China's Baidu To Hire 30 Software Engineers On 'Google Territory'
While Google awaits to find out whether the Chinese government is giving it the green light for the renewal of its Internet content provider (ICP) licence, its local competitor, China’s largest search engine Baidu is touting its intention to hire up to 30 engineers in July, directly from ‘Google territory,’ i.e. the Silicon Valley, to help it expand overseas.
Non-Chinese Employees
According to various reports quoting a company statement, Baidu will fill the 30 software engineers positions by participating in a job fair on July 10 and the newly hires “could be Chinese, people from Taiwan or Hong Kong, or citizens of any other country.” Up to date, Baidu has 8 000 employees, of which less than 10% are non-Chinese citizens. Zheng Bin, its human resources director said: “As we develop more and more advanced search technologies, our need for world-class talent will only continue to increase.”
Baidu Vs Google
Baidu holds over 60% of the search market in China and this move could be the first step towards its international expansion. On the other hand, marketers from around the globe have already been using Baidu to reach a Chinese audience, as Bill Hunt and Michael Bonfils both explained.
So far, the company has benefitted from Google’s redirection of searches to Hong Kong. Reminder: back in March, as Jack Marshall reported on ClickZ, Google started automatically redirecting users of its www.google.cn mainland China engine to its Hong Kong-based service. The move came after attacks to its systems in China in December but more importantly, the Hong Kong service, www.Google.hk.com, was a way for Google to provide mainland users with uncensored content.
Google Awaits IPC Renewal
Three days ago, on June 28th, David Drummond, Google’s SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, said in a blog post that Mountain View-based company was tweaking its approach to the Chinese market in order to be able to apply for renewal of its ICP. That meant mainly meant stopping to redirect China queries to its Hong Kong.