Chinese search company Baidu has stayed in the headlines for much of 2008. In October my colleague Ed examined the company's entry into e-commerce (Youa.com) and e-payments (Baifubao). In September, my colleague Miranda Chen wrote about Alibaba's attempts to block Baidu's crawler from gathering data on Taobao. With the announcement last week that Alibaba will spend RMB 300 million to develop its "local search engine," Yahoo Koubei, it's clear that Alibaba and Baidu are locked in a long-term struggle for internet supremacy in China.
For those who are quick to claim a "China vs. the West" spin on any business news coming out of China, I highly recommend keeping an eye on this battle. While China's government is repsonsible for its share of policies favoring domestic companies, there's little it can do when two of those companies go head to head.
Miranda offers additional analysis of these two companies here.
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