This doesn't affect much of Huawei's Chinese market as Google is banned in China anyway. However, this will have a huge impact on Huawei's overseas market, and it is hard for Huawei to come up with a backup plan. At the end of the day, Baidu (and other Google equivalent Chinese counterparts) has a negligible presence outside China.
Google suspends some business with Huawei
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Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#52I don't know anything about the supply chain for data center hardware, but it seems more likely that China would intercept shipments of say Cisco and Juniper gear and modify them (something the NSA has done) instead of building hardware with a backdoor in it?
When you buy a Cisco router do they provide a "chain of custody" proving it didn't come from or go through hostile countries? I understand these routers have a Secure Boot feature, but I can't imagine that'd defend against physical modifications.
If security was actually the goal, shouldn't we have a process to verify any piece of hardware; instead of just completely trusting some companies and not others?
This just feels like security theater, but I kind of get it. If the US is fighting China economically, this move makes a lot of sense.
Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#53No more updates for my Huawei phone then presumably. Really feeling more secure now!
Google have no choice but to comply with US law. This is now going to make a load of existing US owned (Huawei manufactured) devices less secure unless an exemption is agreed for things like software security updates.
Not only that, the ban encourages a long term move away from US-based tech as alternatives are needed within China. This new tech will ultimately be available worldwide, but no longer owned or controlled by US companies.
As someone from neither China or US, it seems crazy. It’s one thing to ban Huawei from your own markets for security concerns, but by making such a heavy handed ban on working with them, the US government seem to be making the US less secure short term, but also US companies will be less competitive and less influential in the world long term.
Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest threat to Google in my opinion would be the possibility that Huawei and China could try to "steal" Android from them. Imagine in 2021 the Chinese government mandates that every Chinese smartphone manufacturer needs to switch to ChAndroid for all of their product lines, with a single unified app store, whether they sell the phones inside or outside of China. Well, fully half of the top smartphone companies…
> And if it were open... An OS mandated by the Chinese government. That’s pretty much the opposite open in multiple ways.
Open in this case meaning open source and open to other people to modify/build upon, like Android is currently. But you're right that the Chinese bureaucracy may not be nimble enough for this kind of move, and might stillborn it by mucking it up with poor decisions.
Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#55Well, Android is opensource so they will be able to just run it, but without that google crap such as gmail, maps, assistant, etc... Which sounds like a good thing to me. I'll try to buy a new Huawei phone soon.
Heh, there will be a rude awakening when they try AOSP or the open-source Android.. "wait, it doesn't have a launcher?"
No, seriously, AOSP is very far from useful. That's before you consider that to run Android on any sort of recent hardware, you need manufacturer support from the chips you are using, which you can't get if you are barred from trade with them.
Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#56If true, this is certainly a nuclear move. There's a variety of first party app stores in China, though I doubt they'll see much success convincing Western users to switch. Curious if there's going to be antitrust fallout from markets outside the US for unilaterally crippling vendors at behest of US foreign policy. Is Microsoft or Apple going to pull their app stores as well? What happened to project Dragon Fly? On t…
The internet, at least as we knew it, is dead. What we have now is a highly segemented, highly federated, highly monitored, centralized communication network. The walls and the controls around access are getting more intricate every day, we've long ago left the idea of an open network in the trash can. It sure seems like the future is more and more walls, more and more reactionary defensive measures. Nobody seems to…
Seemingly more and more people want internet regulation. Nobody cares about things like free speech anymore, and actively campaign that it’s harmful.
Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#57If true, this is certainly a nuclear move. There's a variety of first party app stores in China, though I doubt they'll see much success convincing Western users to switch. Curious if there's going to be antitrust fallout from markets outside the US for unilaterally crippling vendors at behest of US foreign policy. Is Microsoft or Apple going to pull their app stores as well? What happened to project Dragon Fly? On t…
The internet, at least as we knew it, is dead. What we have now is a highly segemented, highly federated, highly monitored, centralized communication network. The walls and the controls around access are getting more intricate every day, we've long ago left the idea of an open network in the trash can. It sure seems like the future is more and more walls, more and more reactionary defensive measures. Nobody seems to…
Of course, that's China's goal for their 2025 project right? It seems Americans are underestimating the long-term plans and strategies of countries that deny liberal democratic principles.
Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#58At what point does China just develop its own mobile OS? There seems value in just taking the reigns, and making whatever you create open-source, so that ZTE and all the other Chinese manufacturers can use it as well. Its certainly a major blow to the value of Huawei phones.
Not just mobile... Huawei also makes really nice laptops and presumably MS/Intel are under the same obligation to sever relations with Huawei. Unless Huawei is going to make a huge retreat we might see a full on effort for a new OS that covers both usecases?
My guess is that they'll probably just sell off / kill off their computer business. It's not a huge money maker for them, and trying to switch people off Windows is super hard.
Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#59If true, this is certainly a nuclear move. There's a variety of first party app stores in China, though I doubt they'll see much success convincing Western users to switch. Curious if there's going to be antitrust fallout from markets outside the US for unilaterally crippling vendors at behest of US foreign policy. Is Microsoft or Apple going to pull their app stores as well? What happened to project Dragon Fly? On t…
The biggest threat to Google in my opinion would be the possibility that Huawei and China could try to "steal" Android from them. Imagine in 2021 the Chinese government mandates that every Chinese smartphone manufacturer needs to switch to ChAndroid for all of their product lines, with a single unified app store, whether they sell the phones inside or outside of China. Well, fully half of the top smartphone companies…
Europe forced Google into a consent degree. It isn’t allow to forbid manufacturers from selling non Google versions of Android.
Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei
#60Quick question - if someone buys a Huawei phone without Play Store and Gmail, could they just download those things later? E.g. could it be done aftermarket?
I believe they cannot, Google demands certification before allowing their apps to be used. It's impossible to sideload google apps.
Unless this google certification is stored in hardware, that's not the case. You can flash Android phones with a custom bootloader, use that to flash AOSP (open source core android)/LineageOS, and for most people doing that the next step is to flash gapps on top of that.
Here's a popular gapps distribution: https://opengapps.org/#aboutsection
Google's requirements mainly apply to OEMs bundling gapps into their stock images.