Since it became apparent that US-China relations were getting complicated, which climaxed with China’s largest technology company, Huawei, being given the boot by one of its key partners, US-based Google, there has been a lot of uncertainty over the future. Not just Huawei’s future but that of Android as well seeing as it is the platform’s second-biggest device maker and seller.
As days have gone by, temperatures have cooled but despite assurances that better days lie ahead, clouds of uncertainty have just refused to go away. This is more so after it emerged that President Donald Trump’s declaration during the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, that US companies are free to once again supply Huawei with crucial parts and software didn’t amount to a blanket removal of the company from the Department of Commerce’s so-called “Entity List”.
That has meant just one thing: that the speculation over whether Huawei will ditch Android and go its own way stays.
Catherine Chen, a senior vice president and board member at Huawei sought to allay any such concerns by stating that the operating system it has been building inhouse, often referred to as Hongmeng OS, is not meant for smartphones.
Speaking in Brussels, Belgium, Chen stated that Hongmeng OS will only be used for industrial applications and, specifically, the Internet of Things (IoT).
Hongmeng, Ark and, lately, Harmony, are monikers that have all been associated with Huawei’s next mobile operating system poised to replace Android in the Chinese device maker’s fold and take it on in the open market thanks to legal filings in various countries.
This declaration bodes well for all the Android loyalists, like the tens of thousands that flock this site every month as well as the masses that are assured of the same reliability, security and variety that the Android platform has provided them for years even when they may not know much about the same.
For Huawei, the (temporary?) reprieve that comes with being allowed to continue using Android on its devices means more time to polish up its own platform for a rainy day, just like it has previously been reported to (and actually admitted to) be doing.
