank, and Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai. In May 2011, Alipay obtained a license to operate in China from the People’s Bank of China following the restructuring of Alipay. The license will enable Alipay to continue serving Taobao and its other customers in China.

Alibaba Group Clarification with Respect to Alipay Status and Related Statements by Yahoo! [press release, May 13, 2011]

Alibaba Group management has taken actions to comply with Chinese law governing payment companies in order to secure a license to continue operating Alipay. The Alibaba Group board discussed at numerous board meetings over the past three years the impending imposition of new regulatory requirements on the online payment industry, including ownership structures, as they were being developed in China, and was told in a July 2009 board meeting that majority shareholding in Alipay had been transferred into Chinese ownership. The actions taken by Alibaba Group management to comply with the licensing regulations and to ensure continuation of operations are in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. The continued operation of Alipay is essential to the preservation and enhancement of the value of Alibaba Group’s businesses such as Taobao, as Alipay is the payments platform for e-commerce in these businesses.

Kendall Law Group Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Yahoo! Inc. on Behalf of Shareholders [press release, June 7, 2011]

Kendall Law Group, a national securities firm led by a former federal judge with attorneys that include a former U.S. Attorney, announces a lawsuit filed on behalf of shareholders against Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) for alleged violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 concerning false and misleading statements regarding Yahoo’s business prospects.

A class action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court, Northern District of California on June 6, 2011. Yahoo shareholders who purchased stock between April 19, 2011 and May 13, 2011 are urged to contact the Kendall Law Group for more information at 877-744-3728 or by email at skendall@kendalllawgroup.com. Any shareholder who purchased YHOO stock during this time period may move the Court to serve as a plaintiff in this class action. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court for appointment by August 5, 2011. A lead plaintiff is a class member who acts on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff.

From: Yahoo! Inc. Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q [May 10, 2011]

To expedite obtaining an essential regulatory license, the ownership of Alibaba Group’s online payment business, Alipay, was restructured so that 100 percent of its outstanding shares are held by a Chinese domestic company which is majority owned by Alibaba Group’s chief executive officer. Alibaba Group’s management and its principal shareholders, Yahoo! and Softbank Corporation, are engaged in ongoing discussions regarding the terms of the restructuring and the appropriate commercial arrangements related to the online payment business.

Regarding which in Yahoo Discloses Jack Ma Takes Control Of Alipay From Alibaba [Forbes, May 11, 2011]

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan writes in a research note this morning that “there are concerns that the People’s Bank of China will prohibit foreign ownership of a payment solution and having Alipay owned 100% by a domestic entity will be required to obtain the appropriate licenses.”

Rohan points out that Alipay is the largest online platform in the world in terms of registered users, transactions and total payment volume; he’s been estimating the company’s value at $2 billion. The company has 550 million registered users, compared with 94.4 million for PayPal at the end of 2010.

On May 10, 2011, Yahoo disclosed that its $1 billion investment in a strategic partnership with Alibaba Group Holdings Limited, China’s largest e-commerce company, had likely been severely impaired by the misappropriation of Alipay, Alibaba’s most valuable asset, from Alibaba to another private company, controlled by Alibaba’s Chairman, Jack Ma. On May 15, 2011, Yahoo announced that Alibaba, Yahoo and Softbank Corporation were “engaged in and committed to productive negotiations to resolve the outstanding issues related to Alipay in a manner that serves the interests of all shareholders as soon as possible.” News reports indicate that Alibaba received $46 million for Alipay’s assets, which securities analysts valued at $5 billion.

The complaint alleges that Yahoo was informed no later than March 31, 2011 that Alipay’s structure had been shifted from Alibaba, therefore reducing the value of Yahoo’s investment in Alibaba by billions of dollars. The complaint also alleges that Yahoo failed to develop a strategy to recover the value it had in Alibaba, knowing that Chinese regulations regarding foreign ownership had been anticipated to change as far back as 2009, which would require Yahoo or Alibaba to divest themselves of Alipay. As a result of the alleged misstatements and omissions, Yahoo’s stock traded at artificially inflated prices during the class period.

Kendall Law Group was founded by a former federal judge, includes a former United States Attorney, prosecutors and securities lawyers who are experienced in complex securities litigation. The firm has been counsel in numerous merger and acquisition cases nationwide, including some of the largest transactions in the United States.

Research and Markets: China Third-party Payment Industry Report, 2010-2013 [press release, July 7, 2011]

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/24e22a/china_thirdparty) has announced the addition of the “China Third-party Payment Industry Report, 2010-2013” report to their offering.

Third-party payment refers to an Internet-based means of exchange that provides online (Internet) and offline (telephone & mobile phone) payment channels enabling user-to-merchant online payment, fund settlement, inquiries and statistics, etc.

In 2010, market transaction volume of third-party payment broke through RMB 1 trillion and registered RMB 1.1395 trillion [$176.2B] in China. However, third-party payment market is still in its infancy stage and is expected to develop rapidly in the next several years.

People’s Bank of China issued Regulation on Payment Service of Non-financial Organization on 14 Jun. 2010, with the aim to officially supervise the domestic third-party payment industry. On 26 May 2011, People’s Bank of China granted the first batch of Payment Transaction License to 27 third-party payment companies including Alipay, Tenpay, ChinaPay and 99Bill. In terms of market share, the top three third-party payment service providers in China are Alipay, Tenpay and ChinaPay.

My insert here from the How Alibaba unlocked the door to online shopping in China video above:

Alipay: Alipay is a third-party payment platform that belongs to Alibaba group. As of Dec. 2010, its number of registered users broke through 550 million, and daily transaction value reached RMB 2.6 billion [$402M] and daily number of transactions hit 11 million. It is expected that the annual transaction value of Alipay will achieve about RMB 1 trillion [$154.6B] in each of the next two years.

TenPay: As Tencent’s third-party payment platform, TenPay accumulated 150 million personal users and over 400 thousand cooperative merchants till Dec. 2010.

ChinaPay: ChinaPay is a third-party payment service provider with diversified business. Its business growth is mainly driven by those monopolistic fields including fund and insurance online payment. However, this monopolistic advantage is gradually diminished. In addition, with limited investment, online payment service is not the core business of ChinaPay, and its competitiveness is weak.

99Bill: As of 30 Apr. 2011, with transaction volume over RMB 100 billion, 99bill has 91 million registered users and over 980 thousand business partners. During 2008-2009, 99Bill shifted its major business to the segment markets, including insurance and fund industries, to get involved in the differential competition.

YeePay: YeePay is an integrated payment platform. Till 26 Nov. 2010, with over 10 thousand large and medium signed merchants, its daily transaction volume and number of transactions exceeded RMB200 million and 1 million respectively. Moreover, YeePay plays a leading role in the telephone payment market. During 2008-2010, it experienced rapid development in the fields of aviation, telecommunication and education.

Chinabank Payments: The lower online payment price is the key competitive advantage of Chinabank Payments. In addition, its offline credit card payment business has the early entry advantage.

Shengpay: With a registered capital of RMB250 million and about 250 employees, Shengpay is an independent third-party payment service provider belongs to Shanda Group. It provides payment solution for Shanda’s business including literature, music, film, recreation and tourism.

Key Topics Covered:

Overview of Third-Party Payment
Market Environment of Third-Party Payment Industry
Market Analysis of Third-Party Payment Industry
Competition
Key Licensed Enterprises
Other Key Enterprises
Market Forecast of Third-Party Payment Industry

Companies Mentioned:

Alipay
TenPay
99Bill
YeePay
iPS
Chinabank Payments
ChinaPnR
Shengpay
All In Pay
KuaiPay
Beijing Digital Wangfujing Technology Ltd. Co.
Property & Credit (Zihexin)
Open Union
Qiandai
SmartPay
Lakala
Shanghai FFT Information Service Ltd.
China UnionPay Merchant Services Co., Ltd.
Beijing UnionPay
ChinaPay
PayEase
Beijing Cloudnet Internet Co., Ltd.
Union Mobile Pay (UMPay)
BestPay
95epay
Ecpss

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/24e22a/china_thirdparty

Amazon’s move into overall leadership: Kindle Fire HDX with Snapdragon 800, “revolutionary on-device tech support” (Mayday), enterprise and productivity capable Fire OS 3.0 forked from Android 4.2.2 etc. PLUS a significantly enhanced, new Kindle Fire HD for a much lower, $139 price

September 27, 2013 6:10 pm / 1 Comment on Amazon’s move into overall leadership: Kindle Fire HDX with Snapdragon 800, “revolutionary on-device tech support” (Mayday), enterprise and productivity capable Fire OS 3.0 forked from Android 4.2.2 etc. PLUS a significantly enhanced, new Kindle Fire HD for a much lower, $139 price

Update about the overall strategy of Amazon:

From: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Is Like King Midas in Reverse [Slate, Oct 25, 2013]
Which is—nevertheless—missing the major point of Amazon strategy: smart investors continue to accelerate buying Amazon shares (from not so smart investors), and thus increasing the share price, because they recognize that Amazon is investing all of its profits into buying market share in commerce (generally) in a maximally possible way:

Source: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AMZN

Regarding Amazon’s devices only strategy (as a part of the overall one) there is a great quote on another picture there:

We want to make money when people use our devices,
not when they buy our devices.

End of the update.

Note that the previous (2nd gen) high-end has been available in more than 170 countries since June 13 this year! This also coincided with opening the curated Amazon Appstore for Android to 193 countries/territories! So Amazon is a global leader now in all respects, and the more it moves its overall e-commerce business to more countries/territories the more dominant it becomes against a whole range of current players! The “devices and services” players as well as all other e-commerce players!

Quite a progress even in hardware and platform terms (source: Amazon, click to enlarge)

1st gen announcement: Sept 28, 2011 …. 2nd gen announcement: Sept 6, 2012. See also:
– Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Product Brief [May 16, 2013]
– OMAP4430, OMAP4460 and OMAP4470 Application Processors [Texas Instruments]
– TI’s OMAP4460 in Samsung GALAXY Nexus with Android 4.0 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 21, 2011]

Important notes regarding pricing and global availability (including Amazon Appstore for Android):

On March 13, 2013 there was a Kindle Fire HD 8.9” availability announcement for UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. At the same time the U.S. price for Kindle Fire HD 8.9” was reduced to $269 (not shown in the above table). Then there was a Kindle Fire HD availability announcement to over 170 countries and territories through Amazon.com on May 23, 2013 with new prices there: $284 for 8.9” and $214 for 7” (this was shown in the above table). ??? Also the price of the 2nd gen Kindle Fire HD 8.9” was reduced to $269 when the 3d gen was announced this week. ???
As of Sept 27, 2013 there are 159 countries/territories (with additional 34 countries/territories not available, or available via country/language-specific Amazon sites) where you can buy Kindle Fire HD 8.9” on Amazon.com and get shipped to your country, PLUS a curated* Amazon Appstore for Android with over 100,000 apps (up 187 percent year over year) is available in 193 countries/territories. You can see the list for both towards the end of this post. And BTW this is only available since June 13, 2013 in over 170 new countries.
*Apps are tested for the Amazon Appstore and Kindle Fire.
As of Sept 27, 2013 the All-New Kindle Fire HDX 7″ Tablet, All-New Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ Tablet and the All-New Kindle Fire HD 7″ Tablet seem to be not available globally (?because pre-order?)

