Searching for progress with Google gone

• Source: Global Times
• [02:57 March 22 2010]
• Comments

But it would be a completely different picture if the nation had not developed its own search technologies.

With no domestic company to swiftly fill the vacuum left by Google, the search engine giant's departure would have left society in chaos. The impact would have been devastating.

While Google will soon be gone, competition in the field of cyber technology will be no less intense.

Internet companies will strive to grab a slice of the $1 billion search market, but it is also crucial for the government to make all-out efforts to help boost the technology potential of domestic companies. That is the only way to minimize the external pressure imposed by factors like Google's threat to leave.

The power of an independent nation hinges on its technological innovation. This is especially the case with an emerging economy like China.

Cyber technology, hailed by some Western politicians as a "huge strategic asset," is among the few core technologies whose edges must be sharpened domestically to maintain social stability and safeguard the national interests.

Google's curtain is falling. But in China's progressing, booming search market of 350 million Web users, a fantastic play has just started.

No one can afford to miss it.