Sunday 18 April 2010

Google Vs Baidu Part II


Earlier this month, Google relocated its Chinese business to Hong Kong. An error this big by the U.S. giant was unexpected. This decision upset the Mainland; China is now implementing the consequences on Google.com.hk
In the eyes of the government, Chinese are very nationalistic and proud citizens. It has been obvious that Baidu is by far more appreciated than Google for two main reasons. First it is Chinese, and secondly, it is more practical.
As said in many articles regarding Google’s removal; Google will be the biggest looser, giving way to Baidu with 389m exclusive local internet users.
Google is also loosing human resources to Baidu. Wang Jing, Baidu’s new Vice-President in charge of engineering was a former Google engineering director. This switch is the first between Google and Baidu high level employees.

Google seem to have adopted a laissez-faire mood. It is hard to believe that such a world giant is loosing towards China. This can mean two things: Google is preparing a counter-attack which is still far away, or China has grown tremendously in power and is now capable of playing with its own rules. The more likely option is the second one, which made of Google an example for the rest of foreign companies.

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