Huawei ban: the global consequences in detail
Update: Huawei, the Chinese communication company, has been banned from the WiFi Alliance, among other vital global tech standardizing organizations. But Huawei does not see this ban as a hindrance to its capacity to create new devices going forward. However, there is still a chance of reconciling the present impasse as Trump hinted that business future deals could include Huawei.
It was unfortunate that Huawei is sandwiched in the trade war between the United States and China, which led Trump to place the Chinese company in the “Entity List.” In essence, the business that US companies can do with the Chinese communication giant is limited, and this has global implications.
Consequently, Google has blocked Huawei from accessing future Android updates, and ARM, the UK-based chip designer, has also suspended its business relationship with the brand. Many other communication companies and retailer network have stopped trading with Huawei to avoid the possibility of US sanctions.
However, the tense situation between the United States and Huawei lightened up a bit when the US Commerce Department issued a temporary license for Huawei to work with businesses domiciled in the US. In essence, US companies are free to resume their partnership with Huawei temporarily.
Taking inference from the recent speech by Trump as quoted by the BBC, one can say there is hope to resolve the present conflict with high-level negotiations. Trump was quoted saying that he could possibly include Huawei as a part of US future deals.
There are indications that these negotiations could start soon as the current temporary license expires by August 19. Huawei will have to find a way to secure full permission to work with US companies in spite of America insinuations that it poses a threat to national security.
However, most US companies such as Microsoft and Panasonic are not showing substantial interest to resume business relationships in spite of the temporary license. Many other US brands also prefer to lie low for now.
The WiFi Alliance and SD association, which are global bodies that create the standards that govern mobile connectivity, and mobile storage have also taken sides with the United States. These organizations ejected Huawei from its membership, which means that Huawei can no longer play a role in shaping these technologies. However, the Chinese company will still be able to use the new advancements they create.
However, Huawei does not see the ejection from these associations as a huge setback. The Chinese telecom giant even claimed that these associations have more to lose, indicating that Huawei believes these standard-making bodies benefit immensely from its technology prowess. All the same, the fact that the Chinese telecom giant can no longer play a role in shaping these technologies or have an inkling of the future roadmap is not ideal.
In a conversation between the spokesperson of Huawei and TechRadar, the company was quoted asking Huawei smartphone users not to worry, affirming that the Wi-Fi, SD card, Bluetooth, and NFC functions of Huawei smartphones will not be affected.
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The temporary license issued to Huawei is merely a slight respite to a huge problem the Chinese telecom giant is presently facing. In just a couple of months, Huawei will no longer be able to work with vital technologies such as Google Apps that it needs for its Android-powered smart devices. The effect of the ban has started weighing in on Huawei as the company’s growth slowed down in April. Things are expected to get worse in May as more brand has suspended their relationship with Huawei in between. As if these predicaments are not enough, the company has also been suspended from SD Association and the WiFi Alliance. The suspension by the duo has stalled the ability of Huawei to shape the future of core technologies.
In spite of all these difficulties, Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, is still optimistic about the prospects of the brand. He said that he believes that the company can continue to provide service for its customers. He acclaimed the mass production capacity of the company and believed that adding the Huawei to the Entity List will not have a huge impact on the company. Ren affirmed that Huawei continues to spread its tentacles worldwide.
What impact does the ban have on Huawei phone owners?
If you have just bought a Huawei Android smartphone, don’t be scared. Going by the statement of Google that was published in TechRadar, you will still be able to access the Google Play store and download critical updates for your device. The statement from Google confirmed that after carefully considering the implications, Google Play and Google Play protect will continue to function on all existing Huawei devices.
A statement from Huawei claimed that the company will continue to support the Android phones that are out there already. And that the company is considering other implication of Google’s business stand with Huawei.
Some news channels have reported that Google has resumed its working relationship with Huawei after the US issued the temporary license. Therefore, the two companies will leverage the situation to work on enhancing Android support for the present and future models of Huawei phones. Since Huawei is still able to collaborate with Google (at least for now), Huawei customers will benefit for a more extended period.
During a chat with TechRadar, Huawei claimed that the company had made substantial contributions to the global growth of Android. The spokesperson from Huawei restated the significant contributions the company has made to the open source platform that benefited Android users and the smartphone industry as a whole.
