Finally it’s official. Both Baidu and Microsoft China have confirmed it: Baidu’s partnership with Microsoft’s Bing for English-language searches on Baidu.com is a done deal – after several months of rumors.
With this partnership Baidu Search will show English search results based on Bing’s algorithms. It gives Baidu better quality search results, whilst also raising the profile of Bing in China.
Although confirmed this afternoon, the Baidu-Bing tie-up is not yet in action. Speaking to Penn-Olson, Baidu’s Director of International Communications, Kaiser Kuo, said that the service will go live “in a few weeks or months”. He added:
We admit we haven’t served English results well in the past. And we realize that Chinese users do search in English – and as people become more urban and sophisticated, they’ll be more apt to search even more in English.
As for what Microsoft’s Bing gets out of the deal, Mr. Kuo concedes that “It’ll substantially improve Bing’s presence here,” but that the emphasis is on pushing Baidu forward: “We see this deal as beneficial for Baidu.”
This isn’t the first co-operation between Baidu and Microsoft. For years already, all product searches made in the Chinese language on cn.Bing.com – eg: for digital cameras or phones – have been powered by Baidu.
This tie-up includes Baidu’s box-computing platform, which we recently reviewed, so that English search results will soon get to take advantage of the developer-built widgets that crop up for certain search terms.
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