Google's China Rival To Create Android-Like OS

Stoobalou writes "Google's biggest search rival in China — homegrown market leader Baidu, is to develop a Linux-based smartphone to rival the Californian search giant's Android-based devices."

Re:Wait, this is coming from China right?

[Monkeedude1212]

In fact, they just plan on peeling off the sticker.

Rival?

[Anonymous Coward]

You surely mean counterfeit, right?

It'll probably have radium and cyanide and melamine in it too..

Re:Wait, this is coming from China right?

[ptx0]

It won't be an android copy -- it will likely have different goals, different implementation, different backing.. This is what Google was trying to accomplish with the introduction of Android, a wider, more open phone market. More Linux-based phone systems equals more choice for the consumer, aka us!

Re:Wait, this is coming from China right?

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

So, GoogleOS:BaiduOS=RedHat:CentOS?

Surprised at Slashdot

[rainmouse]

Loaded up the comments for this news report to see if anyone knew anything about the phone and was confronted with a page of comments of downright racism. I feel quite ashamed all of a sudden.

Re:Open Source

[landoltjp]

Why wouldn't they be allowed to take the Android source code and make their own OS out of it?

As a matter of fact they can collaborate with Google on this... If I'm not mistaken it's called a "Community" which consists of "Collaborators".

And you would trust China to Collaborate? I don't think I would. I could however, see Chinese engineers take the existing, available AndroidOS source, ad in some goodies, and notpublish the source changes.

Re:Surprised at Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Loaded up the comments for this news report to see if anyone knew anything about the phone and was confronted with a page of comments of downright racism. I feel quite ashamed all of a sudden.

sarcasms against communism is not racisms.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is about flag saluting, cock waving nationalism.

Goddamn it, there go the Chinese stealing patented American IP again. :)

This is China, yes it will

[Sycraft-fu]

There is vanishingly little innovation in Chinese industry. A good portion is just manufacturing companies, that build what other companies request. You come in with designs, specs, and parts, they turn those in to the finished product. A good portion of the remainder is devoted to ripping off products that others make. They copy what parts of the design the can and produce clones. Sometimes said clones are just cheap knockoffs not sold as the real things, other times they try and pass off the whole thing as real. Happens with Cisco products all the time.

There just aren't many companies developing new products. They aren't in the market of creativity, just mass production.

Thus, pretty reasonable to guess that what will happen here is that they'll grab Andriod, being open source and all that, replace logos and the search engine, set it to Chinese and call it good. A rip off, not even a derivative.

Re:Why?

[pseudonomous]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but android provides a lot of integration into ALL of Google's most popular web-services, not just search, so it could be that Baidu sees success of Android as being detrimental to Baidu offering competing web-services to things like g-mail, certainly it offers a bunch of apps to do this (I don't know to what extent there's anything actually in the OS that does this) Also they might want to offer a competing "app" marketplace. What probably makes the most sense, would be for Baidu just to take the Android source code, replace the stuff that integrates w/ google web-apps w/ stuff that integrates w/ Baidu web-services, and then publish it w/ their own Marketplace app. I doubt it will be particularly successful, certainly it has no chance at all EXCEPT in China, but who knows...

Re:This is China, yes it will

[Anonymous Coward]

A good portion is just manufacturing companies

Those silly Chinese. Basing their economy on manufacturing.

They should be basing their economy on credit default swaps and subprime mortgages.

Re:I for one...

[anarche]

Yeah, they're what we call the "indigenous population" that were there hundreds of years ago before being colonised by the Chinese.

Not so sure

[macroexp]

While China-bashing is really popular these days, I wouldn't be so quick to say "they'll just copy Android". There are a LOT of phones in China that run Linux. Most of the Linux distributions used are homegrown by the manufacturer and have little consistency between them. I wouldn't be surprised if Baidu just bought one of the dev teams from a phone manufacturer and had them slap "Baidu" all over everything.

It would be a Good Thing if they could get it used phones from multiple manufacturers - there might be some hope of writing an app that would run on more than one brand of phone!

Re:The US still manufactures more than they do

[thejynxed]

And you're ignorant of the situation to still think that the USA still makes tons of shit, when most of it is in fact, manufactured in Mexico, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc, shipped to China for final assembly, and then brought back to the USA.

If your version of things was true, Ohio, PA, and basically any and every other state/commonwealth that relied on manufacturing wouldn't be struggling so much because 90% or more of their manufacturing base is gone.

Have you actually BEEN to Detroit, Lansing, or ANY of the other manufacturing cities in Michigan lately?

What the fuck is wrong with your brain?