Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has a growing cloud computing business and a hunger for American companies. And soon, it will most likely have a large amount of cash. Will it take on the American cloud giants?
中国电子商务巨头阿里巴巴的云计算业务正不断扩张，收购美国企业的欲望又十分强烈。而且几乎可以肯定，它不久之后就能获得大量现金。阿里巴巴会对美国的云计算巨头构成威胁吗？It would be an amazing change from the way cloud computing seems to be developing. Public cloud computing is the rental of infrastructure, like raw computing power and online data storage, and sophisticated applications. It is a multibillion-dollar business, expected to grow much bigger, and is currently led by Amazon Web Services, or AWS; Google; and Microsoft Azure. IBM and others also have designs on the market.
与云计算目前的发展态势相比，这将是一个令人惊奇的转变。公共云计算指基础设施的出租，包括计算能力和网络数据存储空间，以及复杂的应用程序。这是一项价值数十亿美元的业务，预计还将进一步增长。目前在该领域处于领先地位的是亚马逊网络服务（Amazon Web Services，简称AWS）、谷歌(Google)，以及微软(Microsoft)的Azure。IBM等公司也有相关规划。To date, all of the big global players are United States companies. In a recent evaluation of the cloud infrastructure business, analysts at the technology research firm Gartner counted 15 companies. Just two, Dimension Data and Fujitsu, were not American firms. There was no mention of Alibaba.
迄今为止，国际上的大型云计算公司都来自美国。在最近的一份对云基础设施产业的评估中，科技研究公司高德纳(Gartner)的分析师统计了15家公司的数据。只有两家公司不是美国公司，它们是达科(Dimension Data)和富士通(Fujitsu)。这份评估中没有提及阿里巴巴。
Yet according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of Alibaba's proposed public offering, Alibaba had revenue of $102 million from cloud and infrastructure sales last year. That was an increase of 26 percent from a year earlier. That is not the 50 percent annual growth seen at AWS, perhaps, but not bad.
然而在阿里巴巴申请上市之时，向美国证券交易委员会（Securities and Exchange Commission，简称SEC）提交的文件显示，阿里巴巴去年有1.02亿美元（约合6.3亿元人民币）的收入来自云服务和基础设施销售，较上年增长了26%。这或许比不上AWS较去年提高50%的增幅，但也并不算差。
So why isn't Alibaba an international cloud contender? Particularly since, as The New York Times reported last week, it has sunk a fortune in American tech companies. Not to mention that at least one of the companies high in Gartner's estimation, Rackspace, told the S.E.C. in May that it had hired Morgan Stanley to find it a partner or acquirer.
那么，阿里巴巴的云服务为什么没有参与国际市场的竞争？尤其是考虑到《纽约时报》上周报道，它还拿出了大笔资金来收购美国的科技公司。此外，在高德纳给出较高评价的公司中，至少有一家公司，Rackspace，曾在5月份告诉SEC，已经聘请摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)为其寻找合作伙伴或收购者。A spokesman for Alibaba, citing the company's quiet period ahead of its I.P.O., declined to comment on its plans. But people with knowledge of the company said that Alibaba, like other possible Chinese contenders, seemed to have its hands full just handling its China business.
阿里巴巴的一位发言人以公司IPO前的静默期为由，拒绝谈论公司的计划。但了解该公司的人透露，就像其他可能的中国竞争者一样，阿里巴巴的精力似乎只能应付在中国的业务。Alibaba's cloud business was formed in 2009. Like AWS, it began as a way of serving the company's own online commerce and payment businesses. Its external customers are mostly small and medium Chinese companies.
阿里巴巴的云服务业务创立于2009年。就像AWS一样，它最初的目的是为本公司的电子商务和支付业务提供服务。其外部客户主要是中国的中小型企业。The Chinese website for the service, , lists mostly Chinese mobile and gaming companies as customers. It also provides online stores for Microsoft and Apple in China. In all, Alibaba says that one million customers tap into its cloud, either directly or through a reseller of computing services.
阿里巴巴云服务的中文网站显示，其客户主要是中国的移动和游戏公司。它也为微软和苹果(Apple)提供在中国的网上商店。阿里巴巴说，总共有100万客户使用其云服务，一些是直接使用，另一些是通过其计算服务经销商使用。In other ways, however, the company is a laggard, with just three large data centers in China and a smaller one in Hong Kong. AWS, by comparison, has 25 core regional data centers globally, which are backstopped with 52 smaller “edge locations” around the world. Another regional facility is being developed in China.
不过，阿里巴巴在其他方面却有些落后，它在中国内地只有三个大型数据中心，另外在香港设有一个规模较小的数据中心。相比之下，AWS在全球拥有25个核心的地区性数据中心，而且在世界各地还有52个较小的“边缘节点”为它们提供支持。In terms of performance, Alibaba cannot come close. For a Chinese site, it does impressive work, handling $5.8 billion in commerce on China's heaviest shopping day. The Alibaba S.E.C. filing says its cloud does 3.6 million computing transactions a minute. That sounds like a lot, until you consider that the AWS databases alone handle 1.5 million transactions a second.
在性能方面，阿里巴巴也无法与顶级对手相竞争。作为一家中国网站，阿里巴巴的表现令人印象深刻，它在中国最繁忙的购物日，处理了58亿美元的交易。阿里巴巴在提交给SEC的文件中称，其云服务每分钟可以处理360万次计算请求。这听起来仿佛很多，但是要知道，单是AWS的数据库，每秒钟就能处理150万次请求。Like Baidu and Tencent, two other big Chinese online companies with cloud businesses, Alibaba's focus for now seems to be on mainland China, possibly as a place to learn the business before moving farther out.
就像另外两家拥有云计算业务的中国互联网企业百度(Baidu)和腾讯(Tencent)一样，阿里巴巴目前的关注点似乎在中国大陆，可能是想先在这里充分掌握这项业务，然后再向外拓展。Like Alibaba, Tencent recently opened a data center in Hong Kong. Politically, Hong Kong is China's special administrative region; practically, it can be a midway point between international and domestic commerce. From there, the probable growth would be in Asia, where China has many existing commercial relationships, or Africa, still mostly open territory for cloud computing.
与阿里巴巴一样，腾讯最近也在香港设立了一个数据中心。在政治方面，香港是中国的特别行政区；实际上，它则可以成为国际和国内商业活动之间的中点。从这里开始，云计算的增长潜力将在亚洲，因为中国已经与亚洲有了很多商业往来，或者是非洲，那里基本上没有云计算业务。In other words, the American cloud companies should not have to worry in the short term. Further out, however, it's likely that the Chinese clouds will have a lot of paying customers in the domestic market to fuel additional expansion.
换句话说，美国的云计算公司在短期内应该无需担忧。然而，从长远来看，中国的云服务企业可能会在国内市场拥有大量付费客户，为进一步的扩张提供动力。