Microsoft Bing Partners With Alibaba's Taobao Search Engine

From PC World: Microsoft has found a new partner to promote it's Bing search engine technology in China by working with the country's largest online retailer Taobao.com to power web results for its new Etaosite.

Taobao, which is a part of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, launched Etao as a public beta version, calling it a shopping search engine. But the site also offers a range of search categories, including general web results that are powered by Bing.

Both Microsoft and Taobao would not comment on exactly why the partnership took place. But a Microsoft spokeswoman said, "This is a small part of our long term strategy. We are focused on local innovation, local partnerships."

Microsoft already has a Chinese version of its Bing search engine, also still in its beta version. But it currently holds an extremely small share of the search engine market at less than one percent, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. Baidu currently ranks as the most popular search engine in China at 70 percent, with Google a far second at 24 percent.

Microsoft has been working to steadily improve its Bing platform for China. On the advertising front, Chinese businesses can now place ads through the Bing search engine for English-speaking countries to reach potential customers overseas. For businesses wanting to market their products domestically, Microsoft has partnered with Baidu to sell ads on the Chinese version of its Bing search engine.

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