What will the internet conglomerate of tomorrow look like?
未來的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)集團將是什么樣？
Two models — the Chinese and the American — are in full flood. They may also be converging. And though they look like they have plenty of room to run, accidents of politics and personality are never far away.
眼下中國和美國這兩種模式正迅猛發(fā)展，它們也可能會趨同。雖然它們看似有足夠的增長空間，但與政治以及創(chuàng)始人個性相關(guān)的事件總是如影隨形。
Alibaba’s surprisingly bullish revenue forecast earlier this month — it predicted growth this year a full 10 per cent above expectations — was taken by investors as powerful affirmation of a strategy that has at times looked scattershot.
阿里巴巴(Alibaba)上月公布了今年的收入預(yù)測，其預(yù)測的增幅整整超過預(yù)期10%，這一意外的利好消息被投資者認為是對一個有時看上去漫無目的的戰(zhàn)略的強大肯定。
Reflecting that China has a domestic economy ripe for digital innovation, and a business culture that does not recognise boundaries, Alibaba has shied away from setting limits to its scope. Like local rivals Tencent and Baidu, it has been making investments in many more businesses as it extends its reach (the most recent was putting another $1bn into Southeast Asian ecommerce player Lazada).
阿里巴巴沒有對自己設(shè)限，這反映了中國國內(nèi)經(jīng)濟已為數(shù)字創(chuàng)新做好準備，而且其商業(yè)文化也不承認邊界。與本土競爭對手騰訊(Tencent)和百度(Baidu)一樣，阿里巴巴一直對更多商業(yè)領(lǐng)域進行投資，以擴張自己的版圖，最近一筆投資是對東南亞電商企業(yè)Lazada追加10億美元。
But for the financial markets, Alibaba has been at pains to paint a more coherent picture thanoften appears from the outside. At the heart of the story is a giant data factory. It sucks upinformation from customers of its many services and uses this to refine its offerings (and helpmerchants find more customers).
但對于金融市場，阿里巴巴一直在用心勾勒一幅比外界看起來更清晰的畫面。其策略核心是一個龐大的數(shù)據(jù)工廠，它從旗下許多服務(wù)那里吸收顧客信息，再用這些信息來優(yōu)化自己的產(chǎn)品，并幫助商家找到更多顧客。
This raises two questions: How much data are enough — and how much will regulators considerto be too much?
這就提出了兩個問題：多少數(shù)據(jù)算夠呢？以及，到什么程度監(jiān)管機構(gòu)會認為太多了呢？
In China, there appear to be few limits. Alibaba faces little pushback from either consumers orregulators. This is partly because the potential access to vast commercial repositories ofpersonal information has obvious appeal to government agencies. As long as this closealignment of interest between company and state continues, the way looks clear.
在中國，這方面似乎沒什么限制。阿里巴巴極少面臨來自消費者或監(jiān)管機構(gòu)的反彈。一部分是因為對于政府機構(gòu)來說，可以訪問龐大的商業(yè)個人信息資料庫有著明顯的吸引力。只要企業(yè)與國家之間仍然存在這種密切的利益聯(lián)盟，這種方式看上去就暢通無阻。
