Motorola shifts gears in China, Lenovo stands firm

Motorola inked a number of new deals in China for forthcoming Android products, actions that highlight the company's plans to forge ahead in the country without the aid of Android backer Google. Specifically, Motorola said it would use China's Baidu Internet search engine, or other search engines, instead of Google's, and that it would open its own Android application storefront, called Shop4Apps.

The moves by Motorola come just days after Google postponed launch of two Android phones in China, one made by Motorola and another by Samsung, due to the still-unresolved dispute between the company and China over a cyber attack.

Christy Wyatt, Motorola's vice president for software and services, sought to brush back concerns that Google's situation in China would impact Motorola. "To the extent that Google is working out their strategy for offering applications and services, we're obviously anxious to see the outcome of that," she told Reuters. "But at the same time the platform itself is open source. We have some really great experiences and we're still very excited about the portfolio."

Wyatt declined to discuss the Motorola phone delayed by Google, but analysts quoted by Reuters predicted the phone eventually would move forward without Google's approval.

Separately, Lenovo, China's largest computer maker, said it is pushing forward with plans to release an Android phone in China later this year. The company said it plans to release the phone this spring in China on all of the nation's telecom operators, and then release the phone in overseas markets.

Interestingly, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday the company is "quite committed" to remaining in China and that the company is "in conversation" with government authorities.

For more:
- see this IDG News Service article
- see this Reuters article
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)

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