Alibaba Group Takes Additional Steps to Help SMEs in China Turn to e-Commerce

Alisoft, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba Group, announced that it will offer free Internet-based management software to all 42 million small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) in China as part of the Group's ongoing effort to make it easy for SMEs to do business using e-commerce.
The software, called "Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, -0.17, -0.27%)", comprises an accounting and finance module in the initial edition; an inventory management and a customer relations management module.
Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, -0.17, -0.27%) will be free to SME users for at least three years. Apart from the free software license, Alisoft will provide free upgrades, training and customer support for all users. Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, -0.17, -0.27%), a simple-to-use software targeted at key decision makers in SMEs, addresses the need of small business owners who desire to keep track of their money, inventory and customers.

To make Shopkeeper(TM: 63.44, -0.17, -0.27%) and other business software widely available to the market, Alisoft will invest up to RMB1 billion over the next three years to cultivate the SME-focused software industry, and further drive usage of Internet-based software, or "software-as-a-service", as a new paradigm of how businesses use technology to manage their operations.