Yahoo has decided to start promoting Alibaba, a search engine, in China. This move will target the leading China search engine Baidu.com which Google owns a portion of. Baidu has been in the news recently for lawsuits that were filed by the music industry which I highlighted in the post titled Music Industry Should Reward, Not Sue Baidu on Somewhat Frank.
According to this AP report, Alibaba Yahoo bought 40 percent of the Chinese company in August. Alibaba’s CEO, Jack Ma, says:
“What we are doing is sending out a strong signal to China, to the Yahoo team: ‘We are focused and we are coming.”
It will be interesting to see the impact of Jack Ma and Alibaba.com the Yahoo backed search initiative in China on the Chinese search industry. Is Baidu going to do anything to counter Alibaba's moves?
For other blogosphere perspectives on Alibaba and Yahoo check out these posts on Technoogle, Morrison, Long or Short? and China IT Industry Observation.
