Now, store SMSes and contacts on the cloud

Cloud computing is going retail.

The technology that enables companies to store data and software on remote locations, frees up server space and cuts costs, is coming to the mobile phone.

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce conglomerate, has come up with a cloud-based mobile operating system (OS) under which a mobile phone user will be able to store all the data including the text messages, photographs, etc in the storage offered on the cloud.

This would also allow the mobile users to access the information through multiple devices including a PC. Even the applications, or apps, are going to be on the cloud making it easier for the users to access them as and when they need them instead of downloading them onto the handset.

Aliyun, the group’s cloud OS, is currently being offered in the Chinese market and will soon be brought to the global market. Alibaba has already tied up with K-Touch, a Chinese handset maker, to offer the new technology.

“The phone will have lesser memory just enough to run a programme and allow the processor to work. All the remaining things are done on the cloud. Even the SMSes will be stored on the cloud and not on the local memory,” Jian Wang, chief architect of Alibaba group and president of Alibaba Cloud Computing, told DNA.

Launched a month back, the cloud-based OS and handsets are currently being sold in China. Though Wang refused to put to a number to the handsets that are sold in the last one month, senior officials of the company have pegged it at about 30,000.

Available in Chinese language, the OS is currently being developed in English for the non-Chinese markets. “We will develop it in English shortly. The R&D teams are working on it,” Wang said.

India seems to be the next major destination for the Aliyun OS once the non-Chinese version is readied. Though not willing to comment on the plans to tap the Indian market, Wang said, “I can’t tell you if the next launch will be in India. But India is definitely an important market for us.”

Apart from K-Touch, the company is also said to be in talks with more handset makers to host the OS and sell the handsets in the target markets. Wang also said that the cloud-based technology would bring down the cost of the handset since the costs on local memory would be avoided. However, the company officials are non-committal on the issue of talking to other branded handset makers such as Nokia and Samsung. “I can’t talk much about it now,” Wang said.

In fact, the Chinese handset makers are currently facing a major branding issue due to their models, form factors and copycat designs. Irrespective of the brand they sport on the face of the handset, they are still being called Chinese handsets. One reason for this is said to be the non-availability of an operating system that makes the handsets unique, a company official said.

“The Symbians and Androids of the world have a handset maker with them originally and then bring more handset makers into their fold. The Chinese handsets have an issue that way.

However, Aliyun OS is making an effort to breach the barrier and provide original OS to the handset makers so that the technologically-superior Chinese handsets would have an OS of their own, too,” the official said.

If all goes well with the hardware agreements and the non-Chinese version of the OS, the company would also launch a tablet PC with the cloud-based OS. “We are hoping to see a tablet with Aliyun OS in the next two months,” Wang said.

However, the company is cautious in explaining that it would not enter handsets business. “We are not going to make any mobile handsets or tablets. We will only provide the OS that too based on the latest cloud computing technology,” he said.

Alibaba has been betting big on the growth of internet usage world over. The flagship operation of the group - e-commerce - is all being planned, based on the projections on internet penetration in various key markets including the US. The mobile handset platform is also one of the options the company is planning to tap for furthering its e-commerce.