Source: The Economic Observer
Author: Qian Yujuan
distances$BABA-SW (09988.HK)$/$Alibaba (BABA.US)$Alibaba Cloud ushered in a new round of organizational restructuring on November 23, just one week after announcing that it would not advance the complete spin-off plan of the Cloud Intelligence Group.
The reporter learned that at the commercial level, Alibaba Cloud has set up a special public cloud business division, which is under the responsibility of Liu Weiguang; at the same time, it has also set up a hybrid cloud business division, which is under the responsibility of Li Jin. In addition to the overseas business division previously headed by Yuan Qian, the heads of the three divisions mentioned above all reported to Wu Yongming, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group.
Alibaba Cloud has also set up an infrastructure division and a product architecture and stability department at the industrial and research level, with Alibaba partner Jiang Jiangwei (flower name: Xiao Xie) and Tang Hong, who has returned to Alibaba Cloud, respectively. Both have reported to Alibaba Cloud CTO Zhou Jingren.
In this round of adjustments, Ali's partner Zheng Junfang, in addition to serving as the chief financial officer of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, will also be responsible for departments such as BI (Business Intelligence), strategic investment, marketing management, and price management.
Also, Alibaba partner Wang Lei will be responsible for supply chain, official website, service, and CIO (information technology and systems) departments at Alibaba Cloud. According to reports, Zheng Junfang and Wang Lei both reported to Wu Yongming.
At Alibaba's quarterly earnings call last week, Wu Yongming, the CEO of Alibaba Group and Alibaba Cloud No. 1, clarified Alibaba Cloud's strategic positioning — “AI-driven, public cloud first.”
Wu Yongming pointed out that AI-driven is to build “the most open cloud in the AI era”, provide stable and efficient AI infrastructure for all walks of life, and jointly build an open and prosperous AI ecosystem; while public cloud priority means making trade-offs between all products and business models, reducing project-based sales orders, and increasing investment in core public cloud products.
Judging from the data disclosed in the financial report, Alibaba Cloud increased its quarterly profit to 1,409 billion yuan by actively cutting project orders and strengthening revenue from public cloud products and services. It is understandable that Alibaba Cloud attaches importance to public cloud business. It is reported that the division's goal will be to prioritize scale and expand market share.
In contrast, the hybrid cloud business division will focus on assessing profits, reducing project-based software and hardware order sales, and encouraging government and enterprise customers to prioritize the use of public clouds.
The reporter learned that the hybrid cloud business mainly meets the needs of customers in certain industries who cannot use public clouds in the short term due to policy restrictions. The proprietary cloud's R&D and service team has also been incorporated into this division to enhance the commercialization and standardization capabilities of the proprietary cloud.
Coupled with the goal of building an infrastructure division with the goal of building an infrastructure that integrates software and hardware into the future, “it shows that Alibaba Cloud is paying more attention to the essence of cloud services.” An industry person close to Alibaba Cloud analyzed to reporters that Alibaba Cloud is paying more and more attention to the stability, efficiency, and cost of infrastructure “the stable side of these three impossible iron triangles.”
The industry insiders mentioned above feel that Alibaba Cloud's current business line adjustments have changed slightly. “Three business lines have been established, with integrated sales and service.” However, in his view, a series of adjustments means a “return to the basic market,” which is also a “reflection of the wishes” of Alibaba Cloud's new management team.
The reporter noticed that not only has Alibaba Cloud carried out a new round of organizational restructuring, but Alibaba Group has also set up an infrastructure committee.
The committee is managed by Wu Yongming. In addition to Zhou Jingren and Jiang Jiangwei, members include Alibaba CTO Wu Zeming, and Zhang Jianfeng (flower name: Xing Wei), who stepped down as president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group last year and became the director of Dharma Academy.
Furthermore, the reporter learned from the government that this committee set up at the Alibaba Group level will focus on coordinating the planning and construction of the entire group's underlying technology infrastructure. This also means that in the future, Alibaba Group's various businesses and Alibaba Cloud will continue to be closely linked in terms of underlying technology infrastructure.
editor/tolk