Ex Sony boss joins Baidu

Nobuyuki Idei on Baidu board

[bill]

Ex Sony boss joins Chinese Google-killer [pcadvisor.co.uk]

Former Sony chairman and CEO Nobuyuki Idei joined Baidu.com's board of directors as an independent director, an addition the Chinese search company hopes will help its push into Japan.
...
"We are confident that he will make a significant contribution towards Baidu's efforts to extend our leadership in Chinese-language internet search and to develop our search platform in Japan," Robin Li, Baidu's chairman and CEO, said.

The release did not elaborate on how Idei would help Baidu improve its Chinese-language search offering. But Idei's experience and understanding of the Japanese market will likely prove helpful for Baidu's efforts to build a Japanese-language search engine.

[redstorm]

Wow, just like what i said days before:

To win the next round game in the Japan market, local talent people is more important than search engine technology itself(in the initial stage), just like Masayoshi Son to Jerry Yang, Robin Lee should spend more time to locate his partner.

It seems Baidu has successfully located a trustworthy partner there, congratulations!

[bill]

I wouldn't say 'partner' as Mr. Idei is long since retired from Sony. However he is just the sort of person who could give Baidu some real insight into the Japanese market.

Regardless of how tarnished Sony's image has become on the world market of late, they're still pretty powerful in Japan. Mr. Idei's experience could prove invaluable for Baidu. Let's hope they're able to tap it properly.