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Beijing, London and San Francisco, 8th June 2010 - Baidu, the world's largest Chinese search engine provider, and the Symbian Foundation, the non-profit organization responsible for the world's leading open source smartphone platform, today announced a strategic initiative where the two parties will co-establish a joint laboratory to stimulate the development and launch of wireless "box computing" tightly integrated with the Symbian platform.
Combining Symbian's wireless expertise in smartphone platforms and Baidu's R&D strength in search engines, the two will drive the joint development, integration and launch of wireless "box computing" within the Symbian platform architecture. This will enable application and web developers to incorporate robust search functionality into their applications and leverage this `platform within a platform' to expand the Symbian/Baidu ecosystem, bringing new applications and user experiences to Symbian devices and extending the reach of Baidu in the mobile marketplace.
According to this strategic agreement, the Symbian Foundation will open the necessary platform technology interfaces for Baidu to enable wireless "box computing" deep within the Symbian middleware layer, facilitating the full integration of Baidu's wireless "box computing" into the Symbian platform. Both sides intend to encourage third-party developers to incorporate "box computing" in applications and web services that support Symbian and the companies will jointly provide a complete "box computing" platform solution to handset manufacturers and operators. To promote "box computing" innovation on Symbian, the results of the Box Computing Joint Laboratory will be shared with the entire mobile industry and be made available through the Symbian Foundation's open source efforts.
According to a report by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), by the end of 2009 the number of mobile internet users in China reached 233,000,000, which is approximately 60.8% of all internet users. The availability of Baidu's convenient and advanced "box computing" technology platform within the powerful Symbian platform will give mobile internet users improved access to information on the internet and also allows them to search information stored on the device, including pictures, music and SMS. The "box computing" platform has the potential to bring an unprecedented search experience to hundreds of millions of users.
According to Gartner, the Symbian platform has approximately 44% share of the global smartphone market, selling 24 million devices in Q1 2010 and it is projected that within three or four years there will be 1 billion devices using Symbian. Baidu has more than a decade of search technology experience and expertise and its search engine maintains a coverage rate of more than 95% in China. Moreover, as more people use mobile devices to access the internet, the "box computing" initiative will develop advanced technology to enable the next-generation global internet for mobile users, meaning this strategic cooperation of the two parties is very important for the wireless internet industry. Baidu's "box computing" vision will positively affect the mobile internet landscape and the Symbian platform will lead the market in internet integration capability ahead of competitors.
"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.
"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 in 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."
About Baidu
Baidu, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. As a technology-based media company, Baidu aims to provide the best way for people to find information. In addition to serving individual Internet search users, Baidu provides an effective platform for businesses to reach potential customers. Baidu's ADSs, each of which represents one Class A ordinary share, currently trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU".
About Symbian
Symbian is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to driving innovation in the mobile space. The company manages the open source Symbian platform, which has shipped in over 360 million smartphones around the world to-date. Symbian's mission is to foster collaboration, contribution and ongoing participation among the industry to develop the best mobile experience possible for consumers.
The company has offices worldwide to build and maintain close relationships with players throughout the global market. Symbian's board of directors includes AT&T Mobility LLC, Fujitsu Limited, Nokia Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, INC., Qualcomm Innovation Center, Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, ST Microelectronics NV, Texas Instruments Inc., and Vodafone Group Services Ltd. For more information please visit www.symbian.org and blog.symbian.org.
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