A year ago January Google got hit with high caliber hack attacks from Chinese sources rumored to be Baidu and a regional university know for its hacking program. Steve Ballmer pooh-poohed and came to the rescue of the Chinese saying that Microsoft would be glad to replace Google with Bing as a major player in the Chinese search market.
Well the wish has finally and partially come true. In a case of reverse embrace and extend, Bing will become part of the Baidu’s English language search engine. This seems like a very small reward for Microsoft letting the bulk of its sales of software in China be either at a fraction of prices elswhere in the World or not at all due to continuing rampant piracy. Also the Chinese attack on Google used a number of zero day bugs in IE6 as a critical attack vector. Are the Chinese trolling for more hacking avenues as IE6 lingers but declines in China? Or is this an opportunity to extend Baidu’s reach worldwide for no admittance into China for Redmond. Or is this a deal Steve B. could not refuse with so many benefits to the Redmond bottom line? Only the Shadow knows…