Hong Kong-based e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group has announced it will be launching its first mobile operating system, called Aliyun. The first phone, manufactured by Beijing Tianyu, is expected to go on sale in China by the end of the month.
Made by the Alibaba Cloud Computing unit, the new Aliyun OS was designed to operate across a variety of form factors, including tablets. Seeking to give customers a multitude of apps to choose from, Aliyun will also be “fully compatible” with Android apps. The OS is also cloud based, with a variety of essential native services and applications working remotely, from email to storage.
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Beijing Tianyu will also be releasing a tablet based on Aliyun before the end of the year, and Alibaba seems confident it will convince other manufacturers to use its new mobile operating system. The first phone will be priced at around $416, and seems to pack some decent hardware – bearing an Nvidia chipset. Alibaba is reportedly also in talks with Qualcomm to provide hardware in the future.
Apart from its supposed complete compatibility with Android apps, Aliyun will need more going for it to have a fighting chance against Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7. What Alibaba is betting on are the cloud-based services of the system, and perhaps an ecosystem driven by their own e-commerce products. The benefits of cloud-based services are many, but unfortunately best realized where connectivity is perennial and cheap.