Chinese internet giant Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) today rolled out Baichuan Program, a plan to boost local startup innovation. Under the program, Alibaba will offer infrastructure support to mobile developers with a view to encouraging a mobile ecosystem connecting cloud and mobile services.
In terms of technical support, Alibaba will provide cloud, data storage and security services, helping projects to lower development and maintenance costs. Business operations, investment and working space resources will also be given to startups. In addition, the e-commerce company will open its data to app developers, giving a complete understanding of users so as to build custom services.
It is worth nothing that companies under the program will also be able to capitalize on Alibaba’s e-commerce capabilities and the group’s trading and payment systems.
According to Alibaba spokesman, Meilimei, a beauty app under the program has activated more than seven million users by leveraging the resources offered by Alibaba. Maternal social shopping app Mamazhidemai witnessed a 50% leap in user retention rate after using its user base profile data.
With Baichuan Program, there’s no need to hire a CTO, Wang Xiruo, VP of Alibaba Group, said: a good project manager and a good idea are sufficient to build an excellent app. Wang added that Baichuan support will accelerate the development cycle and lower cost for developers.
Mobile developers interested in the program can apply here.
image credit: Alibaba