With the cleaver of the US administration that is about to fall on Huawei’s business, the group has no intention of being caught unprepared. Unable to install an updated or fully functional version of Android on the devices, the Chinese brand’s smartphones and tablets may soon be equipped with another operating system. An alternative, proprietary platform, ready (or almost) ready for the debut.
Huawei, an OS for post-Android
The indiscretion comes from a private group chat and is attributed to Richard Yu (Executive Director, CEO of the Consumer division). There is talk of a debut in the fall, perhaps in conjunction with the launch of the top-of-the-line Mate 30 which according to the latest rumors could integrate the Kirin 985 SoC. At the moment everything is to be labeled as an unconfirmed corridor entry. It is not clear whether the operating system will be based on the Android Open Source Project (the US ban would not prevent it) or not.
The only certainty is that Huawei has gone ahead, working on creating its own platform. The first rumors about this have circulated already in mid-2016 and we have returned to talking about it more recently, in the past few months, in conjunction with the growing tensions between the Shenzhen and Washington companies over issues related to alleged espionage activities, cybersecurity and supply of the 5G infrastructure.
Huawei’s Plan B
The arrival of what we could call the backup OS of the group would constitute the realization of a long-kept secret plan B, carried out in the event that it could no longer rely on the Android ecosystem. We know that the success of a device is not tied exclusively to its technical specifications or to other factors such as design, but depends on the right balance and balance between the hardware component and the software component: the support from the developer community, as well as the availability of applications and services, will therefore be decisive for the success and growth of the platform.
Only a few days ago few would have imagined a similar scenario, despite the certainly not idyllic relationship between the United States and the giant of Shenzen. Today Huawei is having to deal with the need to reorganize at least part of its business, deprived of the possibility of acquiring technology of American origin.
Realities like Google, Intel, Qualcomm and Microsoft (just to name a few) will not be able to provide chips or operating systems to the group. And if someone like CEO Ren Zhengfei reacts by maintaining a calm attitude, the same cannot be said for some of his close associates. Between leaks and unconfirmed rumors, chaos seems to reign at the moment. In any case, using a meme, escalated quickly.
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