Huawei is not acting like a company that’s under dramatic financial pressure.
Many of the headlines from this past month showed the American government trying to ban the Chinese telecom giant’s presence in the North American market, over concerns that China might use Huawei to spy on America.
However, they also showed strong financial reporting from Huawei, as well as the Chinese response – assertions that the United States does not have the bargaining power that it would need to truly hobble either the telecom company or the Chinese economy as a whole.
As for the ban on Huawei, reporting at the time showed American chip makers simply went to their lawyers to make an end run around any barrier to trading with Huawei – because the Chinese firm was solidly incorporated into their supply chains.
Now, breaking news suggests Huawei is about to release its own operating system to take a run at Android operations.
Insiders suggest that Huawei will reveal its Hongmeng operating system at a developer conference August 9th in Dongguan, China.
A microkernel design, they say, will help the operating system to facilitate artificial intelligence operations.
“A Hongmeng OS smartphone is very much in the works and already in the process of being tested,” suggests BB at The Verge, citing reports fromm the Global Times. “The first device could debut alongside Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro flagship later in the year, with a release date set for the fourth quarter.”
Some in the tech news world are recommending a “wait and see” approach.
“Before we get too excited about the supposed big launch of Huawei’s experimental OS as an Android killer, it’s worth noting that this report comes from Chinese state media,” writes Oliver Cragg at Android Authority. “Due to the ongoing geopolitical tensions, it’s worth taking any claims from state-influenced media with a pinch of salt. There’s also the fact that despite the claims from the aforementioned sources, Huawei itself seems very keen to present Hongmeng OS as an IoT first solution and not an Android rival.”
We will continue to report on what’s going on at Huawei, both in tech advances and the market and political context.
