谷歌悄悄在華設(shè)立第三家辦事處

Google has quietly opened a third office in China, illustrating its growing hardware and ad businesses even as its signature search engine is blocked there.

盡管谷歌(Google)招牌性的搜索引擎在中國仍遭屏蔽，但該公司已悄悄在華開設(shè)了第三個辦事處，這顯示出其硬件和廣告業(yè)務(wù)的不斷壯大。

The new office is based in Shenzhen, the former fishing village turned Asian Silicon Valley which borders Hong Kong and is home to domestic tech giants like Tencent and Huawei.

這個新辦事處位于騰訊(Tencent)和華為(Huawei)等中國科技巨頭的總部所在地深圳。

Several US companies, including Facebook, are banned in China but continue to generate big business from the country. Increasingly global-facing manufacturers, such as Huawei and Xiaomi, and service providers like hotels and tourism groups, are turning to the likes of Google and Facebook to advertise their wares overseas.

包括Facebook在內(nèi)的多家美國公司在中國境內(nèi)遭到屏蔽，但它們依然從中國市場創(chuàng)造了不少生意。華為和小米(Xiaomi)等越來越面向全球的制造商、以及酒店和旅游集團(tuán)等服務(wù)提供商，正轉(zhuǎn)向谷歌和Facebook之類的公司來為自己的產(chǎn)品在海外打廣告。

Google’s latest office, first reported in TechCrunch, will supplement offices in Beijing and Shanghai which together employ some 600 people, mainly engineers and sales staff. In an email sent to “China Googlers”, the tech company’s China head said a number of domestic staff were regularly shuttling to Shenzhen on business.

由TechCrunch最先報(bào)道的谷歌新辦事處，將對其在北京和上海的辦事處構(gòu)成補(bǔ)充。谷歌京、滬辦事處合計(jì)有約600名雇員，主要是工程師和銷售人員。在發(fā)給“中國谷歌員工”的一份電郵中，谷歌中國業(yè)務(wù)主管表示，在中國有一些谷歌員工會定期到深圳地區(qū)出差。

“We’ve heard a lot of feedback that there was a need for a space to work from while in the area—so, after a few months of scouting, we recently signed a lease for a serviced office in Shenzhen,” he wrote.

“我們此前聽到很多反饋意見，認(rèn)為在這個地區(qū)需要一個工作地點(diǎn)。所以我們經(jīng)過幾個月的考察，最近簽了一份位于深圳的服務(wù)辦公室租約，”他寫道。

While starting small, ultimately the Shenzhen office could match Beijing and Shanghai in size with around 300 workers. Google also recently opened its first AI lab in China.

盡管一開始規(guī)模較小，但谷歌深圳辦事處最終可能會與京、滬辦事處規(guī)模相仿，員工人數(shù)達(dá)到約300人。谷歌不久前還在華設(shè)立了其首個人工智能(AI)實(shí)驗(yàn)室。

In addition to sales staff, Google employs engineers working on global products and is moving deeper into hardware, which is axiomatic with Shenzhen. That was boosted by its $1.1bn deal last September to acquire the smartphone manufacturing operations of HTC along with some 2,000 staff, a move described by the Taiwanese smartphone maker’s co-founder as allowing Google to “supercharge” its hardware business.

除了銷售人員，谷歌還聘用了研發(fā)全球產(chǎn)品的工程師，并在更深入地進(jìn)軍硬件領(lǐng)域，而深圳對此的意義不言自明。進(jìn)軍硬件領(lǐng)域之舉得到了去年9月以11億美元收購宏達(dá)電(HTC)智能手機(jī)制造業(yè)務(wù)(以及約2000名員工)的交易的提振。這家臺灣智能手機(jī)生產(chǎn)商的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人稱，這筆交易使得谷歌能夠“加速發(fā)展”其硬件業(yè)務(wù)。