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Google Android Cellphones China

Should Huawei Just Abandon Android? (androidauthority.com) 91

Posted by EditorDavid from the my-way-or-the-Huawei dept.
Due to a U.S. government ban on sales to Huawei, Google revoked its license for popular apps last spring (including Gmail and the Play Store). But this week Huawei executive Fred Wangfei suggested that even if that ban is lifted, Huawei would continue developing its own app ecosystem instead to avoid the possibility of future political complications.

The vice president of risk management and partner relations at Huawei later called those remarks "incorrect," while elsewhere Huawei issued a slightly different statement -- that "An open Android ecosystem is still our first choice, but if we are not able to continue to use it, we have the ability to develop our own." But BGR was already noting that Huawei "is ready to invest $3 billion this year to incentivize more than 4,000 developers to improve its Huawei Mobile Services system. Another billion is reserved for marketing purposes."

And Android Authority suggests Huawei should stick to its original statement. "Maybe it's time for Huawei to go all-in on Harmony OS and do what it can to bring a viable alternative to Android and iOS..."
If there's any company today that has the financial resources and raw talent necessary to bring in a viable third choice for smartphone operating systems, it's Huawei... Sure, it would be a long-term investment and there would inevitably be short-term losses as the company tries to find its footing and develop Harmony OS to have its own identity. But it would prevent something like the Huawei ban from happening to the company again as well as further the company's ambitions as not only a smartphone manufacturer but as a technology creator....

Huawei would have major difficulties in encouraging wide adoption of Harmony OS for one major reason: it's Huawei. The Huawei ban exists because the United States government doesn't trust Huawei and there are numerous (as yet unproven) accusations against the company related to espionage, IP theft, fraud, and even violations of international treaties... Huawei is already in a bad situation. It's going to need to dig itself out of the hole it's in regardless, so why not use this opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade and develop Harmony OS as a viable third option on the way?

Maybe the industry needs a shake-up... Maybe a new operating system is just the kind of fire OEMs need to turn the market around. Maybe a real, potent threat that the billions of people who use Android and iOS just might jump ship to something else would scare companies into taking some real risks.

As I said earlier, there aren't too many companies out there right now that could do this, but Huawei could.
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Should Huawei Just Abandon Android? More

Should Huawei Just Abandon Android?

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  • Totalitarian government OS? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by memory_register ( 6248354 ) on Saturday February 01, 2020 @11:39AM (#59679040)
    At the end of the day, Huawei operates in a totalitarian country. No one, and I mean NO ONE with a brain in their head is going to trust their OS. While I applaud their efforts to bring a third player to the mobile operating system market, as long as China is governed non-democratically this is probably a fool's errand.

    • Works great for anyone outside China though.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by xxxLCxxx ( 5220173 )
      They have an Open Source operating system, which has very few lines of code. It is therefore rather transparent.
      I doubt that they will use this for their phones, though. I suspect that it will rather be Linux with their GUI on top.

      We known that the US is illegally spying on us and illegally spying on their own people. It doesn't get anymore totalitarian than the US. Everybody has understood that by now.

      • Re:Totalitarian government OS? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gtall ( 79522 ) on Saturday February 01, 2020 @01:05PM (#59679358)

        Go to the Washington Mall and declare the U.S. a totalitarian country and the pol deserve prison time. No, would really give a flying rat's ass.

        Now go to Tiananmen Square and tell the CCP that they are corrupt and deserve prison time. Enjoy your new jail cell.

        See the difference?

        • Well, sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't. [reuters.com] Suddenly, everybody gets sick...

        • Tell that to Snowden and Assange and others. Guantanamo bay? Stop drinking the fucking coolaid.
          Standing on a soap box shouting "I'm free, I'm free" doesn't make it so.

      • Re:Totalitarian government OS? (Score:4, Informative)

        by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday February 01, 2020 @02:11PM (#59679476) Journal

        It doesn't get anymore totalitarian than the US.

        That's a really ignorant comment.

        • Re:Totalitarian government OS? (Score:4, Funny)

          by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Saturday February 01, 2020 @02:39PM (#59679578)

          It doesn't get anymore totalitarian than the US.

          That's a really ignorant comment.

          But he was paid for it, or else they were going to sell off his organs.

        • It doesn't get anymore totalitarian than the US.

