|
Yahoo Vs Google: presence extending
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
US search engine giants Yahoo and Google are posed to take a dominant
position in the world's most populous country by launching new services
and partnering with local companies, according to Tuesday's China
Daily.
Yahoo! in Beijing yesterday launched a search engine portal, Yisou.com,
the first time that the US company has registered a new website
for its search engine service in a country outside the United States.
"Many things that we did not do in any other Yahoo! markets
were done in China and these moves show our strong commitment to
this market," said David Lu, deputy managing director of Yahoo!'s
North Asia operations.
The search engine portal has a clean and simple interface similar
to professional search engine service providers such as Google and
the Chinese firm Baidu.com.
Yahoo! will relocate about 1,000 search engine servers from the
United States to China next month and the servers will be used to
provide services for the Chinese population around the world.
Lu said that Yahoo! would not focus on short-term returns from
Yahoo! China and new services.
Zhou Hongyi, president of Yahoo! China, said he believed that
the launch of the new search portal would change the competition
scenario in China.
"If we say the competition in China was mainly between Google
and Baidu before, the future one will be between the two alliances
- Yahoo!-3721 versus Google-Baidu," he said.
Yahoo! acquired Hong Kong-based 3721 Network Software Co Ltd,
which controls the major Chinese real name service provider Beijing
3721, last year for US$120 million.
Google, which has not had a physical presence in China, last week
reportedly invested US$10 million in Baidu, a major Chinese search
engine. A free-lance Internet analyst surnamed Lu said the moves
from Yahoo! and Google would have significant impact on the search
engine market because of their huge capital and rich experience
in the field.
| 
