Baidu unveils Android-based OS
Mobile platform centers on search box and replaces Google apps with Baidu's own
Published: 6 September, 2011
READ MORE: China | Baidu | Applications (Search) | OS | Android
As promised, Chinese search giant Baidu has shown off its own mobile operating system, a derivative of Android tightly integrated with its own web services, and called Baidu Yi.
Android forks are becoming a headache for Google and its dreams of unifying the Android experience under its own control, with its applications center stage. Amazon has shown a Kindle Tablet which is said to run a highly customized derivative of Android, which excludes all the usual Google homescreen services and focuses on the familiar Android user interface. Similarly, Baidu - whose search engine is well ahead of Google in its native China, and now has its eyes set on international markets - has put its own search box at the heart of its mobile experience.
The software platform harnesses the 'box computing' project which Baidu has been running for a couple of years with various partners (the Symbian Foundation being a major one, before Nokia and Baidu both defected to other OSs). This allows web functions and apps to be triggered very simply and quickly from the search box, and points towards a fully cloud-oriented platform relying on streaming, web apps and remote storage. In this regard, it may prove a challenger for Google's own browser/cloud system, Chrome OS, despite being based on the US company's Android.
Baidu Yi will support a single sign-in for a wide range of services and a bundle of Baidu apps, including an e-reader, maps and its Ting music download service, which will replace the Google offerings usually preloaded with Android . The search giant is also reported to be providing users with 180Gbytes of online storage space for email, pictures and contacts, in a cloud strategy that is mirrored by another Chinese initiative, a mobile OS from online retailer Alibaba.
Like Google with Chrome OS, Baidu needs to gain OEM support in order to seed the market for Yi, as well as building a developer ecosystem to support a big catalog of apps and web services. The firm said it was in discussions with such partners, but no details of actual devices were forthcoming as yet.
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