The company said that it will continue to provide security updates and after-sales services for all the products of the company that is in stock globally, and others that have been sold already, Huawei has various models of smartphones and tablets manufactured under the Huawei and Honor brands.
Huawei Australia affirmed the same stand of the company in a statement by the Director of Corporate Affairs, Jeremy Mitchell. He said that those who are planning to buy Huawei devices in the future have no need to bother about the sanctions.
Huawei did not comment about the recent temporary lifting of the ban.
The impact of the unfolding events on the flexible Mate X brand of Huawei phone launch with “full fat” cannot be ascertained as of now. The company has invested huge amounts in marketing the model after it unveiled it in February and remains keen on strengthening its position as a technology leader.
Going by the statement of the CEO of EE, a UK network, the launch of the bendable phone will likely be delayed. During the event of the launch of the company’s 5G network, he said his company has presently stalled acquiring new stocks of the phone while it awaits the unfolding events regarding the trade ban.
Dixon Carphone, a UK-based retailer, has also followed suit, the company temporarily halted its plans to launch the 5G-enabled Mate X as the UK braces up to upgrade its connectivity.
Although the existing models of Huawei smart devices will continue to receive relevant updates, one cannot ascertain how long the status quo will last. Moreover, the fact that network providers are already feeling uneasy about the ban makes the situation complicated for Huawei. Most smartphones do guaranty two to three years of security update after the launch of a phone model. Given the new restrictions from Google, this might not be the case with Huawei phones
Bad sign for Huawei phones?
The recent stand of Google regarding its business relationship with Huawei will deprive the latter access to the Google Play Store. This stand has a critical impact on the brand that has a goal of becoming the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. The consequence is that Huawei will have to switch to the Android Open Source (AOSP) is if want to continue powering its smart devices with Android. AOSP is free for any brand who wants to power its hardware with Android technology.
Besides restriction from accessing the Google Play Store, the Chinese telecoms giant will no longer have access to core Google apps such as YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Chrome. All these are core elements of Google services which the company offers to telecom partners solely at their discretion. A ban from the Play Store means that Huawei will be compelled to work with developers directly to create new versions of their wares for Huawei products. One can liken this situation to Amazon’s Fire OS, which is based on AOSP but has its own different app store. Amazon established its app store because it seeks more control over the platform that powers its highly successful Kindle Fire tablets and Echo devices.
If Huawei switches to AOSP, it could have a damaging effect on its smartphone market. In this smart age, the fully stocked app store is critical to the success of any platform. For instance, Microsoft and Nokia could not make the Windows Phone a viable alternative to Android and iOS. In spite of massive investments in creating developer tools and wooing the top app creators to its platform, Windows Phone still failed to compete with the two giants.
On the other hand, Huawei claimed that it has been developing an alternative to Android OS over the last seven years. The company refers to the new OS (HingMeng OS or maybe Ark OS) as its” Plan B,” in case it loses access to critical Google services. Huawei hinted that the new operating system will work across smartphones, computers, tablets, cars, and other smart wearables. The company hopes to launch its new OS at the end of 2019, or early in the year 2020.
Huawei released a statement to TechRadar in which they said that they want to create a powerful software ecosystem which is sustainable and very safe. What that means most likely is that they want to create their own OS, considering all the current problems. Despite that, they are planning to work with Microsoft and Google continually. So the company does want this ban lifted, because all sides have something to lose in it. They said the company can create smartphones with the amount of components they stockpiled before the ban. However they still want to work with all the companies they are partnered, but realize that challenges can and might arise in the long run.
The company is working on its own App Gallery and it’s working on chipset solutions. Obviously they still want to work with current providers, but if the ban persists, then they will have to deal with it and create their own hardware and software.
The idea of losing access to the Google Play Store would be a massive problem, so they do need to find a way to generate buzz and bring in developers to create apps for the customers. Obviously this is a huge undertaking and some believe that this brand might actually stop making phones due to that. It’s definitely just a supposition, but it can happen.