          That's a really ignorant comment.

          Indeed. China and America are very different.

          In China, the government spies on the citizens.
          In America, the corporations spy on the citizens.

          In China, the government lies to the people.
          In America, the media lies to the people.

          In China, the government controls a vast network of police and prisons.
          In America, a vast network of police and prisons controls the government.

          Inverted Totalitarianism [wikipedia.org]
          Prison-Industrial Complex [wikipedia.org]

          • I don't think you can even consider China to be a totalitarian government. They don't have the same "total control" that came with the soviet package.

          • Very witty and I wish I had a positive mod point for you [ShanghaiBill]. However I think you should have worked the military into both sides of your last pair.

            How about something like this:

            In China, the militarized government controls a vast network of police and prisons.
            In militarized America, a vast network of police and prisons controls the government.

            My favorite version of the same sentiments would be "Government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1%." I'm increasingly convinced that

      • We known that the US is illegally spying on us and illegally spying on their own people. It doesn't get anymore totalitarian than the US. Everybody has understood that by now.

        I see you [xxxLCxxx] are already attracting the censorious trolls, so I'm quoting the part that is most likely to offend them in order to make it more visible. I wish I had a positive mod point to give you, though I never have one to give. (Some triggering combination of my excellent karma and critical and analytic attitude?) However, I don't think your comment justifies the "Insightful" that it is currently showing. (I also think the display of the Score for each comment should be logarithmic...)

        On this st

        • I agree with you, but the block of Huawei is not for spying, it's because they have anticipated the rollout of 5G long ago and have been producing and stockpiling 5G devices for years. They can rapidly deploy and fullfill large contacts and the American companies have successfully lobbied to get them banned for Spying where the truth is they can't compete.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            I think you're approaching a different aspect of the problem. Underlying your aspect of the problem is the focus on maximizing profit ahead of all other considerations. If all of the downstream profit ignores other factors such as choice and competition, then manufacturing will almost automatically become over-concentrated. That's where the Chinese government intervention has been dangerously effective, but I think it's breaking down now simply because it wasn't sustainable. Actually, making lots of noise a

        • This summary is pretty good.

          I've pulled apart a number of Huawei firmware images (Switches, routers, WACs, etc) and their biggest problem isn't spyware, but that the coding is just so appallingly BAD - reminiscent of "paid by the yard" contract indian programmers of a few decades ago.

          This is a particular issue with patches, which are frequently atrociously written, badly documented and half the time introduce more new bugs than they fix.

          As for their APIs or the SNMP MIB abuse.... *sigh* (but they took lesso

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            Interesting comment. I'll focus on two primary responses.

            1. Nothing morally wrong with reinventing the wheel. I don't even buy the wasteful argument, because I think the learning is usually worth it. However, it's still a good idea to collect the feedback, and I have to agree with you that little from outside seems to penetrate their bubble. However, I think that may be largely a linguistic issue. I prefer to talk with English speakers and have much higher bandwidth when doing so, and I'm sure it's the same

      • Re:Totalitarian government OS? (Score:4)

        by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @10:25AM (#59684790)

        It doesn't get anymore totalitarian than the US. Everybody has understood that by now.

        You should stop with the unnecessary exaggeration. Your post was fine up until this point. The US surveillance state is bad enough, you don't need to call it totalitarian (let alone the most totalitarian) when it's not. There are enough obvious counter-examples of that (e.g. North Korea) that it just makes you look alarmist despite the completely valid point that US spying is a bad thing. Just stick to the facts and let them speak for themselves.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gwolf ( 26339 )

      More or less the same could be said about Google, though...

      • Ooh...sick burn...

        It's even worse when you realize China has to be this way, to keep its power. Google is being the same way entirely of their own free will.

        • As Trump has shown us. Anything you do to stay in power is by definition good for the country, as long as you simply believe you are a good leader. Xi is just following democratic best practice.

          Google on the other hand is just evil for the money. Totally different situation.

    • At the end of the day, Huawei operates in a totalitarian country. No one, and I mean NO ONE with a brain in their head is going to trust their OS. While I applaud their efforts to bring a third player to the mobile operating system market, as long as China is governed non-democratically this is probably a fool's errand.

