Alibaba Finds Another Place for Its Cash — China's Version of YouTube

Chinese eCommerce retailer Alibaba is entering the online video space with an investment in Youku Tudou, the Chinese equivalent of YouTube.

The $1.2 billion stake comes from Alibaba Group Holding Limited and Yunfeng Capital, a private equity group founded by Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma.The deal provides the groups with a 16% and 2% stake in the video site, respectively. Jonathan Lu, CEO of Alibaba, will take a seat on Youku Tudou's board of directors.

Alibaba has been working to diversify its business, investing in a variety of companies and industries. The position in Youku Tudou is another in a line of strategic moves aimed at Tencent, Alibaba's most powerful competitor. Together the companies dominate many aspects of China's 618 million Internet users.

Alibaba recently moved into the messaging market with a $215 million investment in Tango, a WhatsApp-like messaging service popular in Asia. Reuters reports that Alibaba has spent $4 billion in the past six months on various investments. Tencent owns messaging services QQ and WeChat, the latter of which has more than 270 million users.

Alibaba remains a private company but is expected to issue an initial public offering in the near future. The ecommerce company is already a giant, claiming to process more sales than Amazon and eBay combined. The company's IPO could be the biggest ever.

Youku Tudou is a publicly traded company, created in 2012 by a merger between two competing video sites.

"We are excited to cooperate and work closely with [Youku Tudou CEO] Victor [Koo] and his team to support their innovation in this key emerging space as well as accelerate our digital entertainment and video content strategy," Ma said in a press release. "This is an important strategic initiative that will further extend the Alibaba ecosystem and bring new products and services to Alibaba's customers."

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Microsoft Hotline Helps Entrepreneurs in India Build Tech Startups

Microsoft has offered tech support by phone for decades, from guiding business customers through a tricky Windows installation to making sure grandmas successfully locate Solitaire on the Start menu. But this month, the company launched a new kind of hotline in India to help entrepreneurs navigate the minefield of starting their own business.

In a novel move, Microsoft Ventures, the company's startup investment and accelerator arm, opened JumpStart, a toll-free number where support specialists will field calls from Indian entrepreneurs. Microsoft insists there are no restrictions on the type of questions an entrepreneur can ask, but expects its dedicated call center staff to be mostly advising customers on legal, funding or marketing issues. Microsoft says workers will walk callers through the processes of registering a company, preparing taxes, tracking down an accountant and finding a good lawyer. They're also happy to suggest technology solutions. (Microsoft Azure, perhaps?)

These days, dial-in tech support seems old-fashioned to say the least, but Indians could use whatever help they can get. It's one of the toughest countries to start a business in, according to the World Bank. Part of that can be attributed to the 2012 "startup tax" that treats Indian investments as income, essentially penalizing companies that raise money locally. Amid complaints of over-regulation, last year was also the worst for Indian technology IPOs in more than a decade.

But investors there are optimistic, pointing to the increase in the number of startups and the growing interest from Silicon Valley giants, such as Facebook's acquisition of Bangalore, India-based Little Eye Labs in January. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's new CEO and a native of Hyderabad, India, is searching for ways to align the company with startups in his home country that could one day be big-budget customers.

The JumpStart 800-number is staffed Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in India. Microsoft Ventures, which has six accelerators worldwide, plans to use feedback gathered from the program to fine-tune its various Indian startup-centric efforts.

Microsoft is currently the dominant software provider for companies in India, with 31% of the market, according to research firm IDC. The overall value of corporate software in India is expected to swell to almost $45 billion this year, the researcher said. If data gathered as part of JumpStart's free hotline helps the company stay ahead of the competition, answering some phone calls won't seem like such a big effort.

This article originally published at Bloomberg

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GoPro IPO Is a Go

GoPro, the maker of high-definition cameras often used to record feats of athletic derring-do, is planning to go public.

The IPO is expected to happen after the SEC finishes reviewing the company's submission documents, according to a press release from the company.

Founded in 2003, the Half Moon Bay, Calif.-based GoPro has operated until now as a unit of Woodman Labs. The company, which originally intended to go public in 2012 but later scrapped the plan, has received more than $200 million in private funding until this point, valuing it at around $2.25 billion.

GoPro is one of this year's most-awaited tech IPOs. Others include Square, Dropbox and Shazam — none of whom have publicly announced such plans. Box, meanwhile, is reportedly planning to go public this year, but hasn't confirmed such plans.

Image: PHILIPPE DESMAZES

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5 Ways to Decide if Your Business Needs a Mobile App

In the digital era, a mobile presence is critical for businesses to attract, retain and communicate with customers.

With so many consumers now using their mobile devices to interact with businesses, it is imperative that companies are properly set up to meet customers' needs. The questions many business owners ask when deciding whether to go mobile is whether to create a dedicated app for their brand or develop a website that is mobile-friendly.

Michael LaVista, CEO and founder of Web application development firm Caxy, outlines five steps to take when choosing which way to go:

Unless the product uses a phone feature — such as the accelerometer, GPS, contacts or push notifications — then you don't necessarily need a mobile phone app.

If a business is determined to take advantage of the phone's capabilities, then it must consider its audience when designing a mobile app. If a business's budget is limited, it may need to choose just one platform, such as iOS, Android, Windows or Blackberry. This might require some market research about which devices a business's customers typically own. There are some tools, such as PhoneGap, that allow businesses to develop for multiple platforms at once, but there are trade-offs with those.

Organizations that decide they don't absolutely need the phone's features can design a responsive site, which is a type of Web design that adjusts how it looks based on the device — mobile phone, tablet or desktop computer — on which it is accessed. Nowadays, investing in a Web experience that isn't responsive is probably a waste of money, because most sites have a big mobile audience.

When designing a responsive site, it is important to pick your battles. It is difficult to imagine every possible scenario, and be prepared for the site to appear awkward on some devices. Again, do your research to find out which devices customers will use to access your site.

Make sure the group designing the responsive site or app has expertise in that particular area. At a high level, mobile devices are about your big thumb and big buttons. A mouse is accurate, whereas thumbs are not. Mobile sites should be uncluttered, which means avoiding features like big company logos.

After deciding which path to pursue, it is critical to find a quality vendor to build the app or responsive website, LaVista said.

"This field is in its infancy and is still a little Wild West," LaVista told BusinessNewsDaily. "A good partner has a good design and technical sense."

This article originally published at BusinessNewsDaily

Image: TOBY TALBOT/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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