Baidu, Jingdong Establish Hardware Developer Open Platform
Tencent Tech, 1/23/14
Chinese internet company Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Beijing-based B2C e-commerce platform Jingdong have entered into a strategic partnership to jointly establish a hardware development open platform.
According to a source close to the negotiations, Baidu and Jingdong will cooperate on product development and promotion, as well as provide technical assistance, product assistance, distribution channels, marketing resources, and data to hardware developers through the open platform. The platform will also serve as an incubator for smart hardware products with "Baidu Inside" and "JD+" branding.
Baidu VP Zhang Dongchen has disclosed that the company will provide a variety of support mechanisms to open platform partners, including cloud storage, video streaming and decoding, image recognition, smart language, security features, and location-based services (LBS). In addition, Baidu will launch an official "Baidu Inside" website to showcase hardware products released by open platform partners. Jingdong will leverage its marketing resources and distribution channels to assist platform partners, as well as establish new product categories on its e-commerce website, such as "Trial Product" ("Shiyong") and "New and Exciting Product" ("Xin Qite Chanping") categories.
Editor's Note: As competition between Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu to build the perfect ecosystem intensifies, look for Baidu and Jingdong to forge an increasingly close relationship. Jingdong lacks strong online and mobile traffic drivers, while Baidu has failed twice in the e-commerce space, once with self-developed YouA and a second time with Lekutian.com, its joint venture with Japanese e-commerce retailer Rakuten.
Keywords: e-commerce hardware B2C Baidu BIDU Zhang Dongchen Jingdong
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