Dell Inc, the world’s second-biggest personal-computer maker, agreed to produce smartphones running Baidu Inc (百度) software for users in China, challenging mobile device makers including Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co.
The phones will use the Beijing-based search-engine operator’s Baidu Yi mobile platform, Theresa Shen, a China-based spokeswoman for Dell, said by e-mail yesterday without elaborating. Dell is among mobile device makers that Baidu works with, said Baidu spokesman Kaiser Kuo (郭怡廣), declining to confirm that the collaboration includes the Yi platform.
Baidu, China’s biggest Internet company by market value, last week unveiled its Yi platform to offer wireless users more direct access to the company’s services including search, maps and an electronic reader. The introduction of the software, which supports applications based on Google Inc’s Android operating system, follows the development of a similar technology by rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴).
Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, is seeking to increase sales of smartphones and tablet computers amid waning demand for conventional personal computers.
The Baidu Yi technology has been released to application developers and is not yet available for consumers, Kuo said on Sept. 2.
In July, Alibaba, China’s biggest online commerce company, unveiled an operating system it developed for mobile phones that lets users access applications such as online shopping with cloud computing technology.
Baidu accounted for 75.9 percent of China’s search-engine market by revenue in the second-quarter, according to research company Analysys International.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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