I read the newspapers avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction - Aneurin Bevan
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Motorola puts Bing on its Chinese phones
CAPITALIST RUNNING DOG Microsoft has signed a deal that'll put Bing on Motorola's Android phones in the glorious People's Republic of China.
The Vole has muscled in on Google's Android platform and Bing will be the default search and mapping service on Motorola's phones in the Middle Kingdom. This means Microsoft's diplomatic posturing towards China has paid off and it gives Motorola more breathing room by making deals that don't rely solely on Google.
"Mobile devices continue to be a critical place for customers to access location-based services such as local search and mapping," said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the online services division at Microsoft.
"We are pleased to expand our long-standing relationship with Motorola to bring powerful Bing location-based services to Motorola's innovative new mobile devices, providing consumers with more choice and flexibility in mobile search," Mehdi concluded.
Motorola has also been rather savvy to have struck a similar deal for its punters to use the native Chinese search engine Baidu instead of Google and as an alternative to Bing.
Only time will tell if Motorola is spreading itself too thin, trying to please all comers but, for now, it looks like hooking up with Bing in mainland China might be a solid play. µ
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It is interesting that China seems to feign disgust at the corruption of the capitalist system, and yet so readily embraces the embodiment of this corruption, namely the boundless appetite for consumables in the USA, along with a company which shows no qualms about influencing governments to benefit only itself. I an referring here to Microsoft and the OOXML ISO debacle (and many similar unscrupulous tactics that MSFT has used to become very rich).
Microsoft's public statements of its unconditional support for China's rules and policies just to squeeze its Bing search (and possibly phone OS) into the Chinese market indicates that Ballmer and Co's only loyalty is to the almighty dollar. Whatever the Chinese "rules" require of them, that is exactly what they will do as long as the yen keep rolling in.
This seems to be a purposeful and methodical process; for example, it is unlikely that Motorola just "happened" to come up with the idea of installing Bing on its phones by itself.
Microsoft seems to have no qualms about ignoring the public statements of US Government international policies on China and human rights. Dismissing these policies as inconsequential, and making unconditional deals with the Chinese could be regarded as treasonous. I hope the State Department comes down on Microsoft (and I also hope that Motorola smartens up before they get dragged down with them).
Again -- from the Chinese perspective -- how could they trust the living embodiment of capitalist corruption to choose what material its citizens see on the Internet? How could they trust closed-source code developed by the same company with their personal search records and personal data (also in the case of OS's)? I guess money really is the Great Equalizer.