      Yes, yes, yes, China is an authoritarian regime, this is not news. However, since when is the US a democracy? ... the US is a plutocracy which basically boils down to the same thing as an autocracy. The US Congress is filled to the rafters with toerags that do the bidding of a small community of ultra wealthy donors in exchange for some morsels from the latter's table. Why should we distrust the Chinese but merrily hand over all our data to American corporations without giving it a second thought? The answe

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        Yes, yes, yes, China is an authoritarian regime, this is not news. However, since when is the US a democracy? ... the US is a plutocracy which basically boils down to the same thing as an autocracy. The US Congress is filled to the rafters with toerags that do the bidding of a small community of ultra wealthy donors in exchange for some morsels from the latter's table. Why should we distrust the Chinese but merrily hand over all our data to American corporations without giving it a second thought? The answer is that we shouldn't. Personally, I distrust US and Chinese corporations equally.

        I wish I had a positive mod point for you [Freischutz], though I largely disagree on your terminology. I'll go ahead and quote you as a hedge against censorious trolls. (You've already attracted one.) I think America has become a kleptrocracy transitioning to a hereditary idiocracy. If #PresidentTweety survives this year, the future "history" of "America" may be reduced to this: King Donald I until 2024, followed by Queen Ivanka to 2032, then King Donald II to 2040, followed by Ding Eric [sic] up to 2048, s

    • The question the headline forgot to ask is:

      If they abandon Android for a proprietary OS, would you trust the proprietary OS more or less than Android?

      I suspect it'll be "less", so why bother?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      I'm a regular critic of the Chinese regime, but it's probably an exaggeration to call it a totalitarian regime. In some ways what it is is actually worse, because it works a hell of a lot better. It's more like what a totalitarian regime would be if it were designed by somebody really smart. Less energy is spent on regulating people's private lives and more on getting them to regulate themselves.

      The Cultural Revolution was Authoritarianism Release 1. It was a POS. What we're looking at is more like Rele

      • Mao's time was totalitarian. They wanted you to be political all of the time, every day. Today, no. Nobody cares what you do, as long as you don't organize people to overthrow the government.

        Strangely enough today's Maoists (SJWs) are the same way. All politics, all the time, no breaks. The journal Cultural Anthropology recently spoke out:

        Academics who are not politically engaged through their work are tacitly endorsing the status quo.
        - Cultural Anthropology (@culanth) May 3, 2018

        They also said:

        • You talk a good gamer but seem very lowbrow when you conflate SJWs seeking social change with Marxists seeking revolution. Nuance is important and when you disregard it, well it makes it seem like you have some kind of manipulative agenda and your ideas should be treated with a high degree of skepticism.

          • It's the "all politics all the time, you must never have a rest" that distinguishes totalitarianism from authoritarianism. China isn't totalitarian, it's authoritarian. The journal Cultural Anthropology is trying to be totalitarian, but has nowhere the power needed. BUT those statements are definitely building it. If you're not political, and in the right way, i.e. SJW, they won't publish you.

            This would be fine if they were a political magazine. But they're not. They're a legitimate science journal

    • Re:Totalitarian government OS? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Saturday February 01, 2020 @01:44PM (#59679436) Homepage

      At the end of the day, Huawei operates in a totalitarian country. No one, and I mean NO ONE with a brain in their head is going to trust their OS. While I applaud their efforts to bring a third player to the mobile operating system market, as long as China is governed non-democratically this is probably a fool's errand.

      Well you can hide a backdoor in your hardware/software while complying 100% with Google's API so it's more whether you should trust Huawei phones at all, not whether their phones run Android or some other OS. There's already alternatives to GMS because not everybody's happy with Google's position, all Huawei would have to do is enlist as many as possible and try to create a new smartphone standard that's not dependent on licensing anything from the US.

      Maybe a desktop analogy is easier, let's say the state department blocked Microsoft from selling Windows licenses to China. They could create a proprietary ChinaOS, that'd probably work for China but not so much anywhere else. But they could also say fuck you, we're going to push Linux on the desktop and make that popular and it's not like the rest of the world would refuse their help. That way even if they don't gain control, they could make the US lose control.

      • > whether you should trust Huawei phones at all

        Compared to what?
        I have an LG/Google Fi phone, I've used Huawei phones. I don't 'trust' any of them for things that I don't want to share.
        They all make phone calls. They all browse the web. They all run google maps. They all play games.