Major messages from Amazon: The New Kindle Fires in 14 Tweets [Sept 25, 2013]

www.amazon.com/maydaytv – www.amazon.com/fireos – www.amazon.com/origami – www.amazon.com/quickpic
i.e. the links from the above slide (created by me) in order to be able to click from here as well

But this is “just” part of a much broader strategy and approach:
Amazon CEO: Focus on customer is key [CNN YouTube channel, Sept 25, 2013]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the key to success for Amazon and The Washington Post is putting their customers first.

Competitive messages from Amazon:

Source: Compare Kindle Fire tablets on the Amazon site

SourceSource: Amazon Announces new Kindle Fire Tablets and Fire OS 3.0 [Amazon Mobile App Distribution Blog, Sept 24, 2013]
NOTE THAT FOR Fire HDX THE PROCESSOR IS QUAD-CORE KRAIT 400 AND NOT A15. See Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Product Brief [May 16, 2013].

Source: Compare Small Tablets on the Amazon site

Source: Compare Large Tablets on the Amazon site

First an independent review of the announcements from The Verge on Sept 24, 2013:

Amazon has announced a host of new tablets; a 7- and 8.9-inch Kindle HDX and a refreshed Kindle HD. The devices are also running Fire 3.0, an updated version of Amazon’s tablet OS. Read more about Amazon’s new Kindles on The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/25/4767538/amazon-kindle-fire-hdx-tablets-preview

And an interview by the same 3d party source Jeff Bezos wants to delight you [The Verge, Sept 25, 2013] from which I will quote here:

Back up in the room, Jeff Bezos sits in front of a blank whiteboard. After pleasantries are exchanged, he leaps to his feet and begins writing. He starts in on the mantras of Amazon’s e-reader and tablet business. Mantra one: premium products at non-premium prices. Mantra two: “We make money when people use our devices.” Jeff jots them down quickly on the board. “Some of this you knew already because you’ve been following us, but I’m going to lay out what a third part of our vision and strategy.”
…
Bezos draws a Venn diagram on the board. On the left side it reads “customer delight,” on the right, “deep integration throughout entire stack.” “This intersection, here, is some of the hardest to do,” he smiles, “and [where the] coolest customer delight features live.”

…

Jaw-dropping isn’t exactly how I would describe Mayday, the halo feature of the new Fire HDX — but it is impressive in many ways, particularly because of how much energy has been put into simply helping people use the device. Remember, Amazon makes money when people use the devices. But Bezos seems genuinely bummed at the idea that people wouldn’t be able to get the most out of their Fire.

“The context for this is that there’s a degree to which for many, many people these devices have become complex enough that sometimes we get them set up the way we want and then we don’t mess with them.” He swings the device around so that I can see the screen. “The settings, even features you only use once every couple of months, you forget how to. So tech support for these devices is important.” Bezos taps a Mayday button which is now part of the Quick Settings menu on the Fire. A small window pops over screen, and an Amazon-shirted tech support staffer named Dylan appears in a tiny video box. “Thanks for using Amazon Assist, I see you’ve hit the Mayday button. I’ll be your tech advisor.”
…
“This is one of the things that I think Amazon is uniquely suited for, which is that marriage of high-tech and heavy lifting. So throughout our entire corporate history, we’ve happily lived by marrying those two things together. It’s in service of customer delight, but you can only do it if you integrate that entire stack.” Okay, yes. But, should I be worried about my privacy here?

Bezos doesn’t get into details on the technical aspects of the security for Mayday, but tells me you can disable the service if it makes you uncomfortable. “Yeah, you can say you don’t want it, and set a setting to take it off your device, but you’d be disabling the greatest feature we’ve ever made!” But Mayday gives an Amazon rep unfettered access to my device, no? “It’s not unfettered,” he says, “it has to be initiated by the customer.” And it’s true. This isn’t an open node just sitting there — you have to want to use it. Needless to say, the company doesn’t sound worried about privacy and security — and maybe I’m being paranoid — but in the cold light of PRISM revelations, complete control over your tablet by a third-party may not be something every consumer feels bullish about.

Bezos has a different view — a long view. “Everything we’ve ever done people have said this. People said customer reviews were a bad idea, third-party selling is a bad idea, personalization is a bad idea,” and he does have a point. “In 1994, typing your credit card [info] on the internet is a bad idea. Every single thing that’s new is a bad idea.” And then Bezos repeats one his best rehearsed and most convincing soundbites. “Willingness to be misunderstood is one of our greatest strengths.”

Now decide for yourself regarding this Mayday innovation Jeff Bezos is so keen on:

New Amazon TV spot for Kindle Fire HDX featuring Mayday button [kindle YouTube channel, Sept 24, 2013]

Introducing the Mayday button, available exclusively on the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets. With a single tap, an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best. Mayday is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. See how the Mayday button works in this sneak preview of our upcoming TV commercials. http://www.amazon.com/firehdx

From: Introducing the Mayday Button—Revolutionary On-Device Tech Support [Amazon press release, Sept 25, 2013]

The Mayday button on the new Kindle Fire HDX brings your own personal tech advisor directly to your sofa or desk

Free, 24×7, 365 days a year

The National Retail Federation rated Amazon #1 in its Customer’s Choice Awards, JD Power and Associatesnamed Amazon a Customer Service Champion, and MSN Money has ranked Amazon #1 in its Customer Service Hall of Fame for four years running. Now, Amazon introduces the Mayday button, extending this world-class customer service to live, on-device tech support, right from your Kindle Fire HDX. The Mayday button is available exclusively on the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets, available for pre-order at: www.amazon.com/hdx.

“With the Mayday button, our goal is to revolutionize tech support,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “With a single tap, an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best. Mayday is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. See it for yourself—preview our upcoming TV commercials: www.amazon.com/maydaytv.”

Details of the Mayday button:
– It’s free.
– Available 24×7, 365 days a year.
– 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal.
– You can see the tech advisor, they can’t see you.
– Simple and deeply integrated—the Mayday button lives in the Quick Settings menu, one tap away.

Some customers got a sneak peek—here’s what they had to say:
– “It’s so easy, you just press connect and boom you get hooked right up with a representative. I’ve never had a customer experience be so painless and so easy to do. I’ve never had an experience like this before. I wish all customer service experiences could be like that.” –Travis
– “With the agent on the video feed, it’s like having a teacher right in front of you. It makes a big difference.” – Ron
– “That was smooth and comfortable rather than calling on the phone or typing something in. I really was impressed with how well that went. I remember setting up my first e-mail account and always having to call friends or tech support and it would take so much longer, where this was comfortable and directed me to the right place immediately.” – Pete
– “[This] is more personable…it is nice to see his face, for him to actually be there talking to you one-on-one, it seems like you are getting personal treatment.” – Rose
– “I really hate when you have to talk to a computer for like 10 minutes before you get to a human being. So the fact that you just click and there’s a human being is much preferable.” – Nicole
– “The fact that he [Tech Advisor] can control the screen made the process very simple and I wasn’t struggling to find what he was talking about. The one-on-one experience is very positive!” – Tracy

The Mayday button is available exclusively on the new Fire HDX tablets—read the press release: www.amazon.com/kindle-pr.

And the whole high-end tablet value proposition according to:

Amazon Kindle Fire HDX review 7 and 8.9 inch [amazon store YouTube channel, Sept 26, 2013]:

Introducing Kindle Fire HDX—Powerhouse Tablets Built for Work and Play [Amazon press release, Sept 25, 2013]

All-new Kindle Fire HDX—stunning new 7″ or 8.9″ HDX display, quad-core 2.2 GHz processor with 3x the processing power, 2x more memory, 11 hours of battery life, and dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio

New HDX display goes beyond HD—exceptional pixel density, perfect 100% sRGB color accuracy, reduced glare, dynamic image contrast, and improved brightness for the best viewing experience indoors or out

Lightest large-screen tablet—Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ is startlingly light at 13.2 ounces, 34% lighter than the previous generation

Introducing the Mayday Button—revolutionary on-device tech support—free, 24×7, 365 days a year

Prime Instant Video movies and TV shows now available for downloading—watch anywhere, even when offline—available exclusively on Kindle Fire HDX

Stay connected and productive with updated email, calendar and Silk browser, plus seamless integration with Facebook and Twitter

Enterprise-ready with support for encryption, Kerberos Intranet, secure Wi-Fi connections and VPN integration

SEATTLE—September 25, 2013—(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today introduced the third generation of Kindle Fire—the all-new Kindle Fire HDX. The new Kindle Fire HDX tablets combine groundbreaking hardware, the latest version of Fire OS, and exclusive new features and services like X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, Prime Instant Video downloads, and the revolutionary new Mayday button. Learn more about the new Kindle Fire HDX family at www.amazon.com/hdx.

The new Kindle Fire HDX family features:

Stunning exclusive HDX display—beyond HD with exceptional pixel density ([1920×1200 resolution at] 323 ppi for 7″, [2560×1600 resolution at] 339 ppi for 8.9″), perfect 100% sRGB color accuracy, reduced glare, dynamic image contrast,and improved brightness for better viewing in any lighting conditions.

Powerful quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor running at 2.2 GHz provides over 3x the processing power compared to the previous generation, plus the latest graphics engine and 2x more memory for fast and fluid performance. These are the only tablets with a processor over 2 GHz.

Startlingly light design—at just 13.2 ounces [374g], the 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX is the lightest large-screen tablet, 34% lighter than the previous generation.

Powered by the latest version of Fire OS—Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito”—with hundreds of new and upgraded features, platform updates, and Amazon-exclusive services like X-Ray for Music, Cloud Collections, Goodreads, and more.

New Mayday button delivers revolutionary live tech support—one touch connects you to an Amazon expert who can guide you remotely through any feature—24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal.

All-day battery life—up to 11 hours of mixed use and 17 hours of reading.

Updated email, calendar, and Silk browser to stay connected and productive.

New enterprise features including hardware and software-encryption, Kerberos Intranet, secure Wi-Fi connections, VPN integration, and wireless printing.

Both HDX 7″ and 8.9″ available with ultra-fast 4G LTE wireless. Available on the AT&T network, and for the first time on the Verizon Wireless network.

Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio and virtual 5.1 multi-channel surround sound—the standard in high-end audio.

Front-facing HD camera makes it easy to stay in touch with Skype, plus a new 8 megapixel wide- aperture rear-facing camera on the 8.9″ Fire HDX offers crisp photos and 1080p HD video.

Best video experience on a tablet with new Amazon-exclusive features like Prime Instant Video downloads, Second Screen, and expanded X-Ray for Movies and TV.

Deep integration with the world’s best content ecosystem—over 27 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks and magazines.

New Origami covers feature an innovative design that allows you to position Fire HDX in both portrait and landscape.

