Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), the dominant cloud computing company, isn’t stopping new competitors from entering the public cloud computing space. Alibaba Group, a giant e-commerce company, is the latest to join the fray.
Yesterday Aliyun, the company’s cloud computing unit, announced that it plans to partner with partners around the world to provide hybrid cloud computing services. These services will be localized to meet regional developers’ needs. This Marketplace Alliance Program (MAP), which will be working with companies like Intel, Singtel and Equinix, will provide customized cloud expertise.
Aliyun stated that by collaborating with international partners, and combining their expertise and experience in local markets Aliyun can reduce infrastructure cost, optimize cloud solutions and pass on savings to cloud consumers in Internet and finance, energy, entertainment, gaming, healthcare, and education.
Many industry observers pointed out that the move was a direct challenge for AWS and its major competitors, such as Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform. Computer Business Review stated that the company will be adding more partners in the future, which will increase its ability to compete against Amazon. In an article titled “Alibaba’s Cloud Alliance Targets AWS and Google & Microsoft”.
CNBC reported that the Chinese company isn’t intimidated by the tough cloud competition. CNBC quoted Simon Hu, a company executive, as saying that “They are great role models to Aliyun” in an article titled “Alibaba In Big Push to Take on Amazon in Cloud.” “At Aliyun, we want to profit from technology profits and help the society create a better equilibrium and increase efficiency.”
Raejeanne Skillern, an Intel executive, was quoted as saying that the partnership program is a result of years of collaboration between Intel and Alibaba. She said, “Intel and Alibaba have collaborated for years on optimizing hardware technology across the datacenter to support Alibaba’s unique workloads.” Intel is a partner in Aliyun’s Marketplace Alliance Program and looks forward to promoting joint technology solutions based on Intel Architecture that are tailored to the rapidly expanding market of international public clouds consumers.
Pricing details were not disclosed as prices will vary from region to region. Aliyun, which claims it “creates sophisticated networking solutions and makes Big Data intelligence products and services accessible to small and medium-sized businesses while driving the adoption cloud services among large enterprises,” has begun building a Dubai datacenter to join those in Beijing and Hangzhou, Qingdao. Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shenzhen, and Silicon Valley. According to the company, it served more than 1.4 customers directly or indirectly through independent service providers in the past year.