Honor, the sub brand that they have is also trying to stay away from the company but they will have the same sanctions. Even if the sanctions might be similar, the thing to notice here is that even Honor might end up with problems when it comes to bringing in great success and results to the table. The challenges rise with these things, but if you know what you are getting into you will be fine.
There are news about the App Gallery on the HongMeng OS. They are now giving the developers access to Chinese users and some financial incentives too. The developers just need to modify their apps a bit and then they will work on the Huawei platform. Having access to the Chinese market is a major plus, so this is going to help things out quite a bot honestly. However, this is all tied to the amount of phones that Huawei will have to sell in order to maintain good profits. Chances are that they still get to sell tons of phones, but this ban is going to affect them.
The ARM news
ARM said that they are not going to work with Huawei for the short term at the very least. They are Japanese owned and the brand is in the UK, however the designs are using US technologies. So obviously they had to jump in with this kind of stuff. Huawei will have a very hard time trying to replace and remodel all this stuff, but they have to do it anyway otherwise they will have to deal with multiple challenges along the way.
According to a spokesperson from Huawei, they do try to work with all partners, but some are under pressure due to political situations like these. They do want to solve the problem. The upcoming Kirin 985 chipset doesn’t really seem to be affected in any major way, which is actually a great thing to have. And another thing to note here is that the networks and partners are reacting to the trade license issue, and things are not as good as you might imagine. The ARM loss might be a problem, but they were granted a permanent license over some key ARM technologies, so not everything is lost. Huawei will be forced to remove Intel chipsets, but if they can use this tech to create their own stuff, then it might be worth it for the company.
What about other brands?
For the time being there aren’t major implications for any other phone brands. But what we can see here is that politics can have an impact on the manufacturing process and in the end customers will be the ones to deal with such problems. Tech stock prices are going down in various regions all over the world here, and the market is affected. And some manufacturers might learn from this and rethink their approach in case a ban can happen.
Samsung did create its own Tizen system to step away from Google, so this type of issue was there for quite some time. Obviously it wasn’t as connected as it is now, but it definitely has its fair share of demands and challenges along the way.
Aside from Huawei, there aren’t companies that lose stuff. But there are companies that are winning, and Apple is definitely there. Apple might end up ditching China and eventually move its operations to the US. The government even exempted Apple from the tariffs they got from China, just to make things better and easier.
Some would say that the ban appeared because Huawei has been a thorn in Apple’s side for the past year or two. The brand continued to bring in high quality products at a lower price, so obviously Trump wanted Apple to succeed in this battle. There are rumors that China might ban Apple phones, but the Huawei officials state that they hope this will not happen.
And obviously the Chinese government doesn’t want to move Apple operations from the country as that would leave lots of jobs unfulfilled. It would also be very costly for Apple, so most likely that will not happen to be honest.
But as Huawei might lose its market margin, this opens up the possibility for some new players on the market to share new phones. Huawei focused on developing new capabilities and features and they are working very hard to bring customers a comprehensive and very complex experience that they can rely upon all the time.
The sheer fact that Huawei started to create amazing cameras pushed other companies to do the same, and this continues to grow and evolve. IN the end more and more people will want to try out these cameras and in the end the customer will get to benefit from all of that, which is exactly what matters the most at the end of the day. The Mate X foldable phone is also a great example of what Huawei did to push the tech forward and onward, and it really is something special and spectacular.
Is Huawei going under?
Huawei does want to continue using Android and its capabilities. The recent ban lifting might mean there’s a chance they can go and talk with the US government to prove that they are indeed safe. That being said, things are looking pretty well for the brand.
You can add to that the fact that Google is reviewing the situation and the sanction implication. They don’t want to limit the Android ecosystem as that would be a problem and a challenge for everyone. US brands like Qualcomm for example will have a negative impact from this entire situation.
Google might be forced to cut ties with Huawei either via security updates or by removing the store entirely. That’s hard to say, but what we do know is that things can get better. Consumers are worried and that obviously brings in concerns when it comes to Huawei sales. But one thing is certain, a ban like this doesn’t have an impact on just Huawei, it will impact the industry. Some say Huawei will come with its new OS and everything made in-house, other companies might raise their prices and so on. Huawei has the potential to create a powerful challenger to Android.
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