Huawei’s Home-Grown OS: HongMeng Won’t Be Here When The Ban Sets In

Previously, Trump’s executive order to put Huawei in entity list has kicked the company temporary out from Android support. An agreement was reached to give the giant Chinese tech company to hold a temporary license until August 19, 2019. That said, Huawei needs their own OS and for a moment, users thought new OS will roll out once the ban sets in.

Unfortunately, that’s not possible despite Huawei having said they’ve prepared their OS since January last year.

The tech war between US and China has been ongoing and threats have been thrown on the table. Trump’s big step to exclude Huawei from their market as well as technology is expected to deal a big blow. And the first one is losing Google PlayStore, a stock app that Android users can’t imagine using their Android phone without it.

The new home-grown OS, codenamed HongMeng, was initially rumored to be released in June according to a Middle East source. The company denies and rectified the fact, mentioning that there was an internal confusion regarding the date. The new OS is rumored to be called the Ark OS.

HongMeng is set to release the earliest late of this year, according to Richard Yu. While it has been ready since last year, Huawei respects their relationship with Google. But now, it’s time to launch the OS.

Alaa Elshimy, Managing Director and Vice President of Huawei Enterprise Business Group Middle East talks about the release of the new OS, “Huawei knew this was coming and was preparing. The OS was ready in January 2018 and this was our ‘Plan B’.

“We did not want to bring the OS to the market as we had a strong relationship with Google and others and did not want to ruin the relationship.”

The OS will work with any Android phone without the need to adjust or customize the phones. It will also work with TVs, smart gears, and basically any smart gadgets with Android system.

The tough sanction set the company out of many alliances, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and SD Association. Elshimy points out that this actually puts both sides will lose.

“From an industry point of view, it is a standard and it is good if you meet the standard [but you] don’t need to be part of the alliance. The same answer applies to Bluetooth and SD cases,” Elshimy explained.