[LynnieS]

Originally Posted by jsieczkar

Not really, Baidu does not equal Google. Baidu is a search engine and not much more, Google is the worlds largest information broker. With their pushing forward of cloud it is positing itself to be far bigger in those terms. Unless the US government mess with their plans they will more then likely be one of the most influential companies on the planet.

Google initially started out as a search engine as well, if I am not mistaken - although I haven't drank its cool-aid to be 100% up to speed on its history. Anti-trust laws and regulations will not allow Google to dominate too much, though; the amount of synergy it will be able to get - assuming that it does more to move its "products" out of beta faster - from going into different areas won't be too high versus the past's companies. It'll likely be more like MS and its X-Box product (at least in the beginning) for awhile. Google's dominance is... airy as well, IMHO.

Nationalism and obedience (or lip service) to rules will get the Chinese equivalents seats at the table - at least inside of China - however. Depending on how much they can move away could mean their staying a success. I haven't heard of stories of many out-and-out rebels in the tech space there... but if someone has, feel free to correct. China isn't - and won't for awhile, IMHO - going to just stop promoting its own companies to get ahead of the curve.