Alibaba Cloud and Eficode to Jointly Empower Digitalization of Nordic Companies

Hangzhou, China and Helsinki, Finland, October 17, 2017 – Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group and Eficode Oy, a leading DevOps company based in Finland and a subsidiary of the Finnish Tech Consulting Group TCG Oy ("TCG Group"), today announced that they have formed a strategic partnership under which Eficode will bring Alibaba Cloud offerings to the Nordic market and Nordic companies in the China market.

Eficode will start providing a comprehensive range of Alibaba Cloud's products to the Nordic market. The partnership will assist both companies in realizing a shared vision of advancing cutting-edge cloud technologies. The collaboration will also broaden the possibilities for helping customers meet digital challenges.

The strategic partnership was officially formed on October 12, 2017 at the Computing Conference in Hangzhou, China and signed by Alexander Yin, Chief Financial Officer of TCG Group, and Yeming Wang, Deputy General Manager, Alibaba Cloud Global.

Yeming Wang, Deputy General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Global, said: "We are pleased to take another strategic step to serve the Nordic market together with Eficode. On the back of a local data center in Germany, Alibaba Cloud has been deepening our roots in Europe in recent years, contributing to the local cloud ecosystem with our local partners and supporting enterprises of different scale in the region. Our vision remains steadfast, that is to enable the global growth of enterprises of all sizes through our world-class cloud services."

"Alibaba Cloud is the biggest provider of cloud services in China and the most natural local cloud partner for companies coming from Europe when they make their China entry. Now being able to choose Eficode as well as Alibaba Cloud as a service provider gives companies local and overseas contacts when taking this step in the future," states Heikki Hämäläinen, Sales Director of Eficode.

Eficode Chief Technology Officer Marko Klemetti was a speaker at the Computing Conference and he explained how the top companies in Europe use DevOps, a software engineering practice that unifies software development and software operations, to drive rapid growth and build a high-performing organization. A DevOps culture together with a deep-rooted cloud ecosystem enables fast time-to-market capability. This can be further enhanced with AI features to establish market leadership positions.

ePassi Payments Oy, a sister company of Eficode within TCG Group, also has a strategic partnership with Alipay, the leading mobile payment and lifestyle platform operated by Ant Financial, a sister company of Alibaba Group. Alipay and ePassi have cooperated to develop a full smart tourism ecosystem in Finland for Chinese visitors, and are in the process of expanding the cooperation to other Nordic countries.

About Alibaba Cloud

Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com), the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, is among the world's top 3 IaaS providers according to Gartner¹ , and the largest provider of public cloud services in China, according to IDC. Alibaba Cloud provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to businesses worldwide, including merchants doing business on Alibaba Group marketplaces, start-ups, corporations and government organizations. Alibaba Cloud is the official Cloud Services Partner of the International Olympic Committee.

About Eficode

Eficode (www.eficode.com) is a leading Northern European company in Devops, software and automation with offices in Finland, Sweden and Denmark. Eficode is building the future of software development and digital services with more than 200 enthusiastic professionals. Eficode delivers the whole end-to-end in digital services: From discovery to building. From release to the future.

¹ Source: Gartner, "Market Share: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2016", 19 September 2017"