Winter's coming to B2B in Asia

If you're running a B2B media company in Asia and your budget's already done and dusted for next year and you were bullish back in September, you may be in for a rocky few months. There are a few signs that things are slowing a bit. I read, then with interest this piece on Amy G's blog "...in the center of Silicon Valley" about two speakers predicting economic "winter" at the 6th China Enterpreneur Summit held in Beijing on December 8 (in Chinese).

Alibaba's Jack Ma: "I want an IPO now to be ready for the winter".

Lenovo's Liu Chuanzhi: "We are not afraid of the coming winter, and we will do what we should do in the winter".

Make of that what you will but don't go out without your vest.

Speaking of Alibaba, we also stumbled across their online magazine or e-zine, Ali Biz. There's a nice picture of our friend Brian Wong on the cover of the 3rd edition. I wonder if it will make it into print? I personally like e-zines but I know lots of people (especially advertisers) don't.

And, finally for this morning, no surprise to see that Global Sources has unloaded its stake in HC International back to IDG's VC funds. They are claiming a $2 million profit on the transaction although the explanation of the calculation on p.2 of the press release requires some mental gymnastics a bit beyond me. The writing was obviously on the wall for this from the moment that they announced they would be going ahead and launching their own Chinese language sourcing sites.