Huawei Launches “Plan B” Operating System HarmonyOS, After US Ban

Huawei's head of consumer business Richard Yu unveils the