        But I don't trust any of them with my bank password, or not to share my location or any related thing. Just behave as if they are untrustworthy and you will be fine. They are still useful devices.

        • They all make phone calls. They all browse the web.

          Yes.

          They all run google maps. They all play games.

          Huawei phones won't run Google maps. They won't play games dependent on Google play services.

          • They all make phone calls. They all browse the web.

            Yes.

             

            They all run google maps. They all play games.

            Huawei phones won't run Google maps. They won't play games dependent on Google play services.

            New ones won't. The Huawei tablet we got just before Google cut them off (in Singapore on a trip) seems to keep running it fine.

      • "But they could also say fuck you, we're going to push Linux on the desktop and make that popular and it's not like the rest of the world would refuse their help. "

        Unfortunately from what I've seen, most chinese programmers WOULD refuse the rest of the world's help on collaborative development.

        They're very happy to cherrypick Linux, but everything running on top of it suffers badly from "not invented here" syndrome

        And then there's the wholesale abuse of GPL, where chinese treat it as "public domain" and hav

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      By the same logic no one should trust an American OS. It's a country where mass surveillance is pervasive and apparently legal, and not just for the government. Every corporation wants in on it too, with everyone from cell service providers to handset manufactuers to app makers tracking citizens' every move.

      Fortunately we don't have to use this faulty logic, we can simply use our brains to examine each OS and see what it is doing and how much we should trust it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Max_W ( 812974 )
      There are also in the US the serious social problems: drugs epidemic, latent racism, the gap between the rich and poor, etc.

      Does it mean that we cannot use the OSs from the US companies? Certainly, not.

      Because it is clear to any sensible person that it takes time and a lot of effort to solve such problems. They cannot be solved by a decree or by a proclamation.
    • And the US is trying to catch up. Lindsey doesn't like encryption as an example. https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com] In the US, of course it is always "for the children".

    • Cough, gag...
      Keeping my mouth shut on this one.

    • There will be people who don't trust anything from China (cooties) but most of the world won't care. Huawei has shown in the past that they're willing to open-source their stuff if that's what it takes to be trusted.

      • Huawei has shown in the past that they're willing to open-source SOME OF their stuff if that's what it takes to be trusted.

        There, FTFY

        Glaring case in point: Xmeye-based DVR code running on HiSilicon (Huawei) SOCs - and the Huawei-sourced monolithic binary sitting on top of the linux OS in the things - which is full of enough debugging symbols to see it's actually effectively some kind of secondary VM stuffed full of stolen GPL (amongst other things)

        That's ON TOP of the fact that there's no source release fo

    • look around you ... what country is not totalitarian in 2020 ? my biggest concern is will the flashlight on the back still work b/c otherwise that thing only serves people who bug me uninvited, i literaly went from over 200 to zero people in my phone over the course of years ... i just meet the ones i meet anyway when i meet them (then again, im a bit peculiar i suppose ...) id say the leaders of the free world have a bit of a totalitarian knack when it comes to telling others how it's done, while the one
  • What's that rule about how anytime a question in an article title is asked, the answer is always 'No'? Imo, Android is an open source operating system. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. The Chinese are throwing millions at Deepin Linux rather than reinvent an OS, why would they do anything different for Mobile? It takes many years to develop a quality OS.

    • the answer is always 'No'?

      We agree the best path is to fork Android and de-googlify it.

      By doing so they could no longer use the Android brand/name or software distribution network - so it does count as abandoning Android.

      This is kinda the same as how all the other Linux vendors abandoned the slackware or whatever thing they were using before Red Hat made .rpm and Debian made .deb.

    • AOSP is. Android contains the Google apps.

      And, Android is shit.
      You may not realize, because iOS is even worse, bit there are SO MANY things that could be made SO MUCH better.
      Give me half a day of briefing with an OS dev team, and I'll gladly sign a guarantee that you got an Android killer there or I'll literally eat my hat, shorts shoes, and all the other clothes.

      • Mod Up! And then google has added registration and bloat -and decided to charge vendors a premium for up-to-date security patches. And now export controls by another name. Linux is a problem for the Chinese. One, because it lacks DRM shit, and two, Wireguard is coming up, meaning 99% chance of detection of weird stuff. Best option: Go Linux and have a macro/skinner and emulator that is 95% acceptable. Combine THAT, with exposing Googles backdoors, and patches that tattle on binary blobs that reach out.

