Tag archive: alibaba

China's Alibaba Group has hired the high-power Washington D.C. lobbying firm Duberstein Group Inc., in a sign that the company is planning something that will require significant smoothing and persuasion in the U.S. capital. Industry speculation is centering on Alibaba maneuvering to buy back or reduce Yahoo's stake in its company—or, if that fails, trying to take over Yahoo outright. The Alibaba Group is one of… Read More

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that Yahoo's board of directors is exploring a plan that would have the struggling Internet company raise cash by selling off its coveted Asian assets in a deal that could total up to $17 or $18 billion. According to the story, the complex plan would have Yahoo selling its entire stake in Yahoo Japan to Japan's Softbank, and selling the a large chunk of its stake in… Read More

Looks like all that speculation over a Yahoo sale is true. After some fairly weak protestations that the company was simply restructuring, a revealing email seems to suggest that the company is interested in an acquisition. Now Reuters is reporting that not only is Yahoo interested in putting itself on the market, there are also some rumblings about a deal involving Microsoft. However there are no details as of yet and a number of parties are… Read More

Yahoo’s future hangs in the balance, as the company attempts to figure out what it does, what it’s going to do, and who is going to be its CEO. Now add to the mix takeover rumors, and we’re imaging some pretty long nights for the Yahoo board. The company is valued at about $20 billion on the public marketing, which is a significant investment but far below what Yahoo was formerly worth. Here are the players speculated to be weighing an… Read More

Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba says it is preparing to launch an English-language version of its new Aliyun mobile operating system, Reuters reports from a press event in Hangzhou. Rather than go with a widely-used mobile operating system like Android, Alibaba opted to roll its own Linux-based mobile operating system with deeply integrated support for cloud-based Alibaba services and products like email, maps, and news—although, to… Read More

Most people probably think the Internet is awash in online stores and businesses willing to sell something to consumers via the Web—and while that may very well be true, a new report from Companiesandmarkets.com finds the worldwide online retail marketplace is actually very consolidated. According to the report, during June 2011 fully half of all online retail visits worldwide went to just three companies: Amazon.com, eBay, and… Read More

Internet giant Yahoo and China's Alibaba have, in conjunction with Japan's Softbank, reached an agreement (PDF) in their lingering dispute over the Alipay online payment service. Under the agreement, Alibaba will receive no less than $2 billion and no more than $6 million when (and if) Alipay experiences a “liquidity event” like being sold or going public. The exact amount will be 37.5 percent of Alipay's value at… Read More

Reports have been swirling that Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba was getting ready to launch its own mobile operating system, and today Alibaba Cloud Computing officially unveiled the Aliyun OS. Aliyun OS is based on Linux and will launch next month on a Chinese-manufactured K-Touch Cloud-Smart Phone W700 at the end of this month. As expected, the Aliyun OS ties in directly with cloud-based services driven by Alibaba to handle things like… Read More

Making good on reports earlier this month, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba plans to launch its own smartphone operating system at an event in Beijing next week, with decided going on sale in August. Apparently dubbed the “Ali-phone,” the device will apparently sport an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor and will feature a home-grown Alibaba smartphone operating system with integrated access to some of Alibaba's most popular… Read More

Yahoo is apparently losing the faith of some of its investors as its dispute with China's Alibaba drags on: Greenlight Capital head David Einhorn has unloaded his stake in Yahoo just a few months after acquiring a sizable holding in the company. And Einhorn's reason for getting out of Yahoo is nothing other than Alibaba's transfer of online payment service AliPay to a new entity with full Chinese ownership. Einhorn's… Read More

The competitive landscape for mobile companies in China might be getting much more more complicated: the Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba is planning to launch its own mobile phone operating system for the Chinese market in the third quarter of 2011. The report cites sources close to the project and indicates the OS will offer cloud-based applications running on remote services that users would… Read More

Online payment giant PayPal has announced it will be ending its year-long partnership with AliExpress, the wholesale goods service of China's Alibaba that is aimed primarily at businesses and corporations. PayPal gives no reason for ending the relationship, but industry reports have the company unhappy with the amount of goods AliExpress is retailing directly to consumers rather than businesses. “PayPal remains deeply committed… Read More

Backed up by Yahoo's chief financial officer and co-founder Jerry Yang, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz assured investors the company will be “appropriately compensated” for Alibaba spinning off online payments outfit Alipay into a separate entity controlled by Alibaba chairman Jack Ma, effectively taking one of the prize jewels away from Yahoo's 43 percent stake in China's Alibaba Group. Yahoo's stock price has… Read More

Internet giant Yahoo has been struggling to restructure its business and get back on solid financial footing in the wake of a near-disastrous takeover sideswipe from Microsoft a few years ago. One of the company's major assets has been a 43 percent stake in China's Alibaba Group, which included Alipay, an online payments service similar to PayPal that serves the Chinese market. Or, at least, it used to include AliPay. The Alibaba… Read More

An internal investigation at Alibaba.com, China's largest e-commerce site, has unveiled that company salespeople helped establish more than 2,000 fraudulent virtual vendors on the site, reports Bloomberg. The findings have led to the firing of more than 100 Alibaba employees, and caused Chief Executive Officer David Wei and Chief Operating Officer Elvis Lee to step down. According to a company statement release to the Hong Kong Stock… Read More