Report: Huawei is creating confusion on Hongmeng OS, developing for smartphones or Not?

Recently, we’ve seen variations in Huawei’s announcement regarding its self-developed operating system, the OS that expected to replace Android in its device ecosystem but now it seems like the company is trying to hide something away from us on this matter.

And to know the matter, you must have to understand its base, that’s why we’ll start from the beginning and don’t forget to note the points.

March 10, 2019, Yu Chengdong AKA Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group admitted for the first in an interview with German newspaper ‘Welt’ and revealed that the company has prepared its Android alternative.

“We have prepared our own operating system. Should it ever happen that we can no longer use these systems, we would be prepared. That’s our plan B. But of course, we prefer to work with the ecosystems of Google and Microsoft” Told Yu.

Note: He said, the company has prepared OS but he also mentioned that the company will look forward to work with Google and Microsft.

May 15, 2019, the US Commerce Department added Huawei in the ‘Entity List’, which bars the company from buying component and software from the US firms including the stoppage of Android services such as Google Play.

May 20, 2019, the Commerce Department provided Huawei a temporary relief from trade restriction to manage its existing customers, which will end on August 19 and expected to be expanded. This 90 days reprieve allowed Google to keep serving Huawei until this timeframe.

May 21, 2019, Yu in an interview with CNBC told Huawei’s operating system could be ready by the fourth quarter of this year, with a version for its markets outside of China available in either the first or second quarter of 2020.

“Today, Huawei, we are still committed to Microsoft Windows and Google Android. But if we cannot use that, Huawei will prepare the plan B to use our own OS,” said Yu.

Note: He mentioned the ‘expected’ timeline of the release, but why he mentioned it if the company is yet to decided to develop it?

July 4, 2019, Huawei Founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, said Huawei’s OS will also be suitable for IoT and Autonomous Driving.

Below is the translated statement of Ren Zhengfei said during an interview with Frech magazine Le Point.

“The operating system will have a processing latency of less than 5 milliseconds and the control is precise, which makes this system perfect to be adapted for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Autonomous Driving. For example, We are building this OS to make it possible to interconnect all devices synchronously, this is how we can project ourselves towards a smart society” said Ren.

Note: Ren didn’t say “Only For IoT” devices.

July 12, 2019, After the release of Sustainability Report 2018, Huawei’s Chairman, Liang Hua said during a press conference.

We haven’t decided whether to develop Hongmeng into a smartphone OS yet,” Liang said. He added, however, this position may change if the US completely bars Huawei from access to Android.

Note: He clearly said that the company ‘currently’ has no plans to develop OS for smartphones.

Conclusion:

As you can see, the statement posted above is not from any of normal spokespersons and came from top Huawei officials that sound different from each other in the same matter. As it makes hard to believe who’s the right one.

Above all of these things, it’s time to look at some legal facts which the company may delay but cannot deny.

On May 14, Huawei filed trademark applications for “Hongmeng” at multiple global intellectual property organizations, that are now publically available to see and all of them indicate that the OS will be used for a series of different devices including smartphone, tablets, computers, wearables, IoT, and more.

Moreover, reports from internal sources indicate that Huawei is developing a new OS for its smartphones since 2012 in high secrecy, and a tester revealed that the company is testing new software, though it may not want to accept it publically.

Is this because the company again wants to concentrate on Android rather than its own OS or wants to surprise the consumers with an announcement at the next month’s HDC event or something else?

We are closely following this subject and will continue to keep you informed about the latest development in this story but we would also like to hear your thoughts on this matter, what do you think going on under the hood and is the company really planning to launch the new OS or planning to with stick with Android for a long time?