Microsoft Allies With Baidu to Boost Chinese Presence

In the latest salvo in its ongoing marathon attempts to provide a significant credible competitor to Google in the search engine market, Microsoft has now formed an alliance with the largest search engine in China.
Baidu, which was founded in China in 2000, currently holds a three-quarters share of the Chinese market against Google's 19%; Bing has a very small share.  The deal will have Microsoft's Bing search engine provide English language search results to Baidu, in an attempt to boost Bing's international presence.  Google's share has actually fallen quite dramatically recently due to it moving operations to Hong Kong in early 2010 amid concerns over censorship and security in China.  
The deal is also intended to help push Baidu into the international market; currently, despite its domination of the Chinese market it has little presence outside of Asia. Currently, the search engine receives around ten million English language searches a day, mainly from international students and business professionals.  
The deal will also help Baidu, which dominates the Chinese search market, expand overseas, especially into English-speaking countries.
Apparently, the deal does not involve revenue sharing; search engine marketing revenue generated will continue to accrue to Baidu. In practical terms, what users will see is Bing's search results labelled on Baidu's search results pages, which is aimed at raising the awareness of the brand.  Search results from both Bing and Baidu will continue to be censored by the Chinese Government.  
The Chinese market has proved a very tough nut to crack for international search brands; Bing may just have found a way to leapfrog Google in, at least, one market.