Talking About IME

Different from the Lartin languages, typing Chinese on a computer requires an IME. Because there’s no Chinese word on the keyboard.

There’s a long history about Chinese IMEs but Sogou Pinyin was the 1st one who broke the rule and combined IME with Internet. After Sogou Pinyin, Google China relased Google Pinyin, as a competitive product.

The war of IME also started on mobile devices. However, now, Cloud may become the next battlefield.

Baidu’s IME for Search Box

Baidu’s Cloud Input is still in alpha version and only Baidu staff can access. Form the leaking out screenshots, Baidu’s new Cloud IME is an option in the Preference Settings page.

I think this can be an enhancement for Baidu’s Search. With this IME, Baidu can know better about what the user really want, especially for those lazy users who type pinyin directly in the search box. So far, there’s no idea about whether other products are taking advantage of Baidu’s cloud IME.

Tencent’s IME as a common tool

Comparing with Baidu’s new IME, the Tencent’s is more likely to be a cloud IME that can work on any web page which contains a input area.

What’s more, Tencent’s IME also works well on senior mobile devices.

While more and more client applications became web applications, IMEs followed the same trend. For cloud IMEs, only an interface is not enough, the power of data learning is more important for these IME service providers.