Baidu gets in trouble

Baidu - the number one search engine in China - is being “attacked” by three big companies, those being Universal Music Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd.

The reason for the attack is more than obvious: copyright infringement of music tracks. And what the companies want is also pretty obvious: all the (illegal) links included on the Baidu music delivery service should be deleted/removed.

Besides Baidu, there is another search engine getting the same treatment related to copyrights, which is Sogou.

Here are some numbers to get you thinking:

IFPI said that more than 99 percent of all music files distributed in China are pirated, and the country’s total legitimate music market, at $76 million, accounts for less than 1 percent of global recorded music sales.

New evaluation methods at IBM in India

Finally, someone is thinking about raising the quality level of outsourcing in India. With that being said, IBM has arranged new ways to get an exact “picture” of their staff located in India, and will start evaluating them using new methods.

To get the desired quality level, all the people that don’t pass the tests will be asked to leave, in other words, they will get fired. So far, the new ways of evaluating the staff has resulted in dismissal of 700 entry-level programmers.

In case you are wondering about the number of persons working for IBM in India, the numbers go up to 73,000 on the end of 2007, and 53,000 on 2006. Hopefully, these numbers will drop and the quality will rise.

Sources: Reuters and NYTimes

Guest post by Tiago of Gadgetizer