The road to breakthrough in the post-APP era: Alibaba Technology's "three major containers and five major solutions" are unveiled, and Baichuan's openness is fully upgraded

[2016 Hangzhou Yunqi Conference] In the special speech of "Taobao Mobile Technology Practice & Openness", Wu Zhihua (nickname: Tianshi), head of Taobao Mobile Platform Basic Platform Department, and Si Dengyu (nickname: Chengyuan), head of Alibaba Baichuan, respectively explained the exploration of Taobao Mobile Middle Platform technology open source and Alibaba Baichuan Mobile Open Platform. In the interview after the meeting, the two exchanged views on some topics that readers are more interested in, as well as some thoughts and explorations encountered by Taobao Mobile and Baichuan in mobile open technology and open platform.

Let me tell you a good news in advance. Taobao Mobile Atlas will be open source in early 2017. Atlas is one of the earliest Android plug-in systems in China. Its open source will be a boon to developers and enterprises.

In-depth cooperation with Vue.js and the gradual formation of Weex ecosystem

Weex has been attracting much attention since its open source launch. Wu Zhihua said: The entire team is still working hard on construction and community operation. Creating a completely open and neutral open source project recognized by the community is the core mission of the entire team at present and even in the future. The current Weex ecosystem is more of a technical ecosystem. From development and improvement of supporting tools to community establishment and even the process of expanding a larger community (Vue.js), the entire project team needs to take solid steps step by step to live up to the trust of the community and deliver technical products that are truly recognized by the community.

Vue.js is the world's largest JavaScript framework, with a high usage rate in the developer community at home and abroad and a good reputation. The cooperation between Weex and Vue.js is also something worthy of praise. As Wu Zhihua said:

The cooperation is based on the complementarity of the two communities. It is a very cool thing to let Vue2.0 run on Weex, which can benefit more development projects and developers. In addition, Weex has not been deliberately promoted overseas. The recognition of the Vue.js community also shows that Weex has done a great job.

Three major containers and five major solutions help developers, and the "program" development field competes again

I remember Wu Zhihua said at the China Enterprise HTML5 Alliance Conference in July that all developers and enterprises in the H5 ecosystem should be empowered. Some readers may not know the details of Taobao Mobile's "three major containers" and "five major solutions". Here, Wu Zhihua also explained how to achieve empowerment from this perspective: once advanced technology (Weex and H5 framework) and a good open platform (Alibaba Baichuan, DingTalk, Qianniu), then the next step is to expand the cooperation scenario and precipitate industry standards and specifications. From the perspective of the three major containers (Weex, H***TLAS) and five solutions (rapid delivery solution, mobile network acceleration and messaging solution, multimedia live broadcast solution, APP performance monitoring solution, Weex/H5 cross-platform development solution) of the mobile middle platform, the core of Alibaba's capabilities is to reconstruct the mobile R&D model and help enterprise developers continue to reduce construction costs.

In the future, there will be many areas for in-depth cooperation in cross-platform development, enterprise-level mobile application information security, information exchange, and rapid construction of enterprise-level mobile applications.

Alibaba Baichuan has become a development efficiency improvement engine by giving back to the technology ecosystem

Especially in the post-mobile era, Taobao has also done a lot of thinking and exploration on technology openness. Market opportunities are changing rapidly. The core of Taobao's mobile technology openness is how to help developers quickly realize their creativity and reduce the cost of entrepreneurial technology. Wu Zhihua said that whether it is a rapid delivery solution or a Weex/H5 cross-platform solution, it emphasizes continuous, rapid and high-quality delivery, improving productivity and reconstructing the R&D model. From good technology to good open technology products, a lot of judgments and choices need to be made, as well as thinking and polishing of the product. Not only technology, but also supporting operations promotion and technical support must keep up.

Ali Baichuan HotFix and Ali Baichuan Code Power APM, with accumulated strength and strength to speak out

As Wu Zhihua explained, the concrete display of Taobao's mobile technology is the three major containers and five major solutions. On this basis, Baichuan has inherited the mantle of these technologies, built a bridge to break through internal and external technical barriers, and gradually opened up and empowered the technology community and the entire industry. The specific implementation is the hot repair product Ali Baichuan HotFix, which started public testing on August 27, and the industry response is quite good. Today, another heavyweight product, Ali Baichuan Code Power APM, was also grandly launched and fully tested to the public.

