China’s Alibaba Spins Off Aliyun Mobile OS, Puts $200 Million Investment

Posted on Sep 20 2012 - 3:06pm by Editorial Staff

Tech In Asia reporting that Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has spinned off its Aliyun mobile operating system division and event putting into in it an investment of worth $200 million. The decision comes just a week after Aliyun had gone through major setback with when Google slammed back on it as saying having an incompatible Android version. In a memo written by Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma, Ma explains:

After two years of hard work mixed with trials, we have seen significant progress in the Aliyun OS business. We have built a strong team and also gained recognition from our business partners. To better safeguard the healthy growth of Aliyun OS business and further implement the [Alibaba] Group’s Aliyun wireless strategy, we need to make adjustments 
in terms of talent, organizational structure and the Group’s resource allocation.

The management is making the following decisions:

  • The Aliyun OS business will spin off from Alibaba Cloud Computing [Alicloud/Aliyun] as an independent operation.
  • Jonathan Lu [Lu Zhaoxi] will be appointed chief data officer and president of the Aliyun OS business; Wang Jian will be appointed chairman and chief technology officer of the Aliyun OS business and will continue to serve concurrently as chief technology officer of Alibaba Group.
  • The company will invest US$200 million into the Aliyun OS business, to strengthen its talent base, technology, and infrastructure.

Fellow Aliren [Alibaba employees], the company has a lot to strive for and a long way to go. Thank you to everyone that has made contributions to the development of Aliyun OS. I believe that the Aliyun OS business will be better than ever with all your support.

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