BAIDU Inc, the owner of China's largest search engine, said it will strengthen collaboration with independent software developers to share its rich resource in customer-generated content on various platforms with them.

Baidu announced its cloud computing strategy yesterday and said it will provide access of all application programming interfaces of Baidu's community products to developers.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd reached an agreement on Friday with Yahoo! Inc and Softbank Corp, its largest shareholders, ending a four-month spat over how to compensate investors after an ownership change in China's most popular online-payment service.

Alibaba, which transferred the Alipay unit to a company controlled by Chairman Jack Ma last year, will get as much as $6 billion if Alipay sells shares to the public, according to a statement on July 29. Before any sale, Alibaba will receive 49.9 percent of Alipay's earnings.

Tencent Holdings Ltd, the world's third-largest Internet firm, aims to be China's Facebook, Twitter and Google, all rolled into one.

While the company's market value has quadrupled to $50 billion over the past two and a half years, its revenue and profit growth are expected to slow over the next few years, forcing the company to rethink its future.

Baidu Inc, China's largest search engine by market share, is taking on Tencent Holdings Ltd and Sina Corp in a scramble to gather application developers worldwide by fully opening its platform and offering a sizeable fund package.

The search engine giant said on Wednesday that its application platform offers a low entry barrier, steady revenue and copyright protection for various developers, whether they are companies or individuals.

Baidu, China's search engine giant, was blamed Tuesday by Chinese writers for participating in copyright violations, since the website offers free online excerpts of unauthorized stories and books.

On March 15, which is World Consumer Rights Day, more than 40 writers said in an open letter that Baidu stole their work and infringed on their copyrights.

Goso.cn, a news search engine launched by the People's Daily newspaper, officially became operational on Monday, indicating that a national media organization is ready to grab a share of China's Baidu-dominated Internet search market.

Goso.cn, which has been available in a beta version since June, has beaten Xinhua News Agency to become the first search engine in China backed by a national media outlet.

Nation's leading search engine starts exploring investment opportunities

A senior executive of China's top search engine, Baidu Inc, forecast its top- and bottom-line growth rates will be moderate over the next year, sending its shares down 6 percent on Wednesday.

A unit of Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce firm, has launched a search engine, taking aim at a lucrative market now dominated by Wall Street darling Baidu Inc, Reuters reported on Oct 12.

Taobao.com, China's largest and most popular online e-commerce website with a consumer focus, launched its public beta test of the search site, called Etao, on Oct 9, a spokeswoman said on Oct 12.

China's largest search engine Baidu Inc launched a voice-based music search service on Monday, part of its efforts to grab more users following rival Google Inc's departure from the mainland.

The company said the new feature will enhance its current music search, which is based on voice recognition technology. Users sing for at least 10 seconds, allowing the search service to identify the melody and provide the search results of potential songs.