Alibaba

Another mobile operating system will be launching in China this month.

Dubbed Aliyun OS, the operating system has been developed by Alibaba division AliCloud. According to the company, the mobile operating system will launch in the Chinese market on the K-Touch Cloud-Smart Phone W700 by the end of this month. Hangzhou, China-based Alibaba did not say exactly when the device will launch or how much it will cost.

AliCloud's operating system revolves around the idea of bringing cloud functionality to the mobile platform. According to the company, Aliyun will feature cloud-based e-mail, Web search, weather updates, and GPS navigation … Read more

It all started off so well.

But it didn't go on for long in the case of David Einhorn's high-profile hedge fund, Greenlight Capital, which today dumped an investment it made earlier this year in Yahoo on high hopes of the value of the Internet giant's stake in China's Alibaba Group.

That was before the ugly public fight Yahoo got into with Alibaba over its Alipay payment unit and especially with its voluble CEO, Jack Ma.

In a letter to investors, Einhorn (pictured right) said the kerfuffle, which has hit Yahoo's stock hard, "wasn'… Read more

There might soon be another company competing in the mobile operating system market, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.

China-based online-commerce company Alibaba is planning to launch a mobile operating system in the third quarter, the Journal says, citing someone "close to the situation." The operating system will reportedly have cloud-based elements, including allowing users to access applications over the Web, rather than download them to their devices.

The fact that Alibaba is considering launching a mobile operating system is somewhat surprising. Though the company has developed some software in the past, it's best-known as an e-commerce … Read more

Yahoo's top brass set aside the first hour of its annual analyst day today to receive a public flogging for its missteps in handling the spinoff of one of the jewels in its portfolio, the Chinese online payments group, Alipay.

CEO Carol Bartz, co-founder Jerry Yang, and Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse spent the better part of that time reiterating that the company--which owns 43 percent of former Alipay parent, the Alibaba Group--is working to make sure it is fairly compensated for the spinoff. It's a big issue for Yahoo, which has seen its fortunes slide in recent … Read more

It's not often that I get e-mails and calls from major Yahoo shareholders that begin with "idiotic" and end with "moronic." But that's pretty much the tone of investor sentiment Friday in the wake of Yahoo's escalating dispute with its Chinese partner Alibaba Group.

And that was the nice stuff.

"It is a sad and perplexing situation," said one major Yahoo investor, who declined to be named. "Alibaba is supposed to be a shiny jewel for Yahoo and now it is tarnished badly."

Said another more flatly: "This … Read more

Alibaba.com, the largest e-commerce site in China, announced today that two senior executives had resigned after an internal investigation found a rise in fraudulent activity on the site.

Chief Executive Officer David Wei and Chief Operating Officer Elvis Lee Shi-Huei were not involved in the rise in fraud but were taking responsibility for the "systemic breakdown" in the company's "culture of integrity," Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma said in a statement (PDF).

More than 2,300 fraudulent storefronts registered on the site in 2009 and 2010 as "Gold Suppliers," offering inexpensive electronics for … Read more

Microsoft and Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group are testing a new search service that could offer Chinese users an alternative to major player Baidu and struggling Google, according to the Associated Press.

A beta of the new Etao search site came online this past weekend teaming up Alibaba's e-commerce search engine with a Chinese-language edition of Microsoft's Bing search engine. The new site joins the search engines on Alibaba's current e-commerce sites Taobao.com and Alibaba.com and has been set up to drive people to the Alibaba.com online retail store, according to The Wall Street Journal.… Read more

Yahoo has sold 1 percent of its stake in the Chinese-based business-to-business trading site Alibaba.com, the company said on Monday. Reuters first reported on the story.

In November 2007, Yahoo invested approximately $100 million in Alibaba.com when it went public on the Hong Kong Exchange. Writing in an e-mail, a company representative said that Yahoo's "sale of its shares in Alibaba.com is expected to generate pre-tax proceeds of approximately $150 million."

Although Yahoo has sold its entire direct stake in Alibaba.com, it still indirectly maintains ownership in the company.

According to Yahoo, it … Read more

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's foundation received an undisclosed sum in exchange for his keynote address at an event held by Alibaba, the Chinese internet company that controls China Yahoo* and has been accused of aiding China's crackdown in Tibet.

Some activists are trying to tie this money to Sen. Hillary Clinton, saying it conflicts with her statements on China. In addition to claiming she "stood up to" China's government in a speech while Bill was president, she has said President George W. Bush should not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic … Read more