“It’s been just two years since we introduced the first Kindle Fire, and the team is innovating at an unbelievable speed,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “2.2 GHz processor, 339 ppi display, new 34% lighter design, Fire OS 3.0, and new exclusive features like the Mayday button, X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, and Prime Instant Video downloads. We’ve worked hard to pack this much hardware, innovation, and customer obsession into these prices.”

World-Class Hardware

First-Ever, Exclusive HDX Display—Beyond HD
Amazon’s exclusive HDX display brings together exceptional pixel density (1920×1200 at 323 ppi for 7″, 2560×1600 at 339 ppi for 8.9″) and perfect color accuracy (100% sRGB), resulting in images and videos that display as the photographer or videographer intended. The new display also features dynamic image contrast, a unique algorithm that adjusts the color of each pixel depending on the ambient brightness in order to maximize contrast. This makes images and videos even easier to see in any lighting conditions, including outdoors. See a video: www.amazon.com/display.

2.2 GHz, Quad-Core Processor and 2x the RAM
Kindle Fire HDX tablets are the first tablets powered by the most advanced quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor. These are the only tablets with a processor over 2 GHz—the four cores can each run at 2.2GHz, providing 28 billion instructions per second—over 3x the processing power of the previous generation Kindle Fire HD. Fire HDX also doubles the RAM to 2GB, resulting in faster app launch times, faster website load times, smoother multi-tasking, and better overall performance.

New Graphics Engine Perfect for Gaming
The new Adreno 330 graphics engine on Kindle Fire HDX delivers 4x the graphics performance of the previous generation Kindle Fire HD. This combination of a new graphics engine, HDX display, quad-core processor, and 2x the memory creates a more immersive, high-frame rate HD gaming experience.

Lightest Large-Screen Tablet—13.2 ounces, 34% Lighter
Amazon integrated the capacitive touch layer directly into the glass display on Fire HDX, leaving a lighter single layer instead of the typical 2-layer display stack. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ frame is a single-piece of machined magnesium with a blend of glass and nylon molded onto the unibody to create openings for the antennas and maximize signal strength without sacrificing sturdiness. The result is the lightest large-screen tablet—at just 13.2 ounces, it is 34% lighter than the previous generation large-screen Fire HD tablet.

11 Hours of Battery, Up to 17 Hours for Reading
Even with all this additional power, Fire HDX still delivers 11 hours of mixed use battery life. When you are reading, Fire HDX automatically powers down the CPU and any unnecessary system components and stores the displayed text in dedicated, low-power memory—the result is up to 17 hours of battery life for reading.

8MP Rear-Facing Camera for Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″
Both the 7″ and 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX feature a front-facing HD camera to help you stay in touch with friends and family with Skype. Fire HDX 8.9″ features an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera that allows for high-resolution photos and 1080p HD video, plus an LED flash, Electronic Image Stabilization, and a wide-aperture 5P f2.2 lens that lets in more light, reducing exposure times and producing sharper images. See a video: www.amazon.com/fire-camera.

New Origami Covers
New origami-style cover design provides a simple stand for both portrait and landscape positions, and attaches magnetically so it’s easy to take on and off. The cover for the 8.9″ Fire HDX features a custom slide feature that quickly exposes the rear-facing camera and automatically launches the camera application so you won’t miss a great photo opportunity. See a video: www.amazon.com/quickpic.

The Mayday Button

Revolutionary On-Device Tech Support from Amazon’s Tech Advisors
Having trouble or want to learn how to use a new feature? Simply tap the Mayday button in Quick Settings, and an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal. Mayday is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. See the separate press release on the Mayday button and preview three upcoming TV ads that show how the Mayday button works: www.amazon.com/mayday.

New Amazon-Exclusive Features and Services

Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito”
Kindle Fire HDX is powered by the newest version of Fire OS – Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito”, which introduces hundreds of new and upgraded features, Amazon-exclusive services, platform updates and more. Fire OS starts with Android and adds cloud services, a content-first user interface, built-in media libraries, productivity apps and low-level platform enhancements to integrate Amazon’s digital content and improve performance for Kindle Fire tablets. If an app runs on Android, it can run on Fire OS. Read more: www.amazon.com/fireos.

Download Prime Instant Videos on Kindle Fire HDX to Watch Anywhere
Prime Instant Video is the only U.S. online subscription streaming service that enables offline viewing—on a plane, on vacation, and anywhere else where you may not have Wi-Fi. Tens of thousands of Prime Instant Videos are now available for download on Fire HDX. If you are new to Prime, you get one free month of Amazon Prime when you purchase Fire HDX.

All-New X-Ray for Music
Amazon is expanding X-Ray to music by adding lyrics that let you follow along with songs. Lyrics display and scroll automatically line-by-line as the song plays. See a screenshot: www.amazon.com/x-ray.

X-Ray for Movies and TV—Now Even Better
Customer-favorite X-Ray for Movies and TV now shows the names of songs as they play as well as a list of all music in the movie or TV show, and lets you jump to the scene in which a particular song is playing. X-Ray also shows trivia items in context with the action on the screen. For example, in The Godfather when Clemenza tells his henchman to “leave the gun, take the cannoli”, X-Ray alerts you that actor Richard Castellano ad-libbed that famous line of dialog. X-Ray for TV also provides character backstories so you can easily remind yourself of the character’s history. X-Ray is offered only by Amazon and is powered by IMDb.

Second Screen Lets Others Join In
Fling TV shows and movies from your tablet to your big-screen TV using Second Screen, which turns your TV into the primary screen and frees up your Fire HDX to provide playback controls, a customized display for X-Ray, or simply a place to email, browse the web, and more while you watch a movie. Second Screen will be available starting next month for PlayStation 3 and Samsung TVs, and later this year for PlayStation 4. You can also wirelessly mirror movies, TV shows and photos from your tablets to your big-screen TV with Miracast-enabled accessories or TVs.

Stay Connected with Expanded Email, Docs, and Printing
With the new email on Fire HDX, it is easier than ever to set up your accounts, group conversations by subject, sync your email and more. Reading and managing documents on Fire HDX is simple: email them, sync them from a computer with Cloud Drive, clip them from the web with Send to Kindle, or transfer them via USB. Coming mid-November as part of the free, over-the-air Fire OS 3.1 update—print documents, photos, emails, and calendar events directly from Kindle Fire to compatible wireless printers.

Complete Enterprise Support
Fire HDX is ready for work, with support for encryption of the user partition of the device to secure data; support for Kerberos authentication so corporate users can browse secure intranet websites; the ability to connect to secure enterprise Wi-Fi networks as well as corporate networks via a native or a 3rd party VPN client; and Mobile Device Management solutions ranging from Amazon’s Whispercast service to 3rd party vendors like AirWatch, Citrix, Fiberlink, Good Technology, and SOTI. Some of these features will be delivered as part of the Fire OS 3.1 update. See the separate press release on enterprise features: www.amazon.com/kindle-enterprise.

Cloud Collections
Organize your books, newspapers, magazines, and apps in customized collections for easy reference, and Amazon’s Whispersync technology synchronizes the collections across your Kindle devices and reading apps so they’re available on all of your devices. Cloud Collections will be available as part of the Fire OS 3.1 update.

Goodreads on Kindle Fire
Join over 20 million other readers and see what your friends are reading, share highlights, and rate the books you read with Goodreads on Kindle, available exclusively from Amazon. Goodreads will be available as part of the Fire OS 3.1 update. See screenshots:www.amazon.com/goodreads.

Accessibility Features
Blind and visually impaired customers will discover new and improved accessibility tools such as Screen Reader, Explore by Touch, and Screen Magnifier, enabling access to the vast majority of Kindle Fire features. Screen Reader features IVONA’s award-winning natural language text-to-speech voice.

New Exclusive Deals for Kindle Fire Owners
Kindle Fire’s Special Offers are better than ever with exclusive limited-time, limited-quantity deals available directly from the lock screen. These deals are similar to Lightning Deals that run on Amazon.com, but with even greater savings. The first deal, available in the coming weeks, will be the Madden NFL 25 video game for $5 (92% off). See screenshots: www.amazon.com/offers.

All the Content
The Kindle Fire family offers the best selection of digital content—over 27 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks and magazines—including hundreds of thousands of exclusives:
– Over 150,000 movies and TV episodes—stream or download, purchase or rent.
– Tens of thousands of popular movies and TV episodes are available at no additional cost for Prime members with Prime Instant Video, the exclusive subscription streaming home to shows like Downton Abbey, Under the Dome, Justified, Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues and many more.
– The most popular apps and games. Apps are tested for the Amazon Appstore and Kindle Fire.
– Millions of songs—stream, download, and store purchases for free in the cloud for access anytime, anywhere.
– Hundreds of magazines and newspapers.
– Millions of books, including hundreds of thousands of titles that are exclusive to the Kindle Store. Over a million titles are $4.99 or less, over 1.7 million are $9.99 or less.
– Over 400,000 titles available for Prime members who own a Kindle to borrow for free as part of Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.
– Over 150,000 professionally-narrated audiobook titles, with free samples to listen to before buying.

“Buy Once, Enjoy Everywhere” with the Best Cross-Platform Interoperability
With apps available on the largest number of devices and platforms, Amazon makes it easier than ever to access your content anytime, anywhere. Use the Kindle, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon MP3 and Amazon Appstore for Android apps to “Buy Once, Enjoy Everywhere.” No other company offers the same level of flexibility with your content.

Pricing & Availability

The 7″ Kindle Fire HDX is $229. It is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/hdx-7 and it will begin shipping October 18. The 4G version is $329—you can pre-order today to reserve your place in line at www.amazon.com/4g-hdx-7 and it will begin shipping November 14.

The 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX is $379. It is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/hdx and it will begin shipping on November 7. The 4G version is $479—you can pre-order today to reserve your place in line at www.amazon.com/4g-hdx and it will begin shipping December 10.

Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ Standing Leather Origami Case

Slim, form-fitting cases designed by Amazon to perfectly fit the all new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets. All Origami cases feature magnetized panels to securely stand the device in either landscape or portrait orientation and are available in either a premium natural leather or durable polyurethane. The cases for Kindle Fire HDX and Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ tablets attach to the devices magnetically, making it easy to attach and remove. Furthermore, the cases redirect the sound from your Kindle Fire HDX speakers towards you, immersing you in the rich cinematic Dolby Digital Plus sound experience. Finally, an exclusive Camera-Ready feature for the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ case makes it quick and easy to take pictures so you can capture all your precious moments – simply slide the device up in the case and the camera automatically starts, allowing you to quickly snap a picture.
Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX are Enterprise-Ready [Amazon press release, Sept 25, 2013]

New features include device encryption, secure Wi-Fi connections, native VPN, Kerberos authentication for Intranet access, and integration with leading MDM providers

Today, Amazon is introducing new enterprise and productivity features in Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito,” the software platform that powers the new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets. The new Fire HD and Fire HDX are available for pre-order starting today atwww.amazon.com/hdx.

