Baidu-Bing Partnership in China
July 8, 2011
Here’s one consequence of Google‘s China policy: Microsoft now has a China policy. EWeek.com’s Nathan Eddy announces discussed this interesting consequence of Google’s decision to step away from China in his article “Microsoft, Baidu Partner on Search in China.” There is an equally interesting discussion in the Inquirer’s article “Baidu Picks Bing to Power its English Search in China.”
Baidu is the leading Chinese search provider, and historically acquiesces with government censorship demands. As searches for English terms increase in China, Baidu needs some help keeping up. That’s where Microsoft’s Bing comes in. Lawrence Latif at the Inquirer comments:
The deal means that all English-language queries entered into Baidu will automatically be served up by Bing, though they will be displayed on Baidu’s web site. Given that Google has all but given up on the Chinese search engine market following last year’s very public spat with local authorities over censorship, the deal gives Microsoft a good chance to build its presence in what will soon become the world’s largest economy.
Google retains 20 percent of the market for search in China, but only about 30 percent of the burgeoning Chinese population has found its way onto the Web so far. Bing may be poised to capture the majority of the population as they come online. At least, their English searches.
Looks like Google’s principled stance will cost them in China. Who cares? It is just one country. With 1.5 billion people. We also want to point out that the Chinese government has smiled upon Jike.com, which may become a more significant player in the Chinese market. Also, Jike indexes Beyond Search quickly.
Cynthia Murrell July 8, 2011
You can read more about enterprise search and retrieval in The New Landscape of Enterprise Search, published by Pandia in Oslo, Norway, in June 2011.
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