Merely 10 days after Baidu’s chief operating officer Ye Peng quit the company, the company’s chief technology officer Li Yinan offered his resignation on Monday for personal reasons.
Baidu is China’s leading search engine provider, and one that would most benefit from a market share increase should Google Inc. exit the Chinese market.
Baidu issued a two-sentence statement on Monday, “We appreciate all that Yinan has contributed to Baidu and we wish him every success in his future endeavors,” stated Robin Li, Baidu’s chairman and chief executive officer in a company statement.
The exodus of two of the company’s most prominent executives raises suspicions, especially after Baidu—the first company to be listed on the U.S. exchange NASDAQ—reported increases in quarterly profit and revenues in the fourth quarter 2009.
Ye had been at Baidu for two years, and worked as the country general manager for Apple Inc. in China. Li, on the other hand, had been with the company for 14 months, and was formerly a vice president at Huawei Technologies prior to joining Baidu.
It remains to be seen what is occurring at Baidu, but the sudden departures may be a sign of trouble at the Chinese company.
It is worth noting that Ye quit the company prior to Google’s announcement that it would stop censoring its search results, while Li resigned days after a Jan. 12 cyber attack rendered Baidu’s search engine unusable. Some users reportedly saw a banner of “Iranian Cyber Army” while attempting to visit Baidu’s home page.
It is also possible that the departures relate to Google’s announcement last week that it would immediately stop censoring its Chinese homepage, and it was prepared to exit the Chinese market if needed. The announcement was made in a blog post by Senior Vice President David Drummond.
In an e-mailed statement cited by Bloomberg, Google will hold talks with Chinese communist authorities in the “coming days” and currently has made no decisions regarding closing its offices in China. Google is currently scrubbing its Chinese Web site to unblock filtered terms and some users in Beijing reported that there was some loosening up as of Sunday, including searches related to the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Baidu is currently China’s No. 1 search engine, competing with Yahoo! China, Google.cn, and Microsoft’s Bing. Baidu is controlled by the Chinese communist regime, and is one of the most proactive and restrictive censors on the Web.
Baidu is a component of the Nasdaq 100 index, and its shares increased $3.45 (0.74 percent) on NASDAQ last Friday. U.S. markets were closed on Monday due to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday.
Baidu is China’s leading search engine provider, and one that would most benefit from a market share increase should Google Inc. exit the Chinese market.
Baidu issued a two-sentence statement on Monday, “We appreciate all that Yinan has contributed to Baidu and we wish him every success in his future endeavors,” stated Robin Li, Baidu’s chairman and chief executive officer in a company statement.
The exodus of two of the company’s most prominent executives raises suspicions, especially after Baidu—the first company to be listed on the U.S. exchange NASDAQ—reported increases in quarterly profit and revenues in the fourth quarter 2009.
Ye had been at Baidu for two years, and worked as the country general manager for Apple Inc. in China. Li, on the other hand, had been with the company for 14 months, and was formerly a vice president at Huawei Technologies prior to joining Baidu.
It remains to be seen what is occurring at Baidu, but the sudden departures may be a sign of trouble at the Chinese company.
It is worth noting that Ye quit the company prior to Google’s announcement that it would stop censoring its search results, while Li resigned days after a Jan. 12 cyber attack rendered Baidu’s search engine unusable. Some users reportedly saw a banner of “Iranian Cyber Army” while attempting to visit Baidu’s home page.
It is also possible that the departures relate to Google’s announcement last week that it would immediately stop censoring its Chinese homepage, and it was prepared to exit the Chinese market if needed. The announcement was made in a blog post by Senior Vice President David Drummond.
In an e-mailed statement cited by Bloomberg, Google will hold talks with Chinese communist authorities in the “coming days” and currently has made no decisions regarding closing its offices in China. Google is currently scrubbing its Chinese Web site to unblock filtered terms and some users in Beijing reported that there was some loosening up as of Sunday, including searches related to the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Baidu is currently China’s No. 1 search engine, competing with Yahoo! China, Google.cn, and Microsoft’s Bing. Baidu is controlled by the Chinese communist regime, and is one of the most proactive and restrictive censors on the Web.
Baidu is a component of the Nasdaq 100 index, and its shares increased $3.45 (0.74 percent) on NASDAQ last Friday. U.S. markets were closed on Monday due to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday.