“Kindle Fire is already the second most popular tablet at work in the U.S.,” said Raghu Murthi, Vice President of Enterprise and Education,Amazon. “As employees increasingly bring their own devices to work, the new Kindle Fire tablets can be easily integrated into the workplace with the new enterprise features, including encryption, secure Wi-Fi, a native VPN client, integration with leading MDM solutions, and Kerberos support for Intranet access.”

Features that make the new Kindle Fire tablets enterprise-ready include:
– Wi-Fi networks with WPA2 support for secure access to corporate apps, documents and resources like SharePoint.
– Email that makes it even easier for business customers to set up their accounts, group conversations by subject, sync their email and more.
– Print documents and emails directly from Kindle Fire to a wireless printer.
– Built-in OfficeSuite to read documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
– Native VPN client, for instant access to corporate networks while on the road or at home.
– Secure hardware data encryption on Kindle Fire HDX.
– Kerberos authentication for single sign-on and the ability to browse secure Intranet websites from the Silk browser on Kindle Fire.
– Native SCEP (Simple Certificate Exchange Protocol) client to retrieve digital certificates for secure resources.
– Kindle-specific device management APIs that integrate with existing mobile device management (MDM) systems to make it easy for IT departments to manage Kindle Fire. Kindle Fire supports a wide range of MDM solutions including Amazon’s Whispercast service as well as third-party vendors like AirWatch, Citrix, Fiberlink, Good Technology, and SOTI.

Business customers can also take advantage of Android enterprise and productivity apps available in the Amazon Appstore. Examples of top productivity apps available for Kindle Fire include GoToMeeting, Evernote, Cisco AnyConnect, and Documents To Go.

“We work with our clients to distribute Kindle Fire to their new employees because Kindle Fire allows companies to distribute information quickly and efficiently so their employees can easily share course materials, reference documents, and their individual notes with their colleagues,” said Caroline Brant, Director, Learning Solutions at ROI Training, Inc. “Our global clients include leading technology and financial services firms and Kindle Fire has proven to make it easier for our employees to stay productive whether at work or at home.”

Some of these features will be delivered as part of the free, over-the-air Fire OS 3.1 update in mid-November. For additional details, visit www.amazon.com/fireos.
[From which I will copy here the most important part:]

To read the separate press release for the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets visit: www.amazon.com/kindle-pr.

For additional information about the new enterprise features visit:amazon.com/kindle/business.

More information about Introducing Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito” [Amazon press release, Sept 25, 2013]

Brings hundreds of platform updates and exclusive new features, including the Mayday button, X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, 1-Tap Archive, Cloud Collections, Quiet Time, Optimizing Download Manager, and Social Integration with Goodreads and Facebook

New enterprise and productivity features—including printing, email conversation view, enterprise encryption and mobile device management—BYOD support

Apps and games built for Android are compatible with Fire OS

Fire OS 3.0 available exclusively on the all-new Kindle Fire HD & Kindle Fire HDX tablets

Amazon.com today introduced Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito,” the next generation of software and services that powers the best-selling Kindle Fire tablets, with hundreds of updates and exclusive new features to give customers a simple OS experience with Android app compatibility. Fire OS starts with Android and adds:

Low-level platform enhancements, including: the Optimizing Download Manager, re-designed graphics pipeline, Reading Mode, and improvements to touch latency for better performance.
Productivity apps with enhanced email, documents, and enterprise support with hardware and software data encryption.
Deep integration of the hardware, software and services to deliver features like X-Ray, the Mayday button, Second Screen, and more.
Built-in media libraries for instant access to music, movies, apps, and games both stored on the device or in the cloud, and automatically syncs between them.
Content-first user interface with both Carousel and Grid views.
Cloud services like Whispersync, 1-Tap Archive and Cloud Collections.

Fire OS 3.0 is available exclusively on the all-new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX—read a separate press release at:www.amazon.com/kindle-pr.

“Fire OS includes the core email and productivity apps, but we take a different approach when it comes to content,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Our content-first approach shapes the design of Fire OS—the home screen makes the most recent content items available instantly on the Carousel or Grid and customers can move between their media libraries both on the device and in the cloud with a simple tap. We’ve also deeply integrated Amazon services directly into Mojito, such as the Mayday button, Second Screen, X-Ray for Movies & TV shows, and now X-Ray for Music.”

“Fire OS lets developers offer their Android apps on Kindle Fire with little to no work,” said Mike George, Vice President, Amazon Appstore. “Developers can integrate services like Whispersync for Games, GameCircle, In-App Purchasing, and Amazon’s Mobile Associates into their apps to take advantage of the Amazon Appstore’s increased monetization and customer engagement.”

Fire OS features for Android apps and games:

Native Android App Compatibility is supported by Fire OS, so if an app runs on Android it can run on Fire OS with little to no work. Fire OS is built from the Android open source kernel and runtime libraries and is consistently tested for Android app compatibility. Amazon also offers developers an integrated ecosystem for building, monetizing and marketing their apps and games for Fire OS, which results in better customer engagement.
Support for HTML5 Apps allows developers to offer their web apps and mobile websites on Kindle Fire tablets to customers in the same, convenient way as mobile apps. As one of the only platforms to offer this level of HTML5 support, developers can submit and distribute mobile web content without using third-party software or any mobile development.
GameCircle and Whispersync for Games give developers the opportunity to allow customers to sync their game progress and scores across devices, and to quickly integrate Achievements and Leaderboards into their games.
In-App Purchasing and Mobile Associates lets developers give customers the opportunity to buy digital and physical items, such as toys, upgrades and game pieces fromAmazon.com and use their Amazon accounts to make the purchase directly from within an app.
Amazon Device Messaging gives customers a single messaging platform for all their apps built on Amazon Web Services, which developers can take advantage of to send notifications to Kindle Fire tablets.
Amazon Coins offers every new Kindle Fire customer 500 coins ($5) of virtual currency to use for purchasing apps, games, or in-app items on Kindle Fire. Amazon Coins is an easy way for customers to spend money on developers’ apps and offers another opportunity to drive traffic and app downloads increasing monetization even further.
Accessibility Tools including Screen Reader, Explore by Touch and Screen Magnifier enable access to the vast majority of Fire OS features. Text-to-Speech for book reading features natural-sounding IVONA voices for the following languages: US, British and Australian English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and French Canadian. Fire OS 3.0 supports standard Android Text-to-Speech APIs, so developers can take advantage of IVONA voices for third-party apps.

Cloud services and user interface improvements:

Carousel and Grid views let customers choose how they want to navigate their content. With a swipe, the redesigned Fire OS home screen easily switches between viewing their recent content on the Carousel or their favorites in Grid view.
Cloud Collections organizes apps, books, newspapers, and magazines, making them easier to find. Collections are automatically stored in the cloud and Amazon’s Whispersync technology synchronizes collections across Kindle devices and apps.
1-Tap Archive frees up space on Kindle Fire tablets by identifying items that have not been used recently and provides a 1-tap option to store them in the Cloud for later retrieval.
Kindle FreeTime gives parents the ability to more easily whitelist movies, books, apps and games appropriate for their kids’ enjoyment with the new “For Kids” suggestions.
Social Integration gives customers OS-level sharing capabilities for Facebook and Twitter. With Facebook, customers also get contacts, events and photos integration.

Revolutionary Mayday Button:

The Mayday Button delivers revolutionary on-device tech support and is available 24×7, 365 days a year, for free. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal. The Mayday button is built into Quick Settings and an Amazon expert will appear on the Fire HDX and can co-pilot a customer through any feature by drawing on the screen, walking them through how to do something themselves or doing it for them. See the separate press release and preview three upcoming TV ads that show how the Mayday button works: www.amazon.com/mayday.

Deeply-integrated content features:

Goodreads is built into the reading experience, so customers can see what friends are reading, get recommendations, share quotes, and write reviews from within the book.
X-Ray for Movies and TV now shows the names of TV theme or movie soundtrack songs as they play as well as trivia and goofs while watching a movie or TV show. Powered by IMDb, X-Ray for TV will also provide character backstories as the actor appears on screen.
X-Ray Expands to Music with synchronized lyrics that lets customers follow along line-by-line with a song. Lyrics are available even when Kindle Fire is not connected to Wi-Fi or 4G.
Second Screen allows customers to fling content from their Fire to their TV, turning the TV into the primary screen and freeing up their Fire as a second screen to email, browse the web, play a game, or follow along scene-by-scene with X-Ray. The Fire screen is not just a mirror image of the TV. Instead, when the customer flings the video to the TV, Fire syncs the video and the X-Ray data in the cloud and streams the video directly to the TV, so the quality of the video is not dependent the tablet’s processor or networking. The customer can even take their tablet to another room and leave the video playing on the TV.
Quiet Time, directly accessed from the quick settings menu, lets you mute all incoming notifications or calendar reminders. In addition, Quiet Time can be tied to a particular activity such as reading.
Quick Switch uses a global swipe gesture from anywhere in the system to go between multiple apps, and unlike standard Android, works with individual content items like different textbooks without navigating home.

Low-level platform enhancements:

Optimizing Download Manager enables parallel content downloads. Unlike standard Android, Fire OS adjusts the number of simultaneous downloads per device, so that foreground app performance is not impacted by background download activity. In addition, the Optimizing Download Manager automatically pauses ongoing content downloads when the customer starts streaming an Amazon Instant Video to maximize video quality. Customers can prioritize individual items to download first, and with progressive download they can open videos, Audible audiobooks, or magazines and start enjoying them while the download is still ongoing.
Graphics Direct Texture replaces the standard Android graphics pipeline. The Fire OS graphics system is customized to quickly load large graphical assets like the high-resolution cover art in the Fire OS home screen. Graphics Direct Texture enables the Carousel and the Fire OS media libraries to include large, detailed images and still load quickly and scroll smoothly.
Touch Responsiveness is improved by low-level changes to the way Fire OS 3.0 handles taps and swipes. For example, the system dynamically increases the CPU speed after the customer lifts their finger off the screen, to minimize touch latency in games and apps. And when a customer taps an app in the Carousel or Grid views, the system removes unnecessary OS overhead activities and drives the app start animation directly to the GPU, so that the app starts to open immediately.
Reading Mode gives customers up to 17 hours of battery life when reading. Fire OS automatically powers down unnecessary system components when customers are reading static pages, storing the text in a dedicated, low-power memory, and powering down the CPU.

New enterprise and productivity features:

Enhanced Email makes it easier to set up email accounts, and groups conversations by subject with threaded messaging and sync.
Printing support for wireless printers is now available for documents.
Enterprise Support with software data encryption on Kindle Fire HD and hardware data encryption on Kindle Fire HDX; the ability to connect to secure enterprise Wi-Fi networks and access corporate apps, documents and resources like SharePoint; native VPN client for instant access to corporate networks; a native SCEP (Simple Certificate Exchange Protocol) client to retrieve digital certificates for secure resources; and a rich set of Kindle-specific device management APIs that integrate with a wide range of existing mobile device management (MDM) systems, including Amazon’s Whispercast service and 3rd party vendors like AirWatch, Citrix, Fiberlink, Good Technology and SOTI. Fire OS 3.0 also supports Kerberos authentication, which enables seamless enterprise single sign-on and the ability to browse secure Intranet websites from the Silk browser on Kindle Fire.

