MarketWatch reports that Microsoft and Baidu struck a deal where Baidu will be powering the paid search ads at Microsoft’s MSN, Live.com and other China based services. Again, Baidu is to power Microsoft’s ads in China, not the other way around.

Baidu has the official press release. From the top of that:

Microsoft Teams Up with Baidu to Deliver Paid Search Listings in China

BEIJING, China, December 14, 2006- Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU)today announced a strategic alliance on paid search services, which will officially commence in December 2006. As a result of this strategic alliance, Microsoft will display Baidu’s paid search listings on the search results pages of certain Microsoft websites, including MSN, Live, and other partner websites in China.

“Microsoft is committed to bringing innovative online services and software, including search services, to Chinese Internet users,

Related Topics: Microsoft: adCenter | Microsoft: Outside US | Microsoft: Partnerships | Search Engines: Baidu | Search Engines: China Search Engines

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz