Andre Yoskowitz
15 Jan 2010 12:40
Microsoft has gone in a different direction then Google and Yahoo, saying that it has no plans of exiting the Chinese search engine market.
In speaking of the recent cyber-attack on Google, CEO Steve Ballmer said: "There are attacks every day. I don't think there was anything unusual, so I don't understand. We're attacked every day from all parts of the world and I think everybody else is too. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary."
Earlier this week, Google threatened to pull their service from China after they were attacked by hackers trying to gain access to human rights activists' Gmail accounts. China says they will stay if Beijing can come to an agreement on freedom of information.
When asked if Microsoft may follow Google (and Yahoo) out of China, Ballmer was frank. "I don't understand how that helps anything. I don't understand how that helps us and I don't understand how that helps China."
Google has a 30 percent market share in China, behind Baidu at 60 percent. Microsoft's' Bing has under 4 percent.