  • Maybe the buyers don't need and aren't threatening (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DRJlaw ( 946416 ) on Saturday February 01, 2020 @11:55AM (#59679106)

    Maybe the industry needs a shake-up... Maybe a new operating system is just the kind of fire OEMs need to turn the market around. Maybe a real, potent threat that the billions of people who use Android and iOS just might jump ship to something else would scare companies into taking some real risks.

    I look forward to Huawei investing all the resources of a the former Blackberry and Microsoft operations while having none of the early-mover advantage of the former Blackberry and (to a lesser extent) Microsoft operations, while suffering the same fate as the former Blackberry and Microsoft operations.

    I see no evidence of viable market for a third consumer-facing OS, in personal computers, tablets, or smartphones, and no appetite from app developers for supporting one.

    Have fun.

    • Maybe the industry needs a shake-up... Maybe a new operating system is just the kind of fire OEMs need to turn the market around. Maybe a real, potent threat that the billions of people who use Android and iOS just might jump ship to something else would scare companies into taking some real risks.

      I look forward to Huawei investing all the resources of a the former Blackberry and Microsoft operations while having none of the early-mover advantage of the former Blackberry and (to a lesser extent) Microsoft operations, while suffering the same fate as the former Blackberry and Microsoft operations.

      I see no evidence of viable market for a third consumer-facing OS, in personal computers, tablets, or smartphones, and no appetite from app developers for supporting one.

      Have fun.

      Huawei, Xiaomi and friends have the ability to underbid much of the remainder of the Android using smartphone manufacturing world. The only ones not affected are Apple and makers of high end Android smartphones in the same way BMW, Bentley and Mercedes Benz are relatively unaffected by stirrings in the bargain basement family car market because they don't compete there. If these Chinese manufacturers kill off or buy out most of the ROW's low and medium end Android device makers the standard low end OS in th

      • The Operating System is NOT the prize here. RPU or revenue per user is. You buy a phone and maybe Apple flogs off your details and pumps you with annoying ads for say $100 USD per year, recurrent, and tax free via an Irish sandwich. Maybe Google gets $50. If Huawei does what Microsoft Win 10 does, and siphons that data at the OS level, the American FAANGS loose juicy revenue. China and India need to wake up, and put up a local presence first. Shit, Putin has worked that one out. I want to see Baudiu with US

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Except that there aren't any low-end phone manufacturers or even resellers in the USA. If its about protectionism its about network gear where they compete with Cisco.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I miss Graffiti writing.
    • So do I, but it really only makes sense in English. Graffiti of Chinese characters would be impractical.
  • I don't think I'd want an OS "made in China". Make it easy to unlock the boot loader and install a fully functioning third party firmware like LineageOS.

  • With Google maps and money saved I just about buy a non iPhone, without Google maps I'll just spend the few extra bucks.

    Especially now Apple is cornering the payment market it's increasingly uninteresting not to just choose them. Regulators really shouldn't be allowing them to do it, but that's irrelevant to my choice.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      I suppose it depends on exactly what you get from Google Maps.

      Keeping street files up to date is a gigantic undertaking, especially for places like Florida where developers keep spreading out the sprawling street network. But there must still be vendors out there selling reasonably up-to-date GIS data. Google doesn't sell data, it sells mapping services, an arrangement that suits many quick-and-dirty apps but doesn't meet the needs of every developer.

      The thing about Maps is that it adds a lot of value (an

    • You will never look back. The offline maps are worth it alone.

      But you can (but don't have to!) add layers upon layer of information and online maps and whatnot, 'til your screen explodes.
      In my city, literally ever trash can is marked out.
      It feels like climbing from an airplane passenger seat to a airplane cockpit, in an empowering way.
      But if you just leave things as is, it is still dead-easy.
      (Mapillary provides street view, but is relatively new. Street view is more a gimmick to me anyway.)

      I can't go back t

  • Why would they abandon an OS they get for free? I am talking about AOSP here.
    They can just add their own store to their custom AOSP build and developers will be able to offer their apps in the Huawei store if they want to.