Developers:

Developers consistently report how simple it is to bring their Android apps to the Fire OS platform and how they see increased monetization and engagement with their apps and games on Kindle Fire. Here’s what they have to say:

Imangi Studios is the creator of the popular game Temple Run. “We’ve integrated with Amazon’s In-App Purchasing and GameCircle APIs, which was a breeze,” says Keith Shephard, CEO of Imangi Studios. “We’ve seen significantly higher customer engagement withTemple Run since the integration, making the few, short steps worth it.”

“Since the launch of the very first Kindle Fire, Gameloft has been a strong believer in Amazon’s ability to bring a great user experience to digital gamers,” said Baudouin Corman, VP of Publishing for theAmericas, Gameloft, developers of Asphalt 8 & Despicable Me: Minon Rush. “From recommendations and reviews to GameCircle, Amazonis building the kind of strong ecosystem we want for our products.”

“Amazon continues to monetize incredibly well for us,” said Mike Sandwick, Manager of Strategic Partnerships, TinyCo, the mobile gaming developers behind Tiny Village. “Kindle Fire devices consistently deliver high LTVs across all of our titles.”

“We’re extremely happy with the per-user monetization we’ve achieved on Amazon with our games,” said Arlin Schaffel at Noodlecake Studios, publisher of Super Stickman Golf. “We regularly see more than double the per-user spend on Amazon compared to other app stores. As Amazon continues to expand worldwide, we’re excited to see our revenue grow along with them.”

Fire OS 3.0 is available exclusively on the all-new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets. Some of these features will be available mid-November as part of the free, over-the-air Fire OS 3.1 update www.amazon.com/fireos.

Developers can learn more about Fire OS 3.0 at http://developer.amazon.com/sdk/fireos.html.

See also Amazon Announces new Kindle Fire Tablets and Fire OS 3.0 [Amazon Mobile App Distribution Blog, Sept 24, 2013] from which I will quote here only:

Fire OS is based on Android 4.2.2 (API level 17), so Android compatibility is high, often requiring no additional development work. In fact, 75% of the Android tablet apps that we’ve tested run on Fire OS with no code changes.

Fire OS also includes a newly optimized, high-performance Chromium-based HTML stack, so your web apps deliver a native user experience using open web technologies such as HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3.

Other APIs now available include Bluetooth gamepads and joysticks as Human Interface Devices (HID), and multiple user support. Allowing multiple users makes family use easier, especially in conjunction with child-friendly Free Time.

In addition, this release opens Fire OS to a whole new class of Enterprise applications. With user partition encryption and secure connections to enterprise Wi-Fi networks, your application can better protect user data on-device and during transfer. Kerberos authentication and a native IPSec VPN client allow you to connect securely to corporate intranet websites from your app.

New customer-facing features and UI improvements enhance the user experience overall and better position your content with consumers. A redesigned Home Screen with Carousel and Grid views, for example, allows users to customize the display, while QuickSwitch gives them the ability to move between apps with a single swipe.

With Whisperplay, users can fling content from their tablet to their TV, and new download prioritization ensures data transfers in the background don’t compromise device performance, degrade playback, or interfere with the foreground application. X-Ray for Music, Movies, and TV lets customers explore their media in new ways, while Reading Mode makes books on the Kindle Fire even more enjoyable.

While from Jeff Bezos wants to delight you [The Verge, Sept 25, 2013] I will quote:

And the company’s relationship with Google? It’s a strange symbiosis, since the Fire line is based on Android and plugs deeply into the OS that Google has built — yet there are no Google services to speak of. Is there potential for a better relationship? A Google and Amazon partnership has always seemed like a union with incredible potential, but it hasn’t broken that way. “It’s the kind of thing that we’d always be extremely open to, but I don’t want to speculate on the future.” I ask if that’s something customers have asked for.

“People tend to focus on the ecosystem overall, and so when customers think about the ecosystem, they’re thinking about Prime Instant Videos, and Kindle ebooks. We have over 100,000 apps, it’s up 187 percent year over year. The platform monetizes really well for developers; [with] Fire OS, we work extremely hard to keep it compatible from a developer point of view, [it requires] almost zero work. That’s what’s making our ecosystem work.”

Microsoft could be acquired in years to come by Amazon? The joke of the day, or a certain possibility (among other ones)?

September 16, 2013 12:40 pm / Leave a comment

Discussion with one of my friends in the profession, let’s call him Gabriel (ezt diszkutáltuk itt Gábrielként szereplő szakmai barátommal az elmúlt 24 órában):

GABRIEL:

“the Wintel camp is destined to fail since the two giants have been keeping most of the profits to themselves, which is indirectly pushing many players to Google’s ecosystem” [see: The question mark over Wintel’s future will hang in the air for two more years]

Continuing this logic Apple is the most vulnerable one. It is also true, however, if there is no profit, no investment, innovation and progress. Rather, I see it as the old world order is overturned, and there is a new world order being formed, where there will be no dominant player like Wintel back in time, but there will be big groups of power. Majority of the profit will be harvested by dominant integrated players, like Samsung and Lenovo. The effect of transistor radio has been started to get felt, and there is a need of fundamental business model transformation. This is why MS is changing a lot, in the field of Devices & Services. Gadgets are getting cheaper and cheaper, OEMs do not want and can’t pay license fees, and therefore HW and SW integration is needed in order to offer a better user experience, and Cloud Services is going to be the big battlefield. And here’s the big loser could Apple, and there will be a giant battle between MS, Google and Amazon.

GABRIEL:

“the Wintel camp is destined to fail since the two giants have been keeping most of the profits to themselves, which is indirectly pushing many players to Google’s ecosystem” [ld. The question mark over Wintel’s future will hang in the air for two more years]

Ezt a logikat folytatva, az alma a legsebezhetobb. Viszont az is igaz ha nincs profit, nincs befektates, innovacio es haladas. En inkabb ugy latom hogy a regi vilagrand felborult, es kialakuloban van egy uj vilagrend, ahold nem less dominans jatekos mint a Wintel idejen, de azonban lesznek nagy ero-csoportok. A profit nagy reszet az dominans integralt jatekosok mint a Samsung es a Lenovo fogjak aratni. Elkezdodott a tranzisztor radio effektus es alapveto uzleti modell transzformaciora van szukseges. Ezert valt egy nagyot a MS is, a Devices & Services teruleten. A kutyuk egyre olcsobbak lesznek, az OEM-ek nem akarnak es tudnak licensz dijt fizetni, es igy szukseges a HW es SW integracio hogy jobb felhasznaloi elmenyt nyujtson, es a Cloud Services lesz a kovetkezo nagy csatater. Es itt a nagy vesztes az alma lehet, es a MS, a gugli es az Amazon kozott lesz a titani csata.

SÁNDOR:

IMHO the great battle will be between Amazon and Alibaba-Tencent-Xiaomi-Baidu etc., the Chinese company or group going out of the fight in Mainland China into a world domination. I will not be surprised if on the Western side Amazon will first acquire ONE MICROSOFT now turned to the right direction (it is worth for everybody to orient him/herself towards Seattle), and then even Google. Facebook and the global financial interests clustering around it will be the third major group, which will enter the battle after the 2016 both with the great Western technologies group and the big technology group/company coming out of the Mainland China as a global force by that time. The great strength of the Facebook-rooted group will be the Facebook currency (not a typo), which will be able to surpass the U.S. dollar as much as any other currency. Now, this will of course come well after 2016. … and I dare advance this projection not as some kind of a SEER, but based on hard-core current facts, trends etc., as well as the result of 3 and a half years of unrelenting work.

SÁNDOR:

A nagy csata SZVSZ az Amazon és az Alibaba-Tencent-Xiaomi-Baidu stb. közötti belkínai küzdelemből világuralomra jutó kínai cég vagy csoportosulás között lesz. Nem lepődnék meg, ha nyugati oldalról először a most jó irányba váltó ONE MICROSOFT-ot venné meg az Amazon (érdemes Seattle-be orientálódni mindnkinek), majd még a Google-t is. A Facebook és a körülötte csoportosuló globális tőkeérdekeltségek alkotta együttes lesz a harmadik nagy csoport, mely majd 2016 után lép csatába úgy a nagy nyugati technológiai csoporttal, mint a Belkínából addigra globálissá lett nagy technológiai csoporttal/céggel. A Facebook gyökerű csoport nagy erőssége lesz a Facebook valuta (nem tévedés), mely úgy a dollárt, mint bármi más devizát überelni lesz képes. No persze ez már bőven 2016 után. … és ezt egyáltalán nem valamiféle látnokként, hanem kőkemény jelenlegi tények, trendek stb. alapján, valamint 3 és fél éves lankadatlan munka eredményeként merem előre vetíteni.

GABRIEL:

Amazon buys the MS? This is worth of being the joke of the day. Thanks for the entertainment. I am on a bike tour and just stopped. The guys asked why I started all of a sudden to guffaw. …

[later] I just read over to the end. Even more, they will swallow even Google? Oh wow! And how, pray tell, will they do this? Oops! Giant market cap, but only just marginably profitable. Back last year they were in loss. So how will they scrape together 600 billion dollars? Perhaps the Chinese People’s Army will lend them? Amazon Q3 2012 earnings: $13.18 billion revenue, net loss of $274 million [engadget, Oct 25, 2012]

GABRIEL:

Az Amazon megveszi a MS-t? Ez feler a nap viccevel. Koszi a szorakoztatast . Motoros turan vagyok es epp megalltunk. A haverok kerdeztek hogy miert kezdtem hirtelen hangosan rohogni. …

[később] Most olvastam vegig. Sot, meg a guglit is bekebeleznek? Oh wow! Es hogyan, tennek, pray tell? Oops! Oriasi piaci ertek, de epp hogy marginalisan profitabilisak. Tavaly meg vesztesegesek voltak. Szoval hogyan fognak 600 Milliard Dollart osszakapirgalni? Talan a kinai nephadsereg majd kolcson ad nekik? Amazon Q3 2012 earnings: $13.18 billion revenue, net loss of $274 million [engadget, Oct 25, 2012]

SÁNDOR:

My dear friend Gabhri’-el (“man of God“)!

I did not want to disappoint you. My point was simply to indicate in a gentle way that in the current, quite unpredictable situation even the most unimaginable outcomes are as much possible as yours. Glance at the posts I referred to in the closing part of The question mark over Wintel’s future will hang in the air for two more years post of mine, and I hope you will agree with the above “indication statement” at least. Regarding the current market caps vs. that of Amazon I will draw your attention to certain historical stock prices given below. I will also dare to comment on them as suits my purpose here.

SÁNDOR:

Kedves Gábri-Él (“Úr embere”)!

