Huawei Reportedly Developing Its Own OS As An Android Replacement Due To Mounting US Pressure

[LASER_oneXM]

Sunday, April 29, 2018

Huawei finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place, as it pertains to its goal of building a mainstream presence in the United States and the blow back the company has faced from major wireless carriers that, at the behest of US intelligence agencies, have avoided partnering with the Chinese telecom. With the pressure mounting to avoid certain Chinese brands, Huawei may say, 'Screw it!' and build its own operating system to use in place of Android.

Citing "people familiar with the matter," the South China Morning Post says Huawei is doing exactly that as it puts into motion a plan that was initiated by company founder Ren Zhengfei as a sort of 'worst case scenario' strategy. As the thinking goes, China should have its own major mobile operating system in place as a backup in case companies like ZTE and Huawei ultimately lose their license to use Google's Android platform.

It's said that Huawei hasn't released its home brewed OS yet because it's not as good as Android, and doesn't have nearly as many third-party apps developed for it. There is also the mindset by Zhao that Huawei is not yet at the point where it's absolutely necessary to abandon Android.

“It is a matter of capacity and necessity,” Zhao said when asked about the topic at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing last week. "There is no doubt that Huawei is capable of doing it, but for now I don’t think it is necessary since we work very closely with Google and will continue to use its Android system."

That said, Huawei is the top-selling smartphone brand in China, and also the world's biggest telecommunications equipment manufacturer. In other words, we're not ready to rule out the possibility that it could forge ahead with its own OS at some point.