Did Motorola Throw Google Under the Bus?

While other U.S. corporations doing business in China may admire Google’s tough stand against the Chinese government’s Internet censorship and cyber attacks, it doesn’t doesn’t mean they’re prepared support Google by exiting the country with them.

Take a look at Motorola who threw Google under the bus by striking a search deal with Google’s arch-rival Baidu faster than you can text a donation to Haiti. Motorola will allow consumers to choose Baidu or another search engine as the default search option on Android-based phones in China.

Motorola also stated they would open their own application store for Android customers in China. Google’s Android Market has not been made available to the Chinese consumer. “It takes away the risk that Motorola’s success in China is 100 percent tied to Google,” Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt who estimates that Motorola’s share of the China mobile phone market has dropped in recent years to about 2 percent from 20 percent told Reuters in relation to the Baidu deal.

Christy Wyatt, Motorola’s vice president for software and services, said that the company wanted to give consumers choices for search and had been working on providing alternatives for some time.

“In some cases we have either operator customers or individual consumers who are more comfortable with something different. In the case of Baidu its obviously a brand that’s very well known in China,” Wyatt said.

The executive also said Motorola already provides search options other than Google on Android phones. For example it offers Yahoo search for phones at Latin American provider America Movil

Just business Google, nothing personal. Who wants to do business with a pariah company trying to face down a repressive regime over the Great Firewall of China? That shouldn’t be a problem with Baidu, China’s No. 1 search provider. China Digital Times has said the company has “a long history of being the most proactive and restrictive online censor in the search arena.” Is that really something to brag about? I guess it is when you live in the land of censorship and cyber espionage.

That should be comforting to Motorola as it tries to rebuild its business in China.

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