By Herman Lai, posted Sep 14, 2012 at 9:05 AM, 1,166 views, Google Fears Alibaba To Become The Android of China?
Earlier this week, Alibaba said “they want to be the Android of China”. A few days later, when Acer scheduled to hold a press conference on Thursday to launch the Acer CloudMobile A800 smartphone running on Alibaba’s Aliyun platform, the event has been canceled. Allegedly, it was because Google threatened Acer to pull Android support if the Taiwanese device maker launched a smartphone with Alibaba’s Aliyun OS.
Here’s what Alibaba’s chief strategy officer told Sohu IT earlier this week:
“We want to be the Android of China and we have quite a lot of new partners in line. If I were a mobile phone vendor and my only choice is Android, I will be quite scared. Any company will want to have at least two suppliers.”
The Statement from Alibaba’s official Weibo
Google and Acer representatives in Tokyo and Shanghai, respectively, have reportedly declined to comment. But on the other hand, Alibaba released a statement to explain the cancelation of the launch event with more details:
“Our partner was notified by Google that if the product runs Aliyun OS, Google will terminate its Android-related cooperation and other technology licensing with our partner. We respect and understand our partner’s decision to postpone the introduction of the phone, and are dismayed by the impact this dispute has had on our partner.”
Acer CloudMobile A800 (2,999 yuan)
Acer is the world’s fourth-largest personal-computer maker by shipments, but the company has been struggling to increase its share in the smartphone market. It’s clear that Acer is trying to catch up with other market leaders like Samsung and Apple by expanding its business in China, since China is set to become the world’s largest smartphone market in 2012.
Acer said that it will continue to communicate with Google and the company still hopes to launch a smartphone based on Aliyun OS. At the moment, Acer has more than 90% of their smartphones run on Android. Furthermore, an Acer’s spokesman said the reason that it wants to launch a smartphone with Alibaba is because Aliyun OS can provide better user experience than Android for Chinese consumers.
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Alibaba’s Aliyun VS Google’s Android
Aliyun OS
Aliyun OS was three years in development, which launched in 2011 and involved work from more than 1600 engineers. It’s a Linux-based operating system meaning it can run both Android apps and web apps. Aliyun also utilizes Web-based apps stored on servers rather than installed apps on devices, which providing a more ‘internet-like’ experience for smartphone users, and this is what appeared to be so different from Google’s Android.
Furthermore, Aliyun OS seems to be a better choice over Google’s Android for local smartphone vendors, since Google has a lot of limitation to provide a good user experience in China. Big part of that is due to the strained relationship of Google and the Chinese government, which caused most of Google’s Android services such as Google Search, Google Maps and Gmail are all severely limited in the country.
Mobile OS’s market share in China
Despite Google’s mobile OS has an overwhelmingly dominant position in the country, Alibaba is very optimistic about Aliyun’s long-term success, the company is confident with its mobile online payment system Alipay that could assist the growth of Aliyun, and it expected Aliyun could replace Google’s Android in China. However, we think it’s quite impossible to happen, mainly because of the mobile OS’s ecosystem of phonemakers and app developers.
In addition, Alibaba is expecting the total number of smartphone vendors adopting Aliyun will increase to five from the current two, namely K-Touch and Haier, by the end of the year.
Source: WSJ, CNet, Sohu IT (Chinese translated)
