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"Chinese search giant Baidu has taken a huge step to advancing its mobile business strategy after it jointly unveiled the Lenovo A586. The smartphone, powered by its Baidu Cloud system, marks its most significant mobile launch to date.\r\n\r\nThe device will hit shelves in China on December 12, after first being sold via Juhusuan on Alibaba's Taobao virtual mall\u00A0from December 10, coming in at a cost of 999 RMB (circa US$160). The phone is\u00A0indelibly\u00A0marked with a range of Baidu's services, the fanciest of which is a 'voice unlock' feature -- developed by its Singapore-based BIRC R&amp;amp;amp;D centre -- which lets users unlock the device using nothing more than their voice,\u00A0as we noted last week.\r\n\r\nThere is deeper importance to the phone and the Baidu features on it, however, even the partnership with Lenovo -- which holds China's second largest smartphone marketshare -- is a big deal since it is the largest scale OEM that Baidu has teamed up with to date. The phone will run Baidu's 'Cloud Mobile' platform, which gives users access to a range of Baidu services, including\u00A0cloud storage, cloud computing, cloud customization and cloud collaboration.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBaidu announced the Cloud platform, which sits on top of the Android operating system, in May to help give device makers an out-of-the-box system that localizes a device with its service. As well as appealing to Chinese Web users, Baidu hopes that will boost usage of its own cloud-based products. The company says another key benefit of the system is that it enables the production of sophisticated smartphones at a sub-1,000 RMB price-point.\r\n\r\nThat is important in China where high-end devices are not mainstream; case-in-point, the sheer range and affordability of Android-powered devices has seen the Google-owned OS grab 90 percent of the smartphone market.\r\n\r\nThe Snapdragon MSM-powered\u00A0Lenovo A586 also benefits from Baidu's recent deal with chipset maker Qualcomm which gives users\u00A015GB of storage for one year. A further 15GB of\u00A0 storage is available for the lifetime of the device once users have activated Baidu\u2019s cloud service on it.\r\n\r\nThis device is arguably Baidu's most significant phone to date. Baidu has released devices with Dell and local Chinese brands Chonghong and\u00A0TCL, but, in Lenovo, it has a big name partner and a feature-rich device that will appeal to budget-conscious\u00A0smartphone buyers.\r\n\r\nThe Chinese search giant said in June that it was talking to some 20 handset makers over Baidu Cloud devices, and it will be interesting to see which partners and phones are in the pipeline.\r\n\r\nFor comparison, Nokia launched its\u00A0Lumia 920T with China Mobile\u00A0this week. The device will be available before the end of the year, but for the pricier sum of 4599 RMB ($739).\r\n\r\nImage via\u00A0LIU JIN / AFP / Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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