Google and China

Google announced yesterday that they are considering leaving the Chinese market due to continued censoring by the government and also instigated by recent cyber attacks in which gmail accounts of human rights activists and political dissidents were hacked.  But probably the main reason that trumps all of those is that someone hacked into Google and stole a chunk of their source code.  Now for a software company, their source code is their primary commodity and asset.  Without that, you don't have a business.

Google currently does not have a large market share inside China and so they won't be losing out on a lot of profit in the short term.  Of course, anyone who is entering the Chinese market knows that you don't enter this market for short term profits.  China has a fast growing economy and will soon be a global economic super power.  And with 1.3 billion people, it's the largest national market in the world.  You can read more at CNN about Google and China.