从李开复官司开始，两虎争霸中国互联网市场，谁与争锋？
According the latest new analysis from CNET.com : China is quickly proving to be the next great Internet marketplace, and both Microsoft and Google are prepared to fight for it, starting in American courtrooms.
On Monday, the software giant sued Kai-Fu Lee, a former vice president of search technologies and Microsoft's chief architect of business strategy in China, for an alleged breach of a noncompete and confidentiality agreement. Microsoft also sued Google, claiming it was knowingly complicit in the alleged breach when it hired Lee to head up its new Chinese research center.
Certainly, that Lee was a top developer of speech recognition and search technologies and close to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was enough to draw the software giant's ire. But Lee's intimate knowledge of the Chinese Internet marketplace is something both companies likely covet.
With an estimated 100 million people online, China's Internet audience is second only to that of the United States, and financial analysts believe it will surpass America's Internet population within five years. China also has 350 million mobile phone subscribers, 43 million broadband homes and 20 million online gamers--the largest gaming population in the world, according to Piper Jaffray.
Google has long run a Chinese-language Web site, but in the last year, the company has invested more in operating there. According to a report by the Chinese Xinhua news agency, Schmidt made a trip in late June to Beijing and met with officials of the Chinese search company Baidu.com. Last year, Google acquired a 4 percent stake in Baidu.com, which is expected to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a valuation as high as $1 billion.
The American Internet companies also have local competition in the Middle Kingdom. Baidu.com for example is the largest search company in China, followed by Google, Yahoo and China-based Sohu.com. Sina is the largest portal site in China and has a deal with Yahoo for an online auction house. Yahoo China president Zhou Hongyi resigned last month for personal reasons, leaving the future of the portal's unit in question.
Because China is such a fast-moving and populated marketplace, analysts say U.S. companies must establish a significant presence in the country if they want to thrive there. According to China's People Daily Online, Google was once the dominant search engine in China, but it lost market share to Baidu.com because it wasn't focused enough on the local market."For Google, the whole idea is that they can't do everything from Silicon Valley if they are a global outfit. To them, China is a big market, but they must develop features from China," said Rashtchy.
The search companies aren't the only tech-savvy Americans racing into China, of course. On Tuesday, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Accel Partners said it partnered with the media company International Data Group to form a $250 million fund to invest in Chinese tech companies. Others, including Intel, have established similar funds to take advantage of China's booming technology, gaming, broadband and cellular markets.
China's Internet economy, which includes sales from e-commerce and advertising, also has plenty of room to grow. It's worth about only 5 percent of the U.S. Internet economy, according to analysts at Piper Jaffray. The analysts expect Chinese interactive sales, including online advertising, e-commerce, games and wireless, to be worth $1.38 billion in 2005. Next year, sales are expected to grow 37 percent to $1.9 billion.
"China is going to be the most significant opportunity for growth for Internet companies over the next five years," said U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy.
On Monday, the software giant sued Kai-Fu Lee, a former vice president of search technologies and Microsoft's chief architect of business strategy in China, for an alleged breach of a noncompete and confidentiality agreement. Microsoft also sued Google, claiming it was knowingly complicit in the alleged breach when it hired Lee to head up its new Chinese research center.
Certainly, that Lee was a top developer of speech recognition and search technologies and close to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was enough to draw the software giant's ire. But Lee's intimate knowledge of the Chinese Internet marketplace is something both companies likely covet.
With an estimated 100 million people online, China's Internet audience is second only to that of the United States, and financial analysts believe it will surpass America's Internet population within five years. China also has 350 million mobile phone subscribers, 43 million broadband homes and 20 million online gamers--the largest gaming population in the world, according to Piper Jaffray.
Google has long run a Chinese-language Web site, but in the last year, the company has invested more in operating there. According to a report by the Chinese Xinhua news agency, Schmidt made a trip in late June to Beijing and met with officials of the Chinese search company Baidu.com. Last year, Google acquired a 4 percent stake in Baidu.com, which is expected to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a valuation as high as $1 billion.
The American Internet companies also have local competition in the Middle Kingdom. Baidu.com for example is the largest search company in China, followed by Google, Yahoo and China-based Sohu.com. Sina is the largest portal site in China and has a deal with Yahoo for an online auction house. Yahoo China president Zhou Hongyi resigned last month for personal reasons, leaving the future of the portal's unit in question.
Because China is such a fast-moving and populated marketplace, analysts say U.S. companies must establish a significant presence in the country if they want to thrive there. According to China's People Daily Online, Google was once the dominant search engine in China, but it lost market share to Baidu.com because it wasn't focused enough on the local market."For Google, the whole idea is that they can't do everything from Silicon Valley if they are a global outfit. To them, China is a big market, but they must develop features from China," said Rashtchy.
The search companies aren't the only tech-savvy Americans racing into China, of course. On Tuesday, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Accel Partners said it partnered with the media company International Data Group to form a $250 million fund to invest in Chinese tech companies. Others, including Intel, have established similar funds to take advantage of China's booming technology, gaming, broadband and cellular markets.
China's Internet economy, which includes sales from e-commerce and advertising, also has plenty of room to grow. It's worth about only 5 percent of the U.S. Internet economy, according to analysts at Piper Jaffray. The analysts expect Chinese interactive sales, including online advertising, e-commerce, games and wireless, to be worth $1.38 billion in 2005. Next year, sales are expected to grow 37 percent to $1.9 billion.
"China is going to be the most significant opportunity for growth for Internet companies over the next five years," said U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy.
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