Alibaba takes us a step closer to real m-commerce

There's a very interesting post at the China Web 2.0 Review (they often are!). Alibaba's Taobao has launched a WAP version with a limited feature set at wap.taobao.com Interesting enough as a way to expand its reach to those 500+ million mobile phone users, many of whom do not have easy Internet access of their own.

More interesting still is the way in which the sit is served by a mobile interface for Alipay. As Luyi Chen points out in his post, payment for most m-commerce in China so far has been processed by the mobile service providers as part of the consumers' bill. I'd assume that China Mobile won't be too tickled by Alibaba's move to skirt around that with its m-Alipay service. But, however, big and powerful they are, its hard to imagine they can stop it in the long term.