新闻分析：争夺中国市场 微软Google大打出手
作者： CNET科技资讯网 翻译：李海
CNETNews.com.cn 2005-07-22 09:0 AM
CNET科技资讯网7月22日国际报道 中国无疑将成为下一个互联网的巨大市场，微软Google都准备为这个市场而战。战争的起点：美国的法庭。
星期一，软件巨人起诉李开复，它的前搜索技术副总裁，微软中国战略首席架构师。微软声称，李开复违反非竞争性及保密条款。微软同时起诉Google，罪名是在雇佣李开复组建新的中国研究中心时，故意串通一气。
的确，这位李开复是微软的高级语音识别及搜索技术开发师，他和比尔盖茨的关系非常密切，这足以激起软件巨人的怒火。但是，李开复对中国互联网市场的熟悉却是两家公司都垂涎的。
1亿多人上网，中国的互联网用户人数仅次于美国，金融分析师们相信，中国的上网人数将在5年之内超过美国。中国还拥有3.5亿移动电话用户，4.3亿宽带网家庭以及2千万网络游戏玩家，据Piper Jaffray的数字显示，中国是世界上游戏玩家最多的国家。
中国的互联网经济，包括电子商务与广告的销售都有很大的发展空间。Piper Jaffray的数字显示，中国的互联网经济仅相当于美国的5%。分析师们认为，包括广告，电子商务，游戏，无线在内的中国互动业务销售 2005年将达到13.8亿美元。明年，这一数字将增长37%，达到19亿美元。
美国Bancorp Piper Jaffray公司的分析师Safa Rashtchy说：“未来五年，中国将成为互联网公司发展最重要的机会。”
无疑，中国事务将成为两家公司的关注重点。大部分的Google观察家也仅仅在2001年，Eric Schmidt被聘为首席执行官时才见到Google如此高调表现。而微软方面在雇佣李开复时也大加赞扬，称他将负责建造中国产品研发中心，并扩大其国际业务的运营。
在Google宣布聘用李开复的同时，明显有点生气的微软官员们也宣布将进行起诉。
微软向华盛顿州地方法庭提起了11页的起诉书，微软宣称，作为前微软中国实验室的主管，李开复对微软的整个中国业务战略，目标领域的扩张，微软在中国的互联网搜索目标，微软在中国重要员工，合作伙伴，合约都至关重要。
到目前为止，微软和Google均未对这场官司发表评论。
Google很久之前就有中文语言的网站存在，但在去年，Google才开始在这一市场投入更多的资金。根据新华社的报道，Schmidt在6月底访问了北京，他与百度官司的官员进行了会晤。去年，Google收购了百度4%的股份。这家官司正准备在纳斯达克股票市场公开上市，预计上市额将达到10亿美元。
SearchEngineWatch.com网站的搜索专家兼编辑Danny Sullivan表示，他怀疑Google可能将有兴趣收购百度，这家中国首席搜索引擎公司。
6个月前，Google也在中国大陆开设了一间销售办公室，Google已经和北京的网易以及深圳的腾讯即时讯息公司建立了合作关系。
当然，Google，微软，雅虎等美国公司在中国也面临很多运营方面的挑战。比如内容过滤，相对薄弱的银行系统，知识产权法律等等。
在中国，美国的互联网公司也存在本土的竞争对手。百度是中国最大的搜索引擎公司，接下来是Google，雅虎以及搜狐。新浪是中国最大的门户网站，新浪与雅虎在网络拍卖业务方面存在合作关系。上个月，雅虎中国总裁周鸿祎因为个人原因辞职，这给雅虎中国的发展带来一丝的悬念。
Sullivan认为，Google有可能在中国输给百度。
Rashtchy表示，在所有的美国互联网公司里面，MSN占有的份额最小，但MSN的即时通讯客户端在中国的办公场合的普及程度仅次于腾讯。
由于中国市场如此高速的发展，市场人口如此众多，分析师们表示，如果美国的互联网公司希望在这一市场兴旺发达，他们必须在这个国家占领重要的市场份额。根据人民日报网络版的报道，Google一度是中国市场的头号搜索引擎，但由于它对本地市场的重视程度不够，百度才开始崛起。
Rashtchy说：“对Google来说，他们在进行全球扩张之时，不能照搬硅谷经验。对他们而言，中国是一个巨大的市场，但是他们必须适应中国特色。”
搜索公司并不是唯一一种角逐中国市场的美国科技公司。星期二，硅谷风险投资公司Accel Partners宣布，将和媒体公司“国际数据集团”（IDG）联合组建一家投资公司，2.5亿美元的资金将专门投向中国的科技公司。另外一些公司，比如英特尔，已经建立了类似的基金，专门扶持中国繁荣的技术行业，游戏，宽带与手机通讯市场。
与此同时，过去两年，一系列的中国公司已经在美国证券交易所上市，其中一些公司收获颇丰。上海盛大互动游戏公司自从2004年5月上市以来，其股票从11美元1股的发行价上一路飙升，目前的价格已经超过了 39美元，投资回报可以与Google的股票媲美。
但很明显，当Google开始雇佣其工程师，Google将成为微软最强硬的竞争对手，这家公司也是微软统治地位最大的一个威胁。恶斗将可能在世界其它地方发生，但策源地却是两家公司的总部。
Sullivan说：“这就好比是美国与前苏联发射导弹时候的那种情形，而雅虎就像当时的加拿大。”(编辑：孙莹)
Microsoft, Google duke it out for China
Published: July 21, 2005, 4:00 AM PDT
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
news analysis 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.
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.
No doubt, China matters a great deal to both companies. Most Google watchers can only remember one other occasion when the company publicized a new hire: When Silicon Valley veteran Eric Schmidt was hired as chief executive in 2001. But the Mountain View, Calif., company touted Lee’s hiring as a "commitment to building a successful Chinese product research and development center and to expanding its international business operations" in a statement sent to press outlets Tuesday.
About the same time, clearly miffed Microsoft executives announced the lawsuit.
