China mobile OS takes aim at smartphone giants

Alibaba is the latest to throw its hat in the smartphone ring following the announcement this week that Mozilla is working on a mobile OS.

According to Alibaba Cloud Computing, its Aliyun OS is different from those running handsets just as Apple's iPhone and Google's Android handset, because apps are stored solely on the web, with only content passing between host and handset.

The company said Aliyun

The company said Aliyun was being released as an open platform, which was compatible with Android apps, however denied the OS was targeting Android in the fast-growing smartphone market in China.

"The OS runs on our own virtual machine that's based on the Linux kernel and other open tools," the spokesperson said. "Nevertheless it is compatible with Android apps, so we're not going up against Google directly."

And, it doesn't ask developers to handover a large slice of app revenue to the platform owner - 30% in Apple's case - which it hopes will stimulate adoption.

The OS was unveiled alongside a software-specific phone, the K-Touch Cloud-Smart Phone W700, which is due to go one sale in China right away, nevertheless the company said it would as well be looking to overseas markets.