Imagine this with Bing inside. It’s easy if you try.
If I were a spit takin’ man, I’d do a spit take right now. Motorola, stalwart of freedom, will work with Chinese carriers to add Bing to Chinese Android-based phones, ousting Google Search and Maps from the scene. Now this isn’t meanness on Motorola’s part although Reuters notes that this move could have something to do with that whole Great Chinese Google Hacking Incident a few weeks ago.
Considering most Google interaction in Android comes in the form of widgets – Motorola has their own syncing system and UI, for example, called MotoBLUR which stores your information in the could for easy uploading to any MotoBLUR phone (think of the way the Sidekick used to do it and how great that went for them) – and apps. Because Android is ostensibly open, you can take the source and put whatever you want on it. To wit: AT&T stuck Yahoo onto the new Backflip.
So while this all may seem fairly political, it probably isn’t. Search is search and Android is Android, in the end, and when and if Google decides to get vindictive with Android adopters – cutting out major functionality if you fail to use Google apps, for example, then things will really get hairy.