Even if Alibaba CEO Jack Ma is no longer China’s richest man (that distinction belongs to tycoon Li Hejun), he and his e-commerce company are continuing to push forward. The consumer-to-consumer company is jumping into the American cloud computing market, where it is expected to take on Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft as competition.
With Aliyun, an Alibaba subsidiary, already the largest kingdom in the cloud computing market in China, Ma opened up a data center in California, creating its first data center outside of world’s most populous country. The stateside business will focus on attracting Chinese enterprises within the area before it heads back out to international waters in this year’s second half.
In a world where Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Apple iCloud are major players, Alibaba faces some serious competition for American dollars. By creating a data center within the heart of Silicon Valley, Jack Ma and Alibaba are sending a strong message to the rest of the world that it aims to be a global company taken seriously.
Charlie Dai, an analyst with Forrester Research, spoke of Alibaba’s move to the U.S., saying, "I think this is a good move, especially after their IPO. Every investor wants to know whether Alibaba has any huge potential globally."
In 2014, the e-commerce company was listed in the U.S. as one of the globe’s biggest IPOs at $25 billion USD. In addition to that, the company also runs the two largest online retail Web stores in China.
It is on the Web where the Chinese company is at its strongest. Through sheer indomitable will and effort, Alibaba has cultivated more than 1.4 million Chinese customers to market to the public cloud space. Despite drawbacks that China has allegedly sponsored hacking attacks, Alibaba appears to be more focused on cultivating its own proprietary technology.
"It’s totally different from Amazon and Microsoft," Dai said. "It could be difficult if some customers want to migrate from their old platform to the Aliyun platform."
Photo: Andreas Weigend | Flickr
