Hongmeng, Huawei’s new operating system to replace Android
Huawei plans to launch, between the end of this year and the beginning of 2020, its own operating system to cover the lack of Android, which will cease to be part of the new devices of the Chinese company after the cancellation of its collaboration agreements with Google, after the executive order signed by Donald Trump.
Some reports point out that the new software has been provisionally named Hongmeng and specify that its development is not new, but would have started in 2012, after the U.S. began investigating Chinese companies for political reasons.
According to media reports, the Hongmeng, named after a character from Chinese mythology, is currently being tested and it is expected to gradually replace the Google system.
Android Compatibility
According to a Chinese state newspaper, Huawei CEO Richard Yu stated that the operating system could be used universally in smartphones, personal computers, tablets, televisions, cars and other Huawei devices, and he assured that it would also be compatible with all Android applications.
Technical features of the new software include a file system called Huawei EROFS and a proprietary compiler called Fangzhou. However, it is believed that the rest of Hongmeng’s architecture would have a design similar to that of Android, based on Linux and Java, to ensure compatibility of applications.
“There is a good chance that Hongmeng will become one of the best and largest mobile operating systems in the world,” a source told HuaweiCentral, clarifying that this depends on application developers accepting this new “software ecosystem.
Application development
According to the Bloomberg site, a pillar of Huawei’s strategy is to popularize its own app store, which operates under the name App Gallery.
A report from the agency says that since last year the company planned to extend the store – its version of Google’s Play Store – outside China, promising juicy profits to European telecommunications and advertising companies and marketing benefits to developers who place their applications there.
Mobile users in China cannot use Facebook, WhatsApp or Google applications like Chrome, Maps, YouTube and Gmail for national security reasons, but they have local alternatives and could easily adopt the new operating system.
However, according to the agency, the Chinese telecommunications giant’s plans abroad could be truncated if other U.S. companies follow in Google’s footsteps and stop providing software and hardware support to Huawei, who without the most popular applications could not consolidate its store in time to retain customers.
(Taken from Radio Rebelde in Spanish)
Written by Radio Grito de Baire