Nem szerettem volna csalódást okozni neked. Egyszerűen azt kivántam volna érzékeltetni, szelíd formában, hogy a jelenlegi, meglehetősen megjósolhatatlan helyzetben még a leginkább elképzelhetetlen kimenetek is legalább annyira lehetségesek, mint a tiéd. Vess egy pillantást a The question mark over Wintel’s future will hang in the air for two more years című bejegyzésem befejező részében hivatkozott bejegyzésekre, és remélem legalább a fenti “érzékeltetési kijelentésemmel” egyet fogsz érteni. Ami az Amazonéval szembeni, jelenlegi részvénypiaci cégértékeléseket illeti az alábbiakban felhívnám figyelmedet bizonyos történelmi tőzsdeárazásokra. Veszem a bátorságot magamnak ahhoz is, hogy a szándékaim szerint megjegyzéseket fűzzek ezekhez.

Let’s see first Microsoft vs. Nokia (lássuk először a Microsoft kontra Nokia összehasonlítást):
– Nokia had exactly 10 times higher share price ($39.72) at its latest peak (October 2007)than the one on the August 30, 2013 ($3.90)
– Microsoft’s latest peak of $36.81 on the same date never recovered ever since despite its continuous good profit and cash accumulation performance
– Even the acquisition of Nokia’s Devices & Services business on Sept 3, 2013 did not help much, while Nokia’s share jumpstarted by 60% since then (see the combined small chart on the right by clicking on it for a detailed comparison since the acquisition)

Then go to an Amazon vs. Google comparison (lássuk ezután az Amazon kontra Google összehasonlítást):
– Amazon’s share price is growing since November 2008 when it was $42.70 and it came to around $300 for the last two months.
– At same time Google’s share price was growing at such a pace in much earlier period, since Nov 17, 2008 ($262.43) to Dec 21, 2009 ($619.98), then after sharp decline during 2010 recovered to a generally below $600 level till July 9, 2012 ($576.52), only after which started an Amazon-like sharp till May 13, 2013 ($909.18), then continuing to be mostly below of that with rise to $889.07 for the week of Sept 9, 2013. See a recent timeframe on the right.

Final observations and conclusions:

Microsoft swallowed the once most promising part of Nokia’s business, the one for which Nokia was famous for. Why the same thing could not happen to Microsoft when its upcoming 2 years of market trials will end in a similar niche market result in the Devices & Services space now to be joined under Stephen Elop’s leadership? That is Amazon acquiring that part of Microsoft the same way Microsoft that part of Nokia. Two years from now Amazon would not want anything else than that business only to join with one of its own (Kindle etc.). Meanwhile the rest of Microsoft will continue as an enterprise vendor with an alternative cloud platform to consumers as well.
If that is a definite scenario (albeit one of many others) why the same thing could not happen to Google’s overall Motorola device and Android software business, thus leaving Google with classic advertising part.

Jingdong (former 360buy) e-commerce value proposition and ongoing global expansion

September 2, 2013 7:16 pm / Leave a comment

Disclaimer: I have no association either with Jingdong (former 360buy), Alibaba Group etc. The sole purpose of this post is to provide a Jingdong related illustrative follow-up to The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower [Aug 13, 2013], Assesment of the Xiaomi phenomenon before the global storm is starting on Sept 5 [Aug 30, 2013], and Opinion Leaders and Lead Opinions: Reflections on Steven Sinofsky’s “Era of Continuous Productivity” vision [Sept 1, 2013] posts on my ‘Experiencing the Cloud’ trend-tracking blog.

Shop at EN.JD.COM [360BuyOfficial, May 22, 2013]

About Jingdong [from press releases on PR Newswire since July 8, 2013]

Jingdong is the largest B2C direct sales e-commerce company in China (source: iResearch). The Company has achieved around 150% annually compounded growth in gross merchandise volume over the past several years and strives to offer the best online shopping experience to its customers. It currently offers more than 9 million SKUs through its B2C direct sales and online marketplace platform. The Company has established nationwide fulfillment capabilities and extensive last mile delivery network to provide superior customer experience. As of June 2013, the Company has 6 major fulfillment centers with 75 warehouses in 30 cities, as well as nearly 1,000 delivery stations and nearly 300 pickup stations nationwide. Through its speedy delivery services, the Company offers same day delivery in 27 major cities and next day delivery in more than 150 cities in China. Its newly launched night delivery and 3-hour delivery services are now available in 6 major cities in China.

From: China’s e-commerce prize [Bain & Company briefing (survey-based), Aug 30, 2013]

While pure plays dominate in the market, there is significant growth opportunity for omnichannel merchants. Among the most important developments we found in this year’s survey: When offered the choice, Chinese shoppers prefer retailers’ e-commerce stores over pure play sites like Jingdong. This is an encouraging finding for omnichannel players as they chart their futures. The survey also dispels a concern expressed by retailers that investing in their own website would cannibalize physicalstore sales. In fact, the opposite is true. The website feeds store sales, increasing a retailer’s total combined sales (see Figure 3).

JD.COM [Announcement and global branding messages] [360BuyOfficial, April 25, 2013]

360buy.com renames to JD.com. Our global online store en.360buy.com is now offering over an extensive catalogue of products. http://en.360buy.com/

Jingdong Adopts JD.com as New Domain Name and Unveils Mascot “Joy” [press release, March 30, 2013]

Jingdong (“Jingdong” or the “Company”), China’s leading direct B2C e-commerce company, announced today that effective immediately, it will adopt the domain name JD.com. Jingdong’s previous domain, 360buy.com, will continue to exist, but will redirect users to JD.com. Jingdong also unveiled a new corporate mascot, a dog named “Joy.”

“Jingdong is delighted to streamline its corporate brand and launch the simpler JD.com domain, which will be easier for our Chinese customers to remember,” said Richard Liu, founder and CEO of Jingdong. “Our new mascot, Joy, represents Jingdong’s loyalty to our customers and our close relationship with their daily life. We remain committed to offering best-in-class user experience to our customers throughout the world.”

En.360buy.com—–Online Shopping [cc Jane, March 13, 2013]

Please feel free to contact us: contact@jd.com Visit us: en.360buy.com About us —————————————-——————– 360buy Group was formed in 1998, and is China’s largest online retailer, growing 3 times faster than the industry average. 360buy Group continued to achieve robust growth in the first quarter of 2012, having a 50.1% share in China’s self-run B2C market and a 22.7% share in China’s B2C market as a whole. The success of the 360buy Group in China prompted a need to offer international customers equal access to Chinese high quality and low price products. Our global online store is now offering over an extensive catalogue of products, and this volume will continue to grow.

Chinese Online Retailer 360buy Group Expands into Overseas Markets with Launch of International Shopping Site [press release, Oct 18, 2012]

360buy Group ( www.360buy.com ), the Leader in the Chinese B2C e-Commerce Market, is Expanding into Overseas Markets with the launch of its international English shopping site http:// en.360buy.com . Today, Consumers in about 40 countries and regions worldwide can have Access to High Quality but affordable made-in-China Products in Tandem with a Premium Level of Customer service through the e-Commerce site.

The international site has distinct advantages by offering over 400,000 products in more than eighteen major categories, including bridal wear, handsets, tablet PCs, electronics, books, sports and outdoor goods as well as automobile accessories. A number of major international delivery firms will be appointed to deliver goods to the site’s consumers. Taking the lead in entering this new frontier will lay a sound foundation for 360buy Group to establish a footprint in the international arena and is also a critical step in the company’s expansion strategy.

Jingdong Marketplace Expands Vendor Services to Become Total Solution Provider [press release, July 30, 2013]

Jingdong (“JD.com” or the “Company”), a leading B2C e-commerce company in China, announced today that Jingdong Marketplace will further expand beyond the traditional marketplace platform model and become a total solution provider in the areas of technology, logistics, customer services and financial services to help vendors achieve steady and sustainable growth. Jingdong made the announcement during the Company’s first Marketplace Vendor Summit inBeijing, which hosted more than 500 third-party vendors from a wide range of sectors, including clothing, cosmetics, food and furniture, among others.

“Jingdong Marketplace’s continued development into a total solution provider will take our vendors’ e-commerce experience to the next level,” said Richard Liu, Founder and CEO of Jingdong. “The great efforts we have made steadily improving our technology, logistics, customer services and financial services will streamline Jingdong Marketplace and create greater value for our customers, vendors and other business partners.”

“Becoming a total solution provider will further accelerate the development of Jingdong Marketplace, positioning it to be an important growth driver for the next decade,” commented Ye Lan, Jingdong’s Chief Marketing Officer. “By providing vendors with a one-stop solution, we will be able to expand our product categories and SKUs, attract more new customers—especially among growth demographics like women, and encourage repeat purchases. We expect Jingdong Marketplace to contribute significantly to the company’s overall transaction value within a few years.”

“Jingdong Marketplace leverages the strengths of our large and quality customer base, our reputation for authentic products and our unparalleled nationwide fulfillment capacity,” said Kate Kui, Vice President responsible for Jingdong Marketplace. “Our comprehensive support platform provides Jingdong Marketplace vendors with data analytics, business intelligence, flexible payment options, speedy settlement services, and a fair and transparent vendor regulatory system. Our commitment to Jingdong Marketplace will help our vendors grow bigger and stronger, improve customer experience and contribute to the company’s overall growth.”

Ms. Kui also announced the launch of the Jingdong Marketplace Key Accounts Division, which will serve well-known brands and vendors with particularly high growth potential. The Key Accounts team will be dedicated to providing customized solutions for those vendors throughout their supply chain and product life cycle.

About Jingdong Marketplace

Since its launch in October 2010, Jingdong Marketplace has experienced rapid growth and contributes an increasingly significant amount to Jingdong’s overall transaction value. It has tens of thousands of third-party vendor partners, offering more than 10 million SKUs. The marketplace business is a total solution provider that serves as an essential driver for Jingdong’s long-term vision of creating a healthy ecosystem that helps its suppliers, vendors, customers and other business partners succeed and thrive.

More to read:
– Jingdong leads the E-Commerce charge in China [CKGSB Knowledge, Aug 23, 2013]
– Global E-Commerce: China’s Jingdong Steps Out [CKGSB Knowledge, Aug 26, 2013]
– Former Amazon manager takes Chinese e-commerce company global [GeekWire, Aug 16, 2013]

China’s e-tailing industry has posted 120 percent annual growth since 2003, and online sales in China could reach $650 billion by 2020, according to McKinsey Global Institute.

…

Jingdong is still weighing options to expand its offices first into emerging markets or the U.S., Shi said, but the answer to whether the company is going global is clear: “Yes, definitely.”

General information

From: Xinhua Insight: Internet industry optimism to buoy China’s economy? [Aug 17, 2013]

At the 2013 China Internet Conference in Beijing, you felt like you had been teleported into a bazaar.

…

“Internet-related consumption of information products and services together with e-commerce are becoming the two biggest drivers of China’s economic growth and restructuring,” said Liang Chunxiao, vice president of the country’s top online trading platform Alibaba Group.

He predicted that online retail revenues would account for more than 16 percent of China’s total social sales in 2020 when the aggregated e-commerce volume exceeds 28.8 trillion yuan (4.7 trillion dollars).

