Chinese search engine company Baidu has opened a new front in the mobile OS wars with an operating system dubbed the Yi OS. The Yi OS will be basically a spinoff of the Android kernel and will be armed with Baidu's own services.
The Yi OS will come sans the various Google facilities Android has become known for and will offer Baidu's own e-book reader, mapping service, cloud storage service and music download service. Baidu may even offer a Google Places-like service but there no clarity about this.
The Yi OS is not first Android spin-off. Previously, operating systems like the OPhone were highly popular in the Chinese market.
Looks like this time the key differentiator might be the Baidu services, which could work really well in the Chinese market.
The scope of Baidu's muscle is not to be underestimated as Thisismynext.com reports that they have roped in Dell as a hardware partner which could propel the OS towards a more mainstream audience.