Google holds new talks with China

 In CRM, ERP, Oracle

Google holds new talks with China: Google is planning to provide cloud services to Chinese companies soon. Latest reports by Bloomberg suggests the globe’s biggest search engine and tech provider is negotiating with the Inspur Group and Tencent.

Currently, accessing Google in China is illegal as a result of China’s has strict censorship laws. However, users can access the internet freely with a VPN service. As such, streamlining your business operations.

Negotiations

But if such negotiations are successful, they will enable Chinese companies to utilise the benefits of Google Drive. The cloud services, reports suggest, would initially be run through Chinese data servers. Google has been working on a censored version of the search engine. This is further proof of an intent to re-enter the Chinese market. A new collaboration with Chinese would allow Google opportunities to establish further projects in the region.

The censored search engine project, named Dragonfly, has been met with significant resistance from Google’s employees. The objections raised were concerning censorship. Controversially, these would include political movements, human rights and freedom of speech. As a result, the search engine has officially been put on hold.

Currently Google has no data centres in China. It would initially be required to seek partnerships with local providers instead. However, as trade tensions between the US and China emerge, sources suggest plans may end up being put on hold.

A growing relationship

But Google has been wooing the Chinese market for some time, and despite controversy over the Dragonfly project, latest developments suggest they are in the process of building a cloud data centre in Hong Kong. The tech giant also launched an AI research centre recently in Beijing.

China is currently America’s largest trading partner. The US has invested more than $250 billion in Chinese industry over the past three decades. However, because American companies are required to compromise practices to comply with Chinese regulations, increasing investment in this lucrative market has experienced restrictions.
But the lure of the Chinese market is proving irresistible, despite the restrictions.  China currently boasts the biggest online community globally.

Managing Director of IDC China, Kitty Fok, had this to say: “If Google is playing by the rules of the game [of Chinese government], it still has a lot of opportunity to gain some market share in China. As China becomes more affluent, there may be groups of users who would prefer to use foreign services to obtain more international information.”
Fok added that Google’s return to the region would enable it to collect new information that may assist it in creating develop new, Chinese internet services.

 

Business management practices

But what will this mean for businesses in China? Currently, ERP’s (mainly NetSuite Oracle) are part of the successful business network in China. ERPs help businesses particularly when it comes to navigating through the complex Chinese business practices and laws. Google will be required to modify operations to fit in with Chinese government policy.

 

Recommended Posts

Let's get the conversation going

We would love to hear from you.  Call us, email us or just come and visit us at one of our global offices.  If you just want to bounce ideas off us, or ask us our advice, that’s fine.   We are happy to share.

Start typing and press Enter to search