“E-commerce will boost related sectors such as logistics and raw materials, and help release the consumption potential in many remote areas,” Liang added.

China’s Internet economy will take up 6.9 percent of its GDP in 2016, up from 5.5 percent seen in 2010, according to a research report by the Boston Consulting Group last year.

…

Alibaba has created 3 million direct jobs and over 100 ~~billion~~ [million] indirect ones, and the number will keep growing, according to Liang.

Another big online retailer Jingdong hired more than 30,000 delivery men, most of whom are migrant workers, said vice president Zhao Guoqing.

From: China’s e-commerce prize [Bain & Company briefing (survey-based), Aug 30, 2013]

The year 2013 will be remembered as the one in which China surpassed the US as the world’s largest digital retail market. Last year, Chinese e-commerce shoppers spent RMB 1.3 trillion [$212 billion] online, a sum that has grown more than 70% annually since 2009 and is expected to continue on its amazing trajectory, reaching RMB 3.3 trillion [$490 billion] by 2015 (see Figure 1). Digital retailing has furiously transformed shopping and purchasing habits, opening up vast opportunities for retailers and brands that pay attention to the nuances of massively changing consumer behavior.

To better understand how Chinese consumers shop and purchase online—and what implications that has for retailers and brands—Bain & Company surveyed more than 1,300 online shoppers across all city tiers, incomes, ages and education levels. A follow-up to our initial 2012 China e-commerce report, it gave us the opportunity to dig deeper into the dramatic growth numbers to understand how the world of online retailing has changed their behavior (see Figure 2). We found Chinese shoppers have been more willing than shoppers in other markets to use their smartphones to make purchases, are comfortable with third-party payments and online banking, and are happy to rely on third parties for deliveries—as opposed to picking up products in stores. Perhaps most important for the years to come is that we learned that digital retailing now is the major influence on their actual purchasing decisions.

Logistics revolution in China: Will delivery companies deliver? [CKGSB Knowledge, June 24, 2013]

…

Alibaba, the world’s biggest business to business (B2B) online platform, is probably the one facing the biggest challenge. It’s popular customer to customer (C2C) online marketplace Taobao receives more than 20 million orders a day (70% of China’s deliveries). The parcels are delivered by third-party providers that have to deal with China’s underdeveloped delivery infrastructure. This is a common problem the whole industry is facing, prompting other e-commerce players like Jingdong Mall (JD.com which was formerly known as 360buy.com), Suning and VANCL to invest in self-owned and managed logistics systems to ensure they are in control of the whole process.

In contrast, Alibaba is not interested in owning its delivery network and since 2011 it has been lobbying for what it sees as a “logistics revolution”.

In May this year, it announced the formation of a new company, Cainiao Network Technology. With Alibaba’s former CEO, Jack Ma, as the Chairman, Cainiao is an alliance of logistics companies, couriers and e-commerce companies such as Yintai Group, Alibaba Group and SF-Express, that are willing to collectively work for the development of a nationwide IT logistics platform. An Alibaba group spokesperson told CKGSB Knowledge that the company is “spearheading the project in cooperation with industry partners with a common goal of enhancing the existing logistics network, whether it be on the IT or physical delivery and warehousing levels”. With a planned initial investment of $16.3 billion, the consortium marks a critical step in Alibaba’s vision of developing what it calls a China Smart Logistics Network within this decade. The ultimate aim is to solve a common problem that the company describes as a “key industry bottleneck for e-commerce growth in China”, the spokesperson says.

…

Only sophistication and specialization can ensure that Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall platforms will function efficiently in the future. The company wants to be able to guarantee same-day delivery nationwide. And it believes this will be possible only if all the parties involved form partnerships and strategic alliances to actively participate in the development of a ‘Modern 21st Century Logistics Network’.

It’s an ambitious attempt. According to the company, over the next 5-10 years, the newly formed Cainiao will oversee the construction of a nationwide warehousing network that will cover a total area as large as 560 American football fields (3 million square meters approximately). Beijing, Tianjin, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta are some of the locations under consideration to build these logistics hubs. Since the project is conceived as an Open Logistics Platform, its partners, Taobao sellers and B2C websites can openly share facilities and all the logistics data.

China M-commerce Market Research 2012 [Advangent AG, May 15, 2013]

2012 is a triumphant year for e-commerce in China.

Alibaba, the owner of Taobao and TMall online store has reached top place as the most profitable Internet company in terms of net profit in Q4; several leading e-commerce providers are contending for larger market share while continuing to fuel the growth of the market. M-commerce is also booming.

Here’s a look at what China market holds for M-commerce in 2012 and beyond.

First of all, M-commerce user base has been growing steadily since 2009, it reached 149 million by the end of 2012 and expects to top 352 million by 2015.

In terms of market share, No one can beat Taobao‘s dominance at 62.7%. Jingdong, previously called 360 buy, remains a distant second at 16.7%, followed by a few other players like QQ, Suning, Vancl, Dung-dung and Yihaodian.

Moneywise, total revenue of M-commerce was merely 100 million US dollars in 2009, the figure topped 7.7 billion mark in 2012 and expects to reach 40.8 billion by 2015.

For M-commerce users, almost equal percentage of men and women shop online, the difference is less than 1%. However the number of women users is expected to catch up with men quickly.

China still has a regionally imbalanced economy. Most M-commerce shoppers come from affluent areas in the eastern part of China characterised by mega cities and dense population. For instance, 31.3%, 22.2% and 17.2% shoppers are from south China, east China and north China respectively where three largest metropolitan cities Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing are located.

There’re quite few choices for smartphone operation system. Android leads the market at 62.5%, followed by iOS at 32.7% and Symbian at 4.5%, which is still used on large number of low-end devices. Windows has got only 0.3% and there is lots of catch up to do for Microsoft.

Shoppers on Android, iOS and Symbian follow similar trends in time of shopping. However, while shopping on Android and iOS peak during the rush hours in the morning and afternoon, on the other hand, a large number of users on Symbian shop close to midnight.

Women and men have quite different tendencies in products bought. Women’s top purchases include women’s clothing, shoes, bags, cosmetic and skincare, and mother and baby products; men’s purchases include men’s clothing, women’s clothing, and 3C products.

Now, the average monthly spend for Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. While the spend under 8 dollars went down from 27.2% to 19.7%, spend in the 8 dollars to 48 dollars range has shown steady growth throughout the year. The spend level is expected to grow along with the improvement of living standard and maturization of large payment on mobile phone.

Concern for payment security is clearly indicated in payment method. 33.2% shoppers choose cash on delivery and 32.6% 3rd party payment such as Taobao’s Alipay. Only 13.2% choose online banking and 11.2% mobile payment. Less than 5% pay through China Mobile payment Easyown, and 2.4% through bank transfer.

For delivery method, around 67% shoppers use privately-run courier services due to price advantage and speed of delivery, around 21% choose EMS, a service run by China Post for security and better coverage as it’s often the only option for delivery to remote regions in China.

For users not choosing online shopping on mobile phone, the leading concerns are payment security, small screen that doesn’t provide good user-experience and slow network speed. Other concerns include, heard too many negative reviews, it’s troublesome to set up mobile payment, don’t have the right resources, worry about not good at using mobile online shopping, don’t know how to set up, don’t like online shopping, and don’t know smartphone can do online shopping.

This video infographic is presented by Advangent — a digital link to your business in China. Visit us to find more at http://www.advangent.com. Thank you for watching.

Chinese B2C E-Commerce driven by Luxury Goods and Social Commerce [preview for ‘Asia B2C E-Commerce Report 2013’ by yStats.com, Feb 5, 2013]

The recent “China B2C E-Commerce Report 2013” by Hamburg-based secondary market research company yStats.com provides information about the Chinese B2C E-Commerce market. Aside from trends, it covers revenues, the share of B2C E-Commerce on total retail sales, product categories, Internet user and shopper data, as well as information about leading players in B2C E-Commerce in China.

Chinese B2C E-Commerce expected to grow by approximately 30 Percent annually over the next Years

B2C E-Commerce is gaining more and more ground in China. According to forecasts, it is expected to grow by more than 30 percent annually between 2010 and 2016. Overall, fashion, shoes and bags, as well as computers and household appliances are among the most popular product categories online. B2C E-Commerce with luxury goods is one of the leading trends. In recent years, this segment has grown more strongly than traditional B2C E-Commerce.

A growing number of Chinese residents use social networks to purchase products online. Social Commerce is expected to become even more significant in China than in the USA. M-Commerce is also gaining in importance. Between 2011 and 2012, M-Commerce grew approximately fivefold and now accounts for more than four percent of total B2C E-Commerce sales.

Amazon is only in fifth Place among Online Retailers in China

Leading Chinese online retailers include Tmall [of Alibaba Group], 360buy, Tencent and Suning.com. Amazon is only in fifth place in China, with a market share of less than three percent. In 2011, Alibaba Group’s Tmall.com generated more than 100 billion CNY [$16.3 billion] in revenue, increasing its revenue by a three-digit growth rate. Some foreign companies also try to gain a foothold in the Chinese B2C E-Commerce market. In 2012, US company Toys’R‘Us opened its first online shop in China. However, online retailers face problems with the delivery of products ordered online. Consequently, retailers such as VANCL and 360buy are currently developing their own delivery solutions as shown in yStats.com’s “China B2C E-Commerce Report 2013”.

B2C E-Commerce and M-Commerce in China are expected to continue growing by double- to triple-digit percentage figures. However, the share of Internet users who also make purchases online is still much lower than in other countries of the Asia-Pacific region such as Japan and Australia.

Study on global B2C E-Commerce trends sees more personalization and increased use of mobile devices [yStats.com press release, April 11, 2013]

A newly released study by the Hamburg based secondary research company yStats points to trends expected to affect the B2C E-Commerce market in the coming years. Online shopping is likely to become more personalized, with retailers customizing their services and integrating online sales channels such as websites and social networks on any device that will connect to the Internet. M-Commerce is expected to play an ever larger role in the future, with over half a billion customers following the trend to shop via mobile devices by 2016. Moreover, throughout the world, online shoppers are forecasted to increasingly prefer to pay online when buying over the Internet, causing the online and mobile payment markets to grow strongly, especially in Asia.

Worldwide B2C E-Commerce growth will be led by large increases in the Asia-Pacific region

As current trends continue, Asia-Pacific is expected to overtake North America as the region with the highest B2C E-Commerce sales in 2013 and to account for over a third of global B2C E-Commerce revenues. By 2016, the Asia-Pacific region’s share is likely to increase further, while the North America and Western Europe shares of world total B2C E-Commerce are expected to steadily erode. Still, in 2013 USA is projected to remain by far the largest B2C E-Commerce market worldwide. One of the major trends there is expected to be growth of M-Commerce, reflected in triple-digit growth rates of mobile payments in the years to 2016. The Asia-Pacific region’s growth is expected to be led by China, with the number of online shoppers there projected to reach almost 2.5 times the number in the USA by 2016. M-Commerce is gaining popularity in China as well, with mobile sales on total B2C E-Commerce sales projected to triple by 2015. The online sales of luxury goods such as health and beauty products, apparel and watches has led the recent surge in B2C E-Commerce in China. New delivery systems and payment methods are being implemented in that country as well, helping to tap into the great potential for online commerce.