As former director of Microsoft’s China laboratory with 380 researchers, Lee was privy to "Microsoft’s overall China business strategy, target areas for expansion, Microsoft’s plans for gaining market share with respect to Internet search in China, and Microsoft’s key employees, partners and contacts in China," according to the 11-page complaint filed in a Washington state district court.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Google declined to comment.
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.
Danny Sullivan, a search expert and editor of the industry site SearchEngineWatch.com, said he suspects Google might be interested in acquiring Baidu.com, arguably the top search engine in China, so it can comply with government requests for filtering through a separate brand.
"Part of the speculation is, does Google want Baidu so it doesn’t censor listings on the flagship Google site," Sullivan said.
Google also opened a sales office in mainland China roughly six months ago, and has business partnerships with the Beijing-based gaming company Netease.com and the instant messaging company Tencent Holdings of Shenzhen.
Still, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others face many challenges operating in China without drawing the ire of the Chinese government. Google’s site, for example, was blocked several times in 2002 by the Chinese government, which has asked it to censor search listings. Google has agreed to filter some news headlines in the country. Other challenges could include a relatively weak banking system, inflation and poor intellectual-property laws.
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.
Sullivan also said Google may be losing ground in China to Baidu.com, citing research from one outlet overseas that claims Baidu.com commands roughly 30 percent of the marketplace and Google has 25 percent.
Of all the major American Internet companies, MSN has the smallest presence, Rashtchy said, but its IM client is second only to China’s Tencent in the Chinese workplace.
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.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Chinese companies have gone public on U.S. exchanges in the past two years, some with strong results. Shanda Interactive, a gaming company, has seen its stock go from $11 per share at its initial public offering in May 2004 to more than $39, a return that’s on par with Google’s.
But clearly, Google is Microsoft’s toughest competitor when it comes to hiring top engineers and perhaps the biggest threat in years to the Redmond, Wash., company’s tech domination. And the toughest fights to come may take place on the other side of the world from the companies’ headquarters.
"It’s almost like the United States and the former Soviet Union launching missiles at each other," said Sullivan, "and Yahoo’s like Canada."
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