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Google suspends some business with Huawei

reuters.com

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Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#281

Post by ETHisso2017 »

yskchu wrote: post #276
ghobs91 wrote: post #209

To all those stating that Huawei should just make their own OS, it's nowhere near that simple. Forking Android is the easy part, building an app ecosystem that thousands of developers across the globe actively partake in is incredibly difficult. Microsoft couldn't even pull it off with Windows Phone. I predict their own Android fork and China-focused app store will do fine in China, but struggle big time in other mar…

The difference between Huawei's situation and Microsoft's situation is that Microsoft's app store is not compatible with Android or IOS (obviously, different OS) While if Huawei uses the Android open source base, the only thing they have to do is entice developers to submit another copy of their app to their store, which is a much lower barrier than the one MS faced to develop a whole new ecosystem

The barrier would be that many Android apps also leverage Google's in-built services, which would be unavailable on the upcoming generation of Huawei phones. The question then becomes to what degree could someone replicate those services, and how quickly.

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#282

Post by rorykoehler »

cfarm wrote: post #271
rorykoehler wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't because this shows that things can change on a whim. No one is going to commit billions of dollars to anything in such a precarious environment.

So you think other nations will retaliate also?

Nations I'm not sure but it will for sure impact strategy at all companies of all sizes from large multi-national corporates down to bootstrapped startups like my own.

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#283

Post by yding »

Fnoord wrote: post #133
yding wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lineage isn't good enough on its own. 99% of Lineage OS users also install google play services and the google play store. You need to have a replacement for all of the closed source Google APIs for app developers to use. It's a much bigger undertaking than just recompiling the base OS from source.

You can install F-Droid or microG if you prefer; you don't need to use GApps. Apart from that the other options you have, are (in random order): /e/, PureOS, KaiOS, SailfishOS, Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, postmarketOS, among others.

I looked at MicroG and saw this almost immediately: This is alpha-grade software and not yet ready for production use. Do not use if you don't know what you're doing.

That's not going to be good enough for Huawei.

Similarly, all of those alternative OSes aren't going to work if they're not binary, and more importantly API compatible with Android + GMS.

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#284

Post by rorykoehler »

ETHisso2017 wrote: post #277
rorykoehler wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much more likely is a SaaS to manage distribution to various app stores from one interface.

Hmm, interesting. Does one already exist?

I'm sure one does but I don't know for certain. The difficulty comes in replacing the Google Services functionality. I suspect this responsibility could be pushed upstream into frameworks.

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#285

Post by jorblumesea »

pascoej wrote: post #123
jorblumesea wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they develop a mobile OS, will it be the quality and usefulness of Google services? Android is just linux + google services. Without those, it's hard to make the sell to western audiences, at least. Google Maps is a masterpiece of engineering and it's hard to imagine that Huawei will be able to compete, near term. If I'm reading the situation right, this might mean the end of Huawei in the western phone marke…

You can’t really use Google Maps in China. Even over VPN it’s outdated and often displays the wrong location due to the GPS scrambling that the government enforces on maps. Baidu Maps is very good though, I would even say on par with Google Maps and better in some areas. It does however have more obvious ads which is annoying.

Huawei's market is international as well as domestic. Western users are used to Google services. So while they can work around the issue for Chinese users, they basically lose the western market. Who wants Android without the spectrum Google-like services?

Which is a huge deal for Huawei, imo.

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#286

Post by yding »

kyboren wrote: post #148

I assume Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Xilinx, Intel PSG, Microsemi, Lattice, and Qualcomm are also affected by the Huawei blacklist. Can Huawei survive without these critical components and EDA tools? If Huawei ignores the loss of licenses and uses existing software and libraries to develop future products, will those be banned from US and EU markets?

A big one that people haven't mentioned is ARM. Huawei can get by without Qualcomm chips. But I don't know how they're going to be able to keep up without an ARM license. And it's not like they could just switch to Intel even if that was an actually viable option.

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#287

Post by baybal2 »

Faark wrote: post #257
ghobs91 wrote: post #209

To all those stating that Huawei should just make their own OS, it's nowhere near that simple. Forking Android is the easy part, building an app ecosystem that thousands of developers across the globe actively partake in is incredibly difficult. Microsoft couldn't even pull it off with Windows Phone. I predict their own Android fork and China-focused app store will do fine in China, but struggle big time in other mar…

Windows Phone was in a way worse situation. They had to solve an M to N problem, getting apps to attract users while also getting users to attract developers. They tried to leverage their PC install base, but that apparently failed. The Chinese market on the other hand will always have users, is huge and I presume most developers won't be willing to give up on it. If they do, someone else will serve their customers a…

Win mobile was a dominant mobile platform until Microsoft didn't nuke itself with non backward compatible, rewritten from scratch WinMo 7

Palm was a dominant mobile platform until Palm nuked itself with 5 years of clownade with Palm OS 6

Symbian was the biggest, most dominant mobile OS globally until Nokia didn't decide to simply trow it away.

JM2E was the most largely adapted app platform, even into early Android years, until Oracle/Sun simply stopped licensing it...

Now think just how thin is the ice Google is on now with it flirting with idea of "rebooting" Android with Fucsia

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#288

Post by Juha »

ETHisso2017 wrote: post #281
yskchu wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between Huawei's situation and Microsoft's situation is that Microsoft's app store is not compatible with Android or IOS (obviously, different OS) While if Huawei uses the Android open source base, the only thing they have to do is entice developers to submit another copy of their app to their store, which is a much lower barrier than the one MS faced to develop a whole new ecosystem

The barrier would be that many Android apps also leverage Google's in-built services, which would be unavailable on the upcoming generation of Huawei phones. The question then becomes to what degree could someone replicate those services, and how quickly.

One thing to note is that the whole Chinese Android ecosystem currently works without those Google services or Play Store. It's still challenging to push system without Google globally, but at least they have experience with that locally in China.

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#289

Post by mhkool »

jasoneckert wrote: post #239

This is essentially another twist in the US/China tech war that is currently going on. I don't feel I have enough knowledge to speculate on its effects, but all war is bad.

well, until today Google had a large stable market share with Android. Trump initiated the end of that. Android will have a lower share and the market is not stable any more. And everybody outside the US will think twice before buying any product where the US government can destroy its service.

Re: Google suspends some business with Huawei

#290

Post by ETHisso2017 »

Juha wrote: post #288
ETHisso2017 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barrier would be that many Android apps also leverage Google's in-built services, which would be unavailable on the upcoming generation of Huawei phones. The question then becomes to what degree could someone replicate those services, and how quickly.

One thing to note is that the whole Chinese Android ecosystem currently works without those Google services or Play Store. It's still challenging to push system without Google globally, but at least they have experience with that locally in China.

How do they replicate the functionality that Google Services provide? And could they bring that functionality to the rest of the world?
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