After disappearing from the headlines for a few months, the ongoing search war between industry leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and challenger Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) has jumped back into the news with reports that the former has sued the latter. This new lawsuit is most likely just the first phase in a new stage of the battle between these 2 companies, and I fully expect Qihoo to file a countersuit within the next few weeks. I could even be a bit sarcastic and express my surprise that Qihoo didn’t file the first suit in this rivalry, since the software security specialist is notoriously litigious and has probably sued just about every major Chinese Internet company at some point. Read Full Post…
A brewing spat between security software giant Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) and struggling smartphone maker Coolpad (HKEx: 2369) has provided some good entertainment for followers of China’s vibrant Internet sector over the last few weeks. The tale has all the elements of a good trashy romance novel, including a love triangle and vengeful scheming by China’s most famous Internet bad-boy.
But more fundamentally, the tale is also filled with valuable lessons for anyone doing business in China’s high-tech sector, or really in any of the country’s emerging industries where private entrepreneurs are driving the growth. The story’s biggest moral is to be careful when choosing your business partners – a lesson that many private investors have learned over the last 3 decades as China transforms from a socialist system to a market-oriented economy. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: UCWeb’s new India tie-up with Facebook looks like a good step that will help its global expansion, while Qihoo’s new Microsoft alliance looks mostly like inconsequential hype.
UCWeb ties with Facebook in India
A couple of new corporate tie-ups are in the headlines today, led by word of a potentially major new alliance between Alibaba-owned (NYSE: BABA) web browser UCWeb and global social networking giant Facebook (Nasdaq: FB). The other tie-up, which looks far less interesting but still potentially significant, and will see security software specialist Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) work with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) in advertising services. This second alliance is just the latest in a long recent string for Qihoo, and seems aimed at breathing life into its struggling stock that is being rapidly abandoned by impatient and disappointed investors. Read Full Post…
Beijing’s notorious smog was thick in the blogosphere this past week, with tech executives sending out a flurry of cautionary messages as the city held its annual marathon. This particular issue shines an important spotlight on the fact that many of China’s top tech firms are clustered in the Chinese capital, running the range from search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) to top portal Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) and PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992).
Meantime, other interesting buzz in the blogosphere was coming from security software specialist Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU), which finally admitted defeat in its anti-monopoly lawsuit against Tencent (HKEx: 700) after the case was denied a final appeal by China’s highest court. One final interesting tidbit came from several executives at Lenovo, which unleashed a flurry of buzz after the company’s announcement of vague plans to set up a separate unit dedicated to smart devices. Read Full Post…
Qihoo 360’s (NYSE: QIHU) controversial founder Zhou Hongyi was buzzing through the microblogging realm this week, attacking online search archrival Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) in one instance as he was accused by a former employee in another case of attacking Cheetah Mobile (NYSE: CMCM), a rival in the security software business. Meantime, telecoms giant Huawei was generating some rare upbeat buzz for its latest smartphone, the P7, getting several high-profile tech executives to hype the model in what looks like a page from the playbook of marketing-savvy smartphone rival Xiaomi. Read Full Post…
Search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) may be rapidly yielding market share to 2 up-and-coming rivals, even as its latest results show it’s still king of the hill when it comes to getting revenue from online advertisers. But the company is still searching for new innovation, with word that charismatic Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun came to speak at an internal event this week as Baidu seeks to rekindle its own “wolf spirit”. Baidu’s quest to become more diversified and has moved into high gear with a spree of major acquisitions over the last year in a wide range of areas. Still, its latest results, while impressive, show just how heavily dependent the company remains on online advertisers. Read Full Post…
Top executives at controversial software security maker Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) have been blitzing cyberspace these past few days with a campaign to convince the world that it’s suddenly become a defender of justice and occupier of the moral high ground. This sudden offensive almost looks coordinated, with Qihoo aiming its newest assaults at 3 of its favorite targets, search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), top social networking firm Tencent (HKEx: 700) and fast-rising super-cool smartphone maker Xiaomi. Read Full Post…
Online search aspirant Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) is back in the headlines, this time by boosting its targets as it gains ground on market leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). At the same time, the company is also watching its flank, launching a new war of words against a new potential rival from the newly formed combination of Sohu’s (Nasdaq: SOHU) Sogou search engine and Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) Soso. From a tactical standpoint, this kind of attack on current and future rivals probably looks like a smart move. But from a more practical standpoint, these kinds of assaults are unlikely to have any real effect on Qihoo’s search business; instead such acts of aggression give off a signal of slight desperation as Qihoo tries to justify the recent run-up in its share price resulting from hype about its year-old So.com search engine. Read Full Post…
I love a good case of irony, which is why I was amused to read that software security specialist Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) is suing leading search firm Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) for unfair competition. The irony lies in the fact that Qihoo is notorious for using underhanded tactics against its rivals and is now accusing Baidu of similar behavior. Perhaps Qihoo should instead be congratulating Baidu for winning over its rival to the Dark Side. Meantime in separate legal news, up-and-coming smartphone maker Xiaomi is being sued for the second time in a week in relation to its smart TV products, hinting that this new product area could face an uphill battle from a flood of litigation. Read Full Post…
After seeing its stock price quadruple over the last year on huge expectations for its online search service, Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) must be feeling some pressure to start delivering returns to investors who have bet on the company’s strong growth potential. That’s the most positive explanation I can find for a sudden slew of complaints against Qihoo from other Internet executives who accuse the company of tinkering with their software. Those accusations have produced an entertaining war of words on the Twitter-like Weibo service between Qihoo Chairman Zhou Hongyi and top executives from smartphone maker Xiaomi, software maker Kingsoft (HKEx: 3888) and web portal operator Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU). (previous post) Read Full Post…
Any semblance of harmony between Sohu’s (Nasdaq: SOHU) Sogou online search engine and spurned suitor Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) has quickly disappeared with a new series of lawsuits between the 2 sides for unfair competition and defamation. I’m not too surprised by this latest development, since Sohu and Qihoo are headed by 2 of China’s most opinionated and difficult Internet entrepreneurs, Charles Zhang and Zhou Hongyi. But I am somewhat surprised by how quickly relations have soured between these 2 companies, following Zhang’s decision last week to sell a strategic stake in Sogou to leading Internet firm Tencent (HKEx: 700). That decision, which came after months of talks, was a sharp rebuke to Qihoo, which had also been aggressively courting Zhang and Sogou. Read Full Post…
