Google's new China plan: stop competing
Is this the best Kai-Fu Lee can come up with? Google went to considerable trouble to hire Lee away from MIcrosoft, sparking a messy dispute over his noncompete agreement. Now, Lee is overseeing noncompete agreements of his own. "If you can't beat them, join them" seems to be the essence of its new advertising partnership with Sina, one of China's most successful Internet portals. Sounds good, until you remember that Google tried this before: In 2004, it took a minority stake in Baidu, a search engine that's now beating Google soundly in the China market.