To all those stating that Huawei should just make their own OS, it's nowhere near that simple. Forking Android is the easy part, building an app ecosystem that thousands of developers across the globe actively partake in is incredibly difficult. Microsoft couldn't even pull it off with Windows Phone.
I predict their own Android fork and China-focused app store will do fine in China, but struggle big time in other markets.
The difference between Huawei's situation and Microsoft's situation is that Microsoft's app store is not compatible with Android or IOS (obviously, different OS)
While if Huawei uses the Android open source base, the only thing they have to do is entice developers to submit another copy of their app to their store, which is a much lower barrier than the one MS faced to develop a whole new ecosystem
Huawei will never do that, the very concept of free or open-source is absolutely alien to them. But they could develop some kind of their own Play Services, compatible with Google.
> Huawei will never do that, the very concept of free or open-source is absolutely alien to them.
The Shenzhen ecosystem has taken the idea of 'Open' and 'Open Source' further than perhaps anywhere else in the world. Huawei the company is built on that kind of information sharing. I highly doubt it's alien to Huawei.
I would not agree with the statement you've quoted either, but can you see that you've posted a comment shot through with the same attitudes that you believe tainted his comment?
You've assigned a race to another poster based on your own preconceptions of the attitudes and behaviors of members of that race (kicking off your reply to snaky with "white people have a way of [...]") and lumped all members of a race together (accusing all white people of making derogatory statements regarding other races).
Odd that you think this is about 'white people' v 'non-white people' rather than about a company's culture. I see to recall very robust discussions about Microsoft et al's position on open source without race getting dragged into it.
The barrier would be that many Android apps also leverage Google's in-built services, which would be unavailable on the upcoming generation of Huawei phones. The question then becomes to what degree could someone replicate those services, and how quickly.
One thing to note is that the whole Chinese Android ecosystem currently works without those Google services or Play Store. It's still challenging to push system without Google globally, but at least they have experience with that locally in China.
Well, if Huawei would say
a) here is our store
b) your app will be marketed to Chinese population (as long as your backend servers run on Chinese infra)
then, I think they have a chance to attract app developers.
Otherwise, I doubt it.
For Chinese market, Huawei don't have anything to worry about. It is likely gain more "Chinese" market share from this.
For the rest of the world, it would be completely different story. It is hard to imagine Huawei won't loss huge market share from the EU and rest of the world without Google's Play Store.
Windows Phone was in a way worse situation. They had to solve an M to N problem, getting apps to attract users while also getting users to attract developers. They tried to leverage their PC install base, but that apparently failed.
The Chinese market on the other hand will always have users, is huge and I presume most developers won't be willing to give up on it. If they do, someone else will serve their customers and might become a future competitor globally.
China-focused apps will only have to re-implement google services. That sound a lot easier to me than supporting an entirely different OS. If those versions can run on google phones as well, devs have the option to drop the play store version down the line to save cost.
I wouldn't bet a lot on it, but this might be the best chance we ever had to get a real play store competitor.
For each example, weren't there viable alternatives lurking around to take advantage of the situation?
I'm not familiar with Palm OS, but Symbian and JM2E both has the iPhone and Android OSs as growing threats. Google hasn't officially stated that it is rebooting Android, and even if they did (and did it right), there isn't a major alternative lurking around the corner...
There are a lot of alternative OS and playstore on different part of the world. Huawei has the resources and experience (including other Chinese companies experience since that's how they operate) to offer an alternative to the whole world.
They have experience on chat and payment software and infrastructure system used by millions of people in their country.
Well, not only in China, but pretty much every other country where demand for Gaps is not an issue, and it was from day one for them as an Android vendor.
It was the one and only Chinese brand with whom Google made a Nexus phone in the past — at least in part to lessen their enthusiasm in throwing out Google market in Western countries
Will Huawei still have access to TSMC, Samsung fabs etc? I think Hardware should be more of an issue for them than software. Chinese phones already use some alternative to play store iirc.
This could actually be a boon for China. Now they have to start developing their phones completely in-house. On the longer term that could be the end for American tech.
If one thing the last 50 years has taught us is that whatever the US can do an Asian competitor can do as well.
>If one thing the last 50 years has taught us is that whatever the US can do an Asian competitor can do as well.
Generalized, I think it's safe to assume any developed country willing to invest in manufacturing is capable of doing what any other country can do [in manufacturing] as well.
Because they have spent years trying to increase market share in Europe and South America, and are only now seeing the fruits of that labor. In the Chinese market they have to compete on price against Xiaomi, Oppo and many, many others, whereas in overseas markets their offerings (minus the P30 flagship) have a big price advantage over Samsung and Apple.
Agree in principle, though can't we get that by just allowing unauthorized sources?
I guess you don't get the relative security of app stores, and there's no widespread culture of free apps on phones like on PCs.
I'd really love, not a new phone or OS, but just an app store that works under a different model. Cheap or free for developers to post, but curated to exclude the most predatory forms of monetization.
what if all Chinese companies create an appstore? Might have to do it. These things, and I'm not passing judgment on them, are simply pushing the Chinese to be self-sufficient on everything. Stroke of the Trump pen and X chip for your hardware is denied.
I predict their own Android fork and China-focused app store will do fine in China, but struggle big time in other markets.