According to sources in Chinese press, Microsoft is close to announcing a deal with Chinese search giant Baidu. Both parties will officially sign a strategic agreement at the end of this week, both sides will co-operation in the field of search, but specific details of cooperation is not revealed. Insiders speculated that Microsoft’s Bing (bing) using Baidu PPC services provided. More details roughly translated below:
In 2006, Microsoft has reached an agreement with Baidu, Microsoft MSN, Live, and other Microsoft partner Web site to start the search service provided by Baidu bid ranking services. It is known that the Beta version of Microsoft’s bing was introduced in June 2009 in China, in China’s market share is still very limited, according to Analysys think tank Enfodesk industry database data display, in the last quarter of 2011 China search engine operators market share, Baidu accounted for 75.8%, Google accounted for 19.2% in China. Total market share to both 95%.
Since “Google out of China” when an event occurs, Microsoft has been looking for partners in China, to help make Microsoft a major force in one of China Internet search market. Microsoft Senior VP Ya-Qin Zhang said Beijing in Asia mainly focused on Bing Microsoft (Bing) English version of the research and development, and there are relatively few personnel engaged in research and development of the Chinese version of bing.
Reports also suggest a deal could be announced as early as next week.
It looks like Baidu is taking over the paid ads on Bing China, and Bing will provide the English language results for Baidu. Bing is a tiny player in China’s search market. Perhaps by striking a partnership with the biggest search engine there, it can gain some traction. The deal could be announced next week.
Microsoft has recently acquired the Internet communication service Skype for $8.5 billion.