According to Xinhua, China’s official news agency, Chinese search company Baidu is working on a Linux-based mobile OS of its own to take on Google’s Android. Baidu is currently the largest search engine in China, with a search share of a whopping 70 percent versus Google’s 27.8 percent, and it makes sense that with over 800 million mobile phone users in China, Baidu would want a piece of the mobile operating system pie on which to put a scoop of its own search engine sorbet.
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According to Thinq, the word on the Chinese blogosphere is that a Baidu mobile OS would need massive investment from the Chinese government to succeed. But as some cynical (and possibly right) Slashdotters note, a Baidu OS needn’t be particularly innovative to succeed: Open source being open source, they could in theory modify Android a bit and call it a day.
