htmlOn October 24, some media noticed the offline announcement of Aliyun YunOS space service, indicating that due to business direction adjustment, YunOS space will be offline on January 5, 2023. The announcement was released on July 6 but has only been noted recently.
Image from: YunOS Cloud Space
Not many people still remember YunOS.
YunOS was formerly Alibaba Cloud OS launched by Alibaba in 2011. The following year, the Alibaba Cloud business group was independently managed by the group. Alibaba also announced that it will invest US$200 million, calling it a "group-level strategy." However, due to the blockade of Google and more importantly, the strong rise of domestic mobile phone custom OS, although it did not shut down early, YunOS, which has no foundation for its establishment, reached more than tens of millions of installed capacity with a number of small and medium-sized manufacturers such as Meizu , Xiao Lajiao and Duowei.
YunOS As the end of the mobile operating system, there are long traces to be found. In 2015, Alibaba and SAIC Group cooperated to establish Zebra Smart Walk, and in 2017 Meizu and YunOS parted ways. YunOS then changed its name to AliOS and turned to invest in automotive intelligence and the Internet of Things. Wang Mao, general manager of Alibaba's terminal intelligence and service business department, publicly stated: "Automobiles are the most important and most valuable end at present."
Picture source: AliOS
Five years afterwards, Alibaba AliOS has successively logged in to Roewe , Skoda , and Feifan Auto, and completed reorganization with Zebra Network , and jointly launched the high-end car brand "Zhiji Auto", with a cumulative loading of more than 1.5 million vehicles. But when new and old forces are focusing on developing their own in-car OS, will AliOS repeat the mistakes of the smartphone era?
operating system is too important, and car manufacturers are unwilling to let go
"If there is no operating system, no matter how strong the chip is, no matter how good the car is, it will build a tall building on the beach." At the 2022 Global New Energy and Smart Car Supply Chain Innovation Conference held in September this year, Miao Wei, former Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, sounded the alarm for the on-board operating system.
According to public information, BlackBerry QNX, Google Android and open source Linux have become the mainstream of in-vehicle underlying operating systems worldwide. Among them, QNX has an absolute advantage in smart driving OS, while smart cockpit OS is mainly Android and customized systems based on Linux.
According to public information, the source of the picture: Lei Technology
Specifically for Wei Xiaoli, NIO NOMI is developed based on QNX+Android, Xiaopeng Xmart is also based on QNX+Android, and Ideal Li is based on Linux+Android. Tesla is more inclined to Apple route - a integrated software and hardware service, developing its own Version system based on the QNX+Linux kernel, and only serving Tesla Automobile .
AliOS and Hongmeng OS-A (for automotive machines) tend to follow the open route similar to Android to smartphones. Both are also developed based on the Linux kernel, and currently only loaded by individual brands.
Today, "intelligence" is recognized as the core of the future of automobiles. New forces, including Wei Xiaoli, have clearly chosen to independently develop and customize based on systems such as Android. Zhuang Li, vice president of NIO Software Development Department, expressed to the media: "From Tesla to NIO , several car companies with Internet backgrounds all want to master core technologies, which is closely related to the Internet genes. All Internet companies must have their most important products and core technologies independently."
is not only a new force. In June last year, when asked whether he was considering cooperating with third parties such as Huawei in autonomous driving, he responded: "This is like a company providing us with a holistic solution. In this way, it becomes the soul, and SAIC becomes the body. SAIC cannot accept such a result, and it must take the soul into its own hands.”
Picture source: SAIC Group
Whether the "soul theory" is valid will not be mentioned for the time being, but traditional car manufacturers do not pay less attention to in-car OS than new forces.
Alibaba and SAIC jointly established Zebra Intelligence in 2016, and the contradiction was planted from this time. Alibaba hopes to build Zebra Network into an open platform to allow AliOS to enter more brands, while SAIC insists that Zebra Network only serves SAIC. It eventually triggered the restructuring incident in 2019, injecting Zebra Intelligence with AliOS as a whole, and Alibaba became the largest shareholder to come to an end.
Judging from the current list of Zebra's vehicle partners, AliOS has basically not left the "SAIC system". This is what SAIC wants to see, but not what Alibaba wants to see.
