It has been a busy week for Alibaba.com with a flurry of news releases. TradeMediaBlog is happy to bring them to you below with comments.

Alibaba.com formerly announced the often referred to Joint Venture with Softbank. This US$20 million deal (Softbank 65%; Alibaba.com 35%) will hopefully put some marketing/sales muscle behind a site that has been underutilized for years. While I am not sure of the business model (the original site promoted Chinese exporters to Japanese buyers but the release states that the model will do the opposite and promote Japanese exporters), I see a big opportunity for another successful venture (the first was Taobao.com) between these two global e-commerce titans.

Alibaba.com also announced that they will ‘jointly’ develop a PC with Intel that help SMEs conduct business online.

The planned computer, the first step in a broader alliance between the two companies, will come with Alibaba’s e-commerce applications preinstalled and use Intel components, according to a joint statement.

This one is a bit confusing as it seems that Alibaba.com is behind the agreement; however, the applications, as I understand it, should be developed by Alibaba Group’s Alisoft operations.

Correct me if I am wrong here but either way it sounds like a great project with one of the world’s best chip makers.

Finally, a bit of goodwill from Alibaba.com as they will donate US$300,000 to China’s earthquake relief funds as well as raising funds through Alibaba Group’s Alimama with support from Alipay.

Click here if you wish to donate to this worthy cause.