Developing Telecoms | Baidu weighing up options for entering OS market

17 May 2012

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Baidu weighing up options for entering OS market

Monday, 28 March 2011 11:33 | James Barton

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The Chinese search engine provider Baidu could be developing a new “light” mobile operating system, according to reports which indicate that the launch timeframe for the platform would be “the coming three to five years”.

The firm is reportedly aiming to make the search field the focal point of the platform’s interface, with Baidu chief executive Robin Li saying “in the future, one second, you turn on the device, and you can start using the [search] box. That’s our mission for the future of the Internet.”

However, Li also underlined the fact that Baidu would be open to integrating its services with a partner’s OS rather than building its own, saying “someone else can do it or we can do it ourselves, (it) does not matter." A spokesman for the search engine giant further quelled escalating speculation by noting “Robin did not specifically say that Baidu is developing an operating system for mobiles.”

There have been prior suggestions that Baidu was involved in developing a mobile operating system, including rumours that former Google employees were overseeing the platform’s development. It is likely that a new Baidu platform would be more aligned with the cloud-based processing of Google’s Chrome OS, rather than the device-based processing of Android.

Baidu’s previous attempts at promoting search as the core function of the user interface allowed access to applications from the Baidu search page via the integration of a third-party app store.

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