    • Why would you abandon that ass-rape you get for free? /s

      Thers's more to the world than money, dear Ferrengi-American. ;)

      And AFAIK, AOSP is free; Android is not.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jonwil ( 467024 )

        What exactly is in Android (and not AOSP) that Huawei can't replace? They can write their own store and make it trivial for app developers to upload to their store. They can use one of the alternative replacements that exist for the proprietary Google Play Services blob. What else would they need?

        • And if you're an app developer, why wouldn't you upload you android app to a China specific app store, given that that's a pretty big market.

  • "Maybe it's time for Huawei to go all-in on Harmony OS and do what it can to bring a viable alternative to Android and iOS..."

    Huawei is already doing that. Problem is, HarmonyOS is nowhere near ready to be a SmartPhone OS. Since the chinese in general (and Huawei in particular) are very good at playing the long game, they are onboarding the ecosystem (carriers, developers, cloud service providers and users) to their AOSP port before taking the leap to their own OS.

    And I would not be surprised if they try to time the change to Google jumping from Android to Fuschia

  • At the current stage they wouldn't even benefit from a third-party OS like Sailfish (which they had experience already using a Sailfish fork called AuroraOS on laptops for a Russian census) : https://www.techrepublic.com/a... [techrepublic.com]

    Huawei says Harmony/Hongmeng is ready for smartphones but still want to use Android
    https://www.huaweicentral.com/... [huaweicentral.com]

    HarmonyOS/Hongmeng OS: Here’s everything you need to know about this new Operating System
    https://www.huaweicentral.com/... [huaweicentral.com]

    Harmony OS: Here’s the roadmap for de

  • We desperately need a new OS that is independent from Google but a first class OS. And I don't mean just AOSP-based. They could innovate too, improving the world a bit.

    It depends on if you see it as a chance.

    And of course, until the whole retarded USA VS China dick slapping contest is over, OMGREALMURICA* will avoid Huawei, no matter what. (Is any hardware banned in China by the way? I bet they could ban ALL foreign manufacturers, and barely anyone would even notice. ;)

    _ _ _ _
    * Don't get me wrong. I don't t

    • "We desperately need a new OS that is independent from Google but a first class OS."

      The problem is as always driver support. Manufacturers don't want to support drivers for Android as it is. Getting them to support even more niche operating systems is probably impossible. There's no room for third place.

      • "We desperately need a new OS that is independent from Google but a first class OS."

        The problem is as always driver support. Manufacturers don't want to support drivers for Android as it is. Getting them to support even more niche operating systems is probably impossible. There's no room for third place.

        Just like apple, huawei makes their own processors, and have the scale, so it is a non-issue for them.

  • This is NOT intended as a disagreement with the submission, but just an in-comments copy of my different starting point on the topic. I submitted it a while back, and I don't see any elements of it in the official version. However my thoughts have already evolved, though I will be looking at the discussion (already over 50 comments) with these old aspects in mind, along with the new thoughts.

    Kind of a complicated topic, but several aspects seem worthy of discussion. Does Slashdot still do those? But let me throw in a few points for consideration:

    (1) Standards are good, but international standards depend on international cooperation. If the world is devolving into every country for itself, then the collateral damage is obvious.

    (2) If Huawei wants to survive in a stable way, then it can't rely on American companies anymore. Best case is to profit from the sales opportunities in America, but it has to be downstream in sales, not upstream on the suppliers' side.

    (3) Huawei actually has more leverage to protect its hardware from government intrusions than most American companies. Basically Huawei can honestly say to the Chinese government "If we put any kind of spying stuff into our hardware, then it is eventually going to be discovered, and that discovery would kill us in the international markets." (That could break down if they really believe they are so far ahead of other countries that their hardware can never be reverse engineered, but I think that would be a crazy belief.)

    (4) Maybe international support is just too messy and unprofitable now?

    (5) Then there's the wild card factor. This week's wild card is the Wukovi. (That's supposed to be a joke name for the new epidemic: WUhan COronoVIrus. It definitely needs a catchier name if it's going to catch on, eh?)

  • Had 3. Mate 2, 8, 9 but gave it up after they kicked them out of the USA. As for spying? Hell, you don't think Google/Apple/government doesn't spy on you too? If Huawei is successful, it will put a dent in the Google/Apple duopoly and perhaps the overpriced smartphones will start to come down in price a bit.

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