Baidu gets serious about Japan

Forget all the stuff about Europe. We think that Baidu's decision to appoint former Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei to its board gives a better indication of where its interests truly lie: Japan.

Reuters reports "We are confident that he will make a significant contribution towards Baidu's efforts to extend our leadership in Chinese language Internet search and to develop our search platform in Japan," Baidu CEO Robin Li said in a statement.

Idei is still chairman of the advisory board at Sony Corp. and serves on the Boards of Accenture and publisher Red Herring. We assume that Sony's less-than-stellar performance during his tenure shouldn't be taken as an omen for Baidu.

We also assume that Idei, who turns 70 in November, will not be asked to join Shawn Wang's conga line.