On the eve of Alibaba Cloud's listing, DingTalk "takes off" independently.

Ali's determination to break the "big pot of rice" is more determined than the outside world thinks. Since the announcement of "one split and six" in March, ariyun has become the most thorough player in the second venture of Ali group. in addition, "n" companies such as rookie and boxhorse have successively announced their listing plans. Now, under the "cloud nail integration" strategy, DingTalk, which has been cooperating with ariyun for more than three years, suddenly has to "fly alone. On August 15, Wall Street learned that DingTalk will end the situation in charge of Alibaba Cloud and develop independently as an independent business of Alibaba Group. At the same time, DingTalk COO and key customer manager Ku Wei were also recalled to Aliyun for another appointment. As a result, DingTalk has also become a member of "n" in Ali's 1+6 + N organizational structure. It is worth mentioning that, in fact, it has always been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ali Group. According to Ali insiders, "DingTalk has always been an independent business of Ali. Before the 1+6 + N organizational change, it was DingTalk in charge of Aliyun Intelligent Business Group". However, on the eve of Aliyun's IPO, DingTalk's "self-reliance" inevitably triggered the industry's reverie. The different frequency of the development of the two may be their own independent reasons. As the largest cloud vendor in China by revenue and the only profitable cloud vendor, Alibaba Cloud is highly expected by the Group. In fiscal year 2023, Aliyun's total revenue reached 77.2 billion billion yuan, accounting for about 9% of Ali Group's revenue, second only to Taobao. Aliyun has made a profit in fiscal year 2020. The latest financial report shows that as of the end of June this year, Alibaba Cloud's adjusted earnings before interest and tax were 0.387 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 106. On the other hand, the DingTalk in charge has not yet made a profit. In June this year, DingTalk President Ye Jun set the goal of achieving break-even within three years. After Ali's "1+6 + N" organizational reform, all departments have the need to be responsible for their own profits and losses and survive independently. For Aliyun, which has entered the fast track of listing, profit index is very important. "Flying" DingTalk will have substantial benefits for Alibaba Cloud to protect its own profits and improve its valuation. Ali insiders said that after independence, the cooperation and settlement between the two sides will proceed normally. This means that after flying solo, DingTalk will soon become customers of Aliyun and purchase services and resources from them. Previously, the cloud resources consumed by DingTalk have changed from Alibaba Cloud's operating costs to business revenue and profits. The giant ship Aliyun will also drive faster. On the other hand, for DingTalk, "unbundling" with Alibaba Cloud may also release greater freedom of growth. Previously, under the cloud nail one strategy, DingTalk imagination seemed to be limited to the cloud, or more likely to appear as an auxiliary role. But in fact, after six or seven years of development and user accumulation, DingTalk is already the head player in the domestic collaborative office market, and its own commercialization is imperative. Office software is a very potential market. The 2021 China SaaS Survey Report shows that China's office software payment rate is less than 15% in 2021, while the office software payment rate in the European and American markets has exceeded 70%. The reason for the above-mentioned huge gap is that the acceptance of SaaS by domestic users is shallow, while the large number of small and medium-sized enterprises that DingTalk rely on free accumulation have small orders and weak awareness of payment. Ye Jun mentioned in September last year that "the DingTalk used by enterprises is basically free now, and the amount actually paid may be less than 1%". In order to better commercialize, DingTalk further clarified the path at the nail summit held in September last year, adding to the "big customer strategy" organized for customers with 1-100000 people ". Ali revealed that in the past two years, the strategy of DingTalk major customers has achieved remarkable results, and gradually established the organizational and product capabilities to serve major customers. Some people in the industry believe that the domestic cloud office industry has begun to turn to the new battlefield of major government and enterprise customers, and they are more dependent on state-owned cloud service providers. Therefore, under this particularity, DingTalk with independent portals can look for opportunities in other clouds when expanding more large customers, and do not need to be "bundled" by Aliyun ". Ye Jun has revealed that although the absolute value of revenue is not high for the time being, the DingTalk's core product revenue has maintained a three-digit growth level. And DingTalk gross margin is not low, more than the software industry average. More importantly, with the return of valuation after DingTalk independence, it is a temptation of hundreds of billions of dollars. It can be referred to that two years ago, cloud computing giant Salesforce spent $27.7 billion (about 201.8 billion yuan) to acquire office application Slack. Zoom, an overseas office collaboration company, currently has a market value of more than US $20 billion. Therefore, the DingTalk of more than 0.6 billion users may have more space for business development, external financing or subsequent listing after independence. DingTalk has become the capital market on the meat and potatoes. Wall Street has learned from a number of reliable sources that a number of outside investors have expressed their willingness to invest in DingTalk. However, whether to seek and accept external capital in the future depends on internal follow-up arrangements. From "joining" Aliyun to "flying solo", Aliyun and DingTalk are all striving for mutual achievements. Now that they are independent, Aliyun will go straight to the sky to become the first listed cloud operator giant in China, while DingTalk will turn from App on the C side to App on the B side to enlarge its potential. From one Alibaba to a group of Alibaba, this is Ali's vision and the future of Ali Cloud and DingTalk.