Microsoft Scores Deal to 'Bing' China's Search

News
By Marcus Yam
published

Bing-a-ling!

Microsoft has scored the English results job for Chinese search engine giant Baidu. Rather than pursue its own search engine market, as Google is doing in China, Microsoft is working on partnerships.

Google's share in China is just under 20 percent, but Baidu commands the vast majority at more than 75 percent of the search market. Microsoft's Bing will return results in English searches.

As quoted by the Financial Times, Samuel Shen, senior vice-president of Microsoft China, said that the partnership "would give Baidu's many users better results and a better English search experience. At the same time, it will allow more Chinese users to experience Bing".

More than 10 million English searches hit Baidu per day. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mcd023
    smart move
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    Uhm... My only doubt is MS's position about "filtering" certain results in favor of China's censorship. You know, all the "freedom of speech" and "human rights" talk.

    It's a risky business on the image side of things IMO, but worthy non the less. Let's see how this turns out.

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • inerax
    mcd023smart move
    +1
    Reply
  • Khimera2000
    YukaUhm... My only doubt is MS's position about "filtering" certain results in favor of China's censorship. You know, all the "freedom of speech" and "human rights" talk.It's a risky business on the image side of things IMO, but worthy non the less. Let's see how this turns out.Cheers!
    I think your right, the risk involved are significant. Chinese sensership would be a pain in so many levels, but if there was a time that they would drop at least some of that cencership this deal would put M$ in a pritty good position.

    Now all they have to do is win over india and they will have two really big imerging markets : ))
    Reply
  • master9716
    If microsoft wants to take over they should leave a weakness open in their search system so that the chinese can " bypass" the filters so the chinese can have a full open internet secretly.
    Reply
  • Why so the Chinese govt can storm microsoft china offices and execute them?
    Reply
  • ojas
    Khimera2000Now all they have to do is win over india and they will have two really big imerging markets : ))
    well they won't be able to do that, because India is not china, and freedom of speech and expression is pretty strong here. And the most liberal search engine is google :P

    Bing has a strict safety filter that you cant turn off and it's just irritating (basically if type 'sexy' it'll filter it. which is ridiculous really). i really don't think many Indians use it, and me and my friends occasionally discuss how stupid MS is to compete with google in search engines. With all the money they're losing on it...

    Anyway, bottom line is, Google is too popular in India for MS to do much with Bing. They'd profit more here by stopping pirated Windows copies. :D
    Reply
  • ojas
    SlipperySloapWhy so the Chinese govt can storm microsoft china offices and execute them?
    What?What?
    Reply
  • netbanshee
    Anyone who partners with MS gets what they deserve. ;) With that said, MS is no armature at this game. I believe it's the smartest play when dealing with China. Using the local leader to get a foothold in that market.
    Reply
  • Benihana
    Indians seem go bonkers for Yahoo for some reason.
    Reply