Alibaba Baichuan Code Power APM helps users understand, locate and solve App performance problems in a timely manner, thereby improving product stability, ensuring user experience and reducing negative user reviews. During the public beta period, 100 days of free service will be provided to 30 developers who pass the review.

Looking at the current competition in the global mobile application market, creativity is indispensable, and technology, experience, scale and business capabilities also determine the life and death of a product. Based on its insight into the application market, Alibaba Baichuan launched a full-link mobile development platform of "Build-Grow-Business", upgrading the mobile open system and providing services for mobile developers.

First, let's sort out the relationship between Alibaba Baichuan and Taobao Mobile. Baichuan is within the Taobao Mobile framework, and the two have different future development directions or focuses.

Taking technical capabilities as an example, the experience accumulated by Taobao Mobile in the mobile industry is very valuable to the entire industry and developers. Baichuan hopes to export these accumulations to the entire ecosystem with an open and sharing mentality. For example, Ali Baichuan HotFix is ​​very popular among developers and is called black technology. In fact, Alibaba has planned many such black technology products to be continuously incubated and verified by Taobao Mobile, as well as Baichuan's output and services to feed back to the ecosystem.

In terms of business capabilities, take the popular online celebrity e-commerce this year as an example. In addition to online celebrity stores on Taobao Mobile, there are also online celebrity showcases on Weibo. The products behind them are the business capabilities provided by Baichuan. Consumers can achieve scenario-based purchases by accessing Baichuan's business applications, and the applications can also obtain good business returns. Such a model of linking multiple parties to achieve a win-win situation is the focus of Baichuan's business capabilities.

Si Dengyu then briefly introduced the development focus of Taobao Mobile. This year, Taobao Mobile will expand in three directions: content, community and local life. Therefore, Taobao Mobile live broadcasts have repeatedly set new records, helping more and more users make purchasing decisions. The provision and consumption of home services in life services have gradually integrated into the habits of Taobao Mobile users. Many technical products are constantly incubating and exported to the ecosystem through Baichuan. Commercial entities can also be connected to more scenarios and applications through Baichuan.

Combining live broadcast, VR and AR with commercialization, how many cards does Alibaba Baichuan have left to play?

In terms of mobile developer services, Si Dengyu said that Alibaba Baichuan still strives to focus on the core needs and key pain points of technical capabilities and business capabilities, and provide developers with more complete and guaranteed services from the two perspectives of construction and monetization. In terms of business capabilities, the current idea is to use diversified connection methods and diversified connection scenarios. In terms of connection methods, Baichuan's SDK provides a variety of optional modes of different sizes based on customer needs. In terms of connection scenarios, combined with the current hot trends in the industry, it provides a closer product experience, especially in the fields of video and live broadcast.

Mobile live broadcast technology is very popular this year, and there are many manufacturers providing live broadcast services. Many people want to know whether Alibaba Baichuan will provide live broadcast products. Regarding this, Si Dengyu believes that the perspective of looking at live broadcast and products is not as simple as packaging a service. The core is to provide differentiated and unique value of services.

Taking Taobao Mobile's live streaming technology as an example, compared with other service providers in the industry, it has two core differentiated values. On the one hand, it has advantages in infrastructure thanks to Alibaba Cloud, which has a very strong industry scale and technical capabilities. On the other hand, Baichuan's live streaming has not only accumulated technology in the two perspectives of playback and streaming, but has also gone deep into the level of interaction, making it closer to business and shopping scenarios.

It is very difficult to monetize video live streaming nowadays. The live streaming product provided by Baichuan is not only a cost-saving one, but also an open source application. The current progress is in the process of internal testing and gradual productization and opening.

Regarding VR and AR, Si Dengyu mentioned that Taobao Mobile launched the well-known buy+ product, which is indeed a novel way of experience compared to the shopping experience on PC and mobile terminals. Merchants also have great demand for VR applications. Taobao Mobile is still in the process of continuous polishing and exploration. +