Image source: Zebra Intelligence
Car manufacturing will continue, this is a problem
Internet companies are generally "living soft and afraid of hard". In the era of smartphones, the three BAT companies only do OS and never have the intention to make hardware. There is nothing wrong with this. The hardware business is tiring and does not make money. The investment cost and risk are still high. There is only one in the world that can make money than Internet companies.
But afterwards, the three companies still have hope of making hardware, but there is no hope if they don’t make hardware.
Towards the intelligence of automobiles, the three companies still have the same end at the beginning. They all hope to provide software and algorithms to the car manufacturers while providing feedback data and product needs from the car manufacturers, thereby improving the system experience and ecology.
The key contradiction is that car companies want to build their own closed-loop system, but are unwilling to regard suppliers as part of the closed-loop, especially the key system. In the end, Baidu 's choice is to make cars by yourself, go deep into hardware manufacturing, and fully master data production, so as to form a closed loop of your own development and experience.
Baidu's sixth generation mass-produced unmanned vehicle Apollo RT6, picture source: Baidu Appllo
However, what Baidu wants is to stand in the more future era of autonomous driving, and what Alibaba wants to do is Android in the era of smart cars. When Zhiji Auto was first established, Alibaba made three decisions with SAIC, with Alibaba responsible for the Internet of Vehicles and new retail, and SAIC was responsible for the core technology of the three electric power industry, intelligent driving technology, as well as five innovation centers: artificial intelligence , big data, cloud computing , network security and software.
From August this year, according to media reports, Zhiji Auto, jointly established by SAIC Group, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech and Alibaba Group , completed its A-round financing, led by Bank of Communications Capital Management Co., Ltd., an equity investment platform under Bank of Communications Group. SAIC Group continued to invest additionally, and its post-investment valuation reached nearly 30 billion yuan.
No Alibaba.
This is completely different from Google's "demonstration" of the Nexus and Pixel series (early) mobile phones. Alibaba is more sensitive to car manufacturers and cares more about the "safety" of the supply chain. Alibaba still hopes to draw a clear line with vehicle manufacturing, so that vehicle manufacturers can let their car manufacturers put aside their guard and accept AliOS.
To some extent, Alibaba's direction is correct. Compared with the gunpowder smell between Huawei and the vehicle manufacturer, which is "deeply involved in product definition", Alibaba's relationship with the vehicle manufacturer can obviously be called peaceful, which is also the opportunity for AliOS.
The two heroes, or the five heroes compete for the dominance
Picture source: Wikimedia, owner: Niels de Withml2
013, Lei Jun went to Silicon Valley met Tesla CEO Musk. After returning, he excitedly said, "You have never driven a Tesla car, it is really hard to have an intuitive imagination. How cool this all-intelligent car is." In the interview, he said bluntly:
Many automobile companies are developing electric car . But in my opinion, the most important thing about Tesla is that it uses intelligent systems and the whole vehicle is very intelligent.
The history of the automobile industry has proved that no automobile manufacturer can independently complete the research and development and manufacturing of all parts and systems. The constraints of technology, cost and time also determine that in the era of automotive intelligence, most automobile manufacturers will move towards the road of system customization.
The remaining problem is ecology. Xie Yan, former chief architect of Alibaba AliOS, believes that in the future, China's automobile industry will only have two operating systems: AliOS and Android.
The ecological tension accumulated by Android over the past decade has been the key to the development of its own systems based on Android by most new forces. However, at the same time, the historical burden and core development of smartphones have also been widely criticized. In addition to having no burden, AliOS's advantages lie in the core of automotive research and development, which can provide more customization possibilities.
However, Xie Yan's judgment may not be realized. Lei Jun, who makes cars, and Yu Chengdong, who makes cars, both asserted that the remaining main players in the future will only be within five companies.
Lei Jun further explained the basis for judgment in "Xiaomi Entrepreneurship Thinking". He believes that electric vehicles are essentially "consumer electronics", and with the consumer electronics of the automobile market, it will inevitably follow the laws of the consumer electronics industry, and a few manufacturers occupy the vast majority of the market share.
If this is the case, Alibaba's expectations placed on AliOS will be even more difficult to achieve.
