Baidu Reorganizes to Set up Mobile Cloud Computing Business

Baidu yesterday announced in an internal email to its employees that the Chinese search giant is reorganizing its mobile internet businesses to set up a Baidu Mobile|Cloud Computing Division in an ongoing drive to expand into wireless and cloud computing forefronts, a step closer to its own mobile OS.

The new division will be consisted of Cloud Computing Platform, Mobile Platform, Mobile Product and Mobile Development teams while Cloud Computing Platform will be in charge of the research and development of Baidus cloud platform, cloud service and cloud apps.

As the internal mail revealed that the Baidu Mobile|Cloud Computing Division will be working on everything regarding the search engines CloudOS product. And UCWeb VP of Products Li Mingyuan will go back to his former employer Baidu to take the realm of Mobile Product team. And the whole new division will be led by Baidu VP of technology Wang Jing.

Baidu as early as this September launched its first cloud-based mobile operating system, Baidu Yi (translates to Easy) to dip its toes into the mobile pool. Mr. Wang once told the Financial Times that to Baidu cloud computing is much more natural than to an e-commerce company or a telecom equipment vendor since we are capable of massive data processing.

Well, actually, Baidu Yi is built on Googles Android OS. The Beijing-based company customized Android and incorporated some of its own apps and services into it to bring alive Baidu Yi. But even so, Mr. Wang mentioned Baidu has not ruled out the possibility of launching its own OS at a later date. Maybe the latest mobile business restructure signals Baidus new move working hard on its own CloudOS system and getting rid of Android?