The Cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud, has launched a global marketplace and AliLaunch program for technology partners. This new program allows international technology partners to enter the China market through Alibaba Cloud’s initiatives.
By leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s Cloud computing expertise, AliLaunch assists technology partners to overcome common obstacles that international companies have when expanding into China including scalability and technology compatibility.
Through AliLaunch, these partners can leverage a variety of value added offerings such as joint ventures, marketplace partnerships and wholesaling.
Alibaba Group vice-president and Alibaba Cloud global general manager, Sicheng Yu, said the introduction of AliLaunch demonstrates the company’s ongoing commitment of building a global Cloud computing ecosystem, which connects SaaS developers and business partners from different countries on a unified platform.
“The AliLaunch program and global technology partners marketplace serve as platforms for making different software products accessible to businesses and organisations in China.
“We are aiming to build AliLaunch as the TMall of the Cloud computing industry, with more technology partners added in the future,” he said.
As the first step in creating the Cloud computing TMall for the China market, the AliLaunch program will serve as an online store where enterprises in China will have access to different technology partners and can deploy software or services through Alibaba Cloud.
The global technology partners participating in Alibaba Cloud’s marketplaces include SAP, SUSE, HERE, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), Check Point, AppScale, AppEx Networks, Haivision, Hillstone Networks, Wowza Media Systems, and TrueIDC.
In addition, Alibaba Cloud has announced a strategic partnership with HTC to explore virtual reality solutions for customers worldwide.
Leveraging Alibaba Cloud, the companies will focus on developing solutions to tackle bandwidth allocation, data transmission and data processing needs in areas such as VR video production and VR broadcasting.
The partnership will also bring together industry developers to build a VR Cloud ecosystem, and extend ‘Viveport’, HTC's VR app store to Alibaba Cloud’s Cloud computing platform.
Alibaba Cloud business architect director, Ge Jin, said the partnership between Alibaba Cloud and HTC will bring technologies together for businesses looking to leverage VR and Cloud.
“Cloud computing has continuously broken the boundaries of what we thought possible, accelerating the rate of innovation. This partnership will accelerate the development of VR technology in China and encourage widespread, global adoption,” Jin added.