Intense growth foreseen in other nations

The other BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia and India, are also projected to see their B2C E-Commerce markets boom in the coming years. In India B2C E-Commerce is expected to see intense growth as soon as the payment environment is improved, since the current cash-on-delivery method of payment is seen as a hindrance to growth. The growth of Russian B2C E-Commerce is driven by the increasing Internet audience, already the largest in Europe, and increased online sales are anticipated as the challenge of product fulfillment is overcome. In Brazil online shopping benefits from growing mobile Internet penetration and social commerce. In Mexico B2C E-Commerce is forecasted to grow at double-digit rates in the years to 2015, with online travel sales leading the market. Another emerging B2C E-Commerce market is Africa. Growing smartphone penetration, especially in South Africa, is expected to boost M-Commerce and mobile payment markets on the continent.

Another trend influencing worldwide growth in online sales is the concept of group buying. In the Middle East particularly, group buying and daily deals websites have boosted B2C E-Commerce. Sales of Groupon in one nation in the region were so strong last year that the vendor could not keep up with the demand.

Growth expected in travel and gaming sectors

Among other trends highlighted in the yStats report, social media are forecasted to play an increasing role in the travel segment of the global B2C E-Commerce market, by helping customers research information for a trip. Moreover, the demand for travel arrangements adjusted for use on smartphones is likely to grow. Another market segment, online gambling, is expected to undergo a change in the years to 2015, with sports betting losing some of its share to lottery and casino.

Experiencing the Cloud

Category Archives: e-commerce

The Next Revolution: 3D XPoint™ non-volatile memories with speed and performance close to DRAM

UPDATE

28%

14x

2x

To watch Alisher Usmanov (Алишер Усманов)

Alibaba gets Tango for its push into the U.S. and the whole Western world

Tango’s Latest News: A Vision of The Future and a $280M Funding Round [by Uri and Eric in Tango Me Blog, March 19, 2014], note that my inserts below are from TANGO AT-A-GLANCE [company fact sheet, March 19, 2014] and the TangoME YouTube channel

More on Tango as it is:

Telegram

Wickr

Line

Kik

Tango

Breaking Up Is Hard

Amazon may hike Prime cost as earnings disappoint and further challenges lay ahead of the company for which it needs to adjust its business model and expand its operations

2014: Jack Ma (Alibaba) going against Jeff Bezos (Amazon) et al.

Tuning up for 2014 reform (2) [Jan 5]:

Carr at North Square Blue Oak … points out that e-commerce giant Alibaba Group’s Yu’ebao fund lured 100 billion yuan($16.5 billion) away from the country’s bank deposits in just four months.

“New innovative financial products such as this are already causing quite a lot of disruption to the financial system,” she says.

China Exclusive: Internet finance transforms China’s financial landscape [Jan 7]:

As of the end of 2013, Yu’E Bao had 43.03 million users with aggregate deposits of 185.3 billion yuan (30.4 billion U.S. dollars), the biggest single public fund in China. Internet finance has for the first time become part of life for many Chinese people.

China to set up fully private banks in 2014: CBRC [Jan 6]:

China will set up three to five fully private banks on a trial basis this year in a bid to further open up the banking sector to domestic and foreign capital, China’s banking regulator said Monday.

Private capital will be introduced to restructure current banking institutions or set up new ones bearing their own risks, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said in a work meeting.

Strict procedures and standards will be set for the pilots, with demanding set-up criteria, limited licenses, enhanced supervision and a risk handling system, according to the CBRC.

The CBRC will try to relax the threshold for foreign capital to enter China’s banking sector and ease Renminbi operation requirements, while more policies will be issued to support banking reform in the Shanghai free trade zone and financial reform pilot zone.

Tech in China 2013: High Hopes of Disrupting Domestic Financial Market excerpt #1:

The reform plan China’s central government released in November 2013 allows qualified private investors to set up banks.

Shanda, the veteran online gaming company, is the first Internet company that settled in the newly established Shanghai Free Trade Zone, planning to build Internet-based financial business and a joint bank there.

3rd payment firms enter the fray [Jan 7]:

Third-party payment companies, after a decade of fast development, are providing not only payment services but also services traditionally provided by banks, such as loans.

“For the past 13 years, Alibaba hasn’t thought of challenging anyone, but creating something new instead,” Alibaba’s Chairman Jack Ma said at an industry forum late March when asked whether his company aims to challenge banks.

“Banks are getting a bit nervous. But I think that getting nervous is good, and it would be strange if they aren’t,” Ma said.

While the biggest player in the sector, Alipay …originally acted only as an escrow between sellers and buyers, third-party payment companies are now offering a wide range of services, such as payment and settlement services, and micro loans.

Alibaba plans to launch a credit payment service for its mobile users, which gives them a certain credit limit based on their Alipay records.

Tech in China 2013: High Hopes of Disrupting Domestic Financial Market excerpt #2:

Yuebao’s slogan is “14 times of the return from banks”. It sounds attractive, but Yuebao doesn’t perform better than the average mutual funds. The convenience must be a key factor in attracting users. Another attractiveness is Yuebao shows returns daily.

Tech in China 2013: High Hopes of Disrupting Domestic Financial Market excerpt #3:

Apart from running a mutual fund by using user’s balance, there’s a bigger picture for Alipay.

Before long, several Chinese Internet companies launched online mutual funds and gave them similar names, such as Suning’s Yifubao, but none could be the same with Yuebao.

Fan Zhiming, president of Alifinance for Domestic Market, said at an event last month that they’d possibly make Yuebao a default that any balance in an Alipay account would buy the mutual fund automatically.

Alifinance, the finance arm of Alibaba Group, has already disrupted China’s finance sector with services like Alipay and small loans for online retailers.

WeChat to face tougher competition in 2014 [Jan 2]

Instant messaging app WeChat has helped Chinese internet giant Tencent become the first company to secure a position in the mobile internet market, but it is expected to face greater competition from rivals, the Shanghai-based First Financial Daily reports.

Sina and Alipay Launches Weibo Payment, to Fight against WeChat Payment [Jan 7]

HANGZHOU, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) — Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, holds less than 7.3 percent of shares in the newly founded Alibaba Microfinance Service Group, revealed a shareholding structure report on Friday.

Forty percent of the shares are held by over 20,000 staff of the Alibaba Group and the Alibaba Microfinance Service Group, said the report.

That 40 percent, part of an incentives scheme to make “all staff shareholders,” includes Ma’s shares.

Ma also holds 7.3 percent of shares in the Alibaba Group.

The other Alibaba Microfinance shares are expected to be acquired by strategic investors in the future, according to the report.

Alibaba set up the Microfinance Service Group in March to integrate its payment and micro payment businesses.

The Alibaba Microfinance Group is not included in the portfolio of Alibaba Group’s much-discussed initial public offering.

One man who was with Jack from the beginning was Joe Tsai. Alibaba’s longtime CFO, Joe recently moved up to Vice Chairman of the group and is actively involved in the group’s recent strategic investments.

I spoke to him recently about Alibaba’sinternational expansion plans and how it’s adapting its e-commerce platform for the mobile age we now live in.

1. Up until now, most Americans think about Alibaba Group as a Chinese-focused company. What are your thoughts on international expansion for the group?

We think of international by what we can do in a cross-border context. It’s one thing to think of exporting from China, which is what we have done a lot to date. But it’s another to situate ourselves in other countries. We’re just starting to do that.

We’ve always had a cross-border B2B business.

We could sit here and be complacent about the rise of mobile because Taobao and Tmall have very good positions having captured large shares in mobile commerce, but we’re feeling the opposite. We’re seeing the future and we feel a strong sense of urgency when it comes to mobile.

Mobile commerce could really disrupt the traditional marketplaces in the PC environment. In mobile, there’s not a lot of screen room. E-commerce marketplaces are conducive to larger screens. People want to save time on a mobile small screen. Therefore, the whole model could be disruptive.

So, with mobile, we are shifting from a model of pulling users to pushing messages out to users. Ebay’s web site is a destination. That’s pull. In contract, mobile enables every merchant to push whatever message to a huge audience.

Alibaba Bet On Wireless Business With ALL IN Strategy, Aiming At 30% Market Share For Laiwang [TechNode, Oct 21, 2013]

Alibaba takes Laiwang, an IM tool released 4.0 version this September, as a breakthrough point for wireless business. The market share of Laiwang is expected to reach 30% in a bid to guarantee better user experience and to facilitate the expansion of other services.

YunOS 2.3 云OS (Aliyun OS 2.3) [Multicorechina.com YouTube channel, Dec 16, 2013]

Telecom licenses granted by MIIT [Global Times, Dec 26, 2013]

China’s top telecommunications watchdog issued licenses to the first batch of domestic mobile virtual network operators on Thursday, an attempt to further reshape the country’s telecom industry.

As the parent company of net.cn, e-commerce giant Alibaba said in an e-mail sent to the Global Times Thursday that the license will help the company to offer customized telecom services to online shoppers and retailers, allowing it to further extend its e-commerce ecosystem.

We’re also doing an operating system for smartphones. The core strategy is to give users an experience that connects their hardware device to content and services in the cloud. It’s an alternative to Android where an Android device is isolated from cloud-based services.

In mobile, the boundaries between e-commerce, communications, social networking, etc., become blurred.

We will continue to find all kinds of new ways to reach our users in ways that best suit this new mobile environment we operate in.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Wednesday it is seeking to extend the draw-down period of an $8 billion loan from January next year, a move people familiar with the e-commerce company’s plans said would buy it more time to launch an IPO.

The original expiry date of the draw-down period on the loan was January 30 of next year, according to the deal terms. Alibaba wants to extend that to December 31, 2014, sources familiar with the discussions said.

“We have plenty of cash on the balance sheet and there is no need to draw down at this time, so we are extending the availability of funds to maintain flexibility,” the company said, without specifying a new date.

Alibaba said the funds will be used for corporate purposes. It has already used $5 billion from the loan facility to refinance its debt.

The $8 billion loan is a key part of Alibaba’s IPO plan, and the extension to the end of next year signals that the public float is remains a long way off.

China’s biggest e-commerce firm has struggled to reach an agreement with Hong Kong regulators over a partnership structure it hopes to use as part of an initial public offering (IPO), a deal that expected to be worth around $15 billion and which may take place next year.

Public comments by its founder Jack Ma and a statement from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in recent months, however, have raised the possibility of a Hong Kong listing.

The company has yet to outline a date or venue for the IPO. Under an agreement with its second biggest shareholder Yahoo Inc., Alibaba has incentives to complete an IPO before December 2015. [Note that Yahoo! Inc. is required to sell its 208mn shares of Alibaba concurrent with the IPO.]

YunOS 2.3 云OS (Aliyun OS 2.3)
[Multicorechina.com YouTube channel, Dec 16, 2013]