14 DAY TRIAL // The Symbian Foundation and Baidu, the world’s largest Chinese search engine provider, announced today the signing of a strategic partnership aimed at co-establishing a joint laboratory for the development and launch of wireless “box computing” that will be integrated with the Symbian platform. Symbian’s expertise in smartphone platforms and Baidu’s R&D strength in search engines will be mixed together for the launch of wireless “box computing” in the Symbian platform architecture, while enabling developers to include search features in their applications.
Through the new agreement, Baidu will have access to platform technology interfaces from the Symbian Foundation that will enable it integrate 'box computing' deep within the Symbian middleware layer. Both Symbian and Baidu announced their focus on driving developers to include 'box computing' in applications and services, and they are set to deliver a complete 'box computing' platform solution to mobile phone makers and carriers. The results of the Box Computing Joint Laboratory will be provided to the entire industry through the open source efforts from the Symbian Foundation.
“The strategic cooperation with the Symbian Foundation is a part of Baidu’s “Box Computing” strategy and an important step for launching the wireless “box computing” platform. Baidu will cooperate with its partners in the wireless industry with a more open attitude and bring more valuable services to its partners and users with leading technology innovations,” noted Wang Zhan, the vice president of Baidu.
Mobile Internet users should benefit from enhanced access to information through Baidu’s convenient 'box computing' within the Symbian operating system. According to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), 60.8 percent of all Internet users in China at the end of 2009 were mobile Internet users (233,000,000 people). The result of the new partnership is expected to offer them the possibility to easily search information on the Internet or on their devices. One should not forget that Symbian enjoys a global market share of around 44 percent, while Baidu's search engine covers about 95 percent of China.
“Baidu has played a leading role in internet services, especially in China, and we look forward to having them share their expertise with the growing Symbian community,” said Lee M. Williams, executive director of Symbian. “Additionally, we expect the integration of “box computing” services into the Symbian platform to stimulate third-party developers worldwide to create a large body of innovative applications, leveraging Baidu’s market-leading search and inquiry platform.”