> This search engine giant — known as 必应 (biying) — also found it difficult to break into the Chinese market, partly due to its unfortunate choice of a name that sounds similar to the Chinese word for sickness: 病 (bing). So far, it's only managed to monopolize less than five percent of the market.
It's unfortunate when someone who knows nothing about a topic decides to start making assumptions. For example, bing has many different meanings depending on the tone used:
Unfortunately the pronunciation of "Bing" in English is more often the same as the last one in Chinese, and frankly none of the characters you listed above, maybe except 冰 (means ice) and 饼 (means cake), has any good implications at all, let alone relevance to searching.
"Microsoft has Bing", translated to Chinese 微软有病 (literally "Microsoft has sickness", or "Microsoft is sick"), is a serious joke about Bing's launch in China. That's not to say it is a marketing mistake, though. At least it gets people's attention. It's wrong to attribute Bing's failure to capture significant market share to its Chinese name, as others suggested in the comments.
Google (谷歌) has similar problems in its Chinese branding. The name 谷歌 (valley song? WTF?) is an absolutely non-sense for a search engine.
Local brands are usually better in this regard. For example, Baidu's name (百度) comes from a famous Chinese poem by 辛弃疾 which depicts a scene where a guy is searching for his lover in a crowded festival night. Search engine? No problem!
Here's the complete poem if you can read Chinese:
《青玉案·元夕》
辛弃疾(宋)
东风夜放花千树，更吹落星如雨。宝马雕车香满路，凤箫声动，玉壶光转，一夜鱼龙舞。
蛾儿雪柳黄金缕，笑语盈盈暗香去。众里寻他千百度，蓦然回首，那人却在，灯火阑珊处。
PS. If you are careful enough you will find BMW's Chinese name 宝马 (means precious horse) also appeared in this poem, thought I'm pretty sure this is not the first use of the term. Ancient Chinese nobels rely heavily on horses for transportation, which matches BMW's high-end status perfectly.
I always thought 百度 literally means 100 degrees, as in Celsius, the boiling point of water. Maybe there's a secondary meaning saying "This search engine is hot".
Yes, but when someone points out that single unfortunate pun, do hordes upon hordes of their friends soberly point out that it's maybe a bit of a stretch, or do they go crazy repeating it over and over and over on the internet?
Exactly. Additionally, this fluff piece article makes no mention of successful local Chinese brand names, particularly the unusual cases of the numeric domains (both the numerology related domains and the more relevant homophone number domains).
> > ... only managed to monopolize less than five percent of the market
*> It's unfortunate when someone who knows nothing about a topic decides to start making assumptions.
It isn't just the lack of Chinese knowledge. I prefer to take marketing advice from people who at least know what the word monopolise means. (hint: 5% isn't it)
It's unfortunate when someone who knows nothing about a topic decides to start making assumptions. For example, bing has many different meanings depending on the tone used:
bīng/bing1: 兵,冰,掤,栟,檳
bǐng/bing3: 丙,屏,怲,昺,柄,炳,秉,稟,苪,邴,鉼,鞞,餅
bìng/bing4: 並,併,寎,并,摒,病
The one that means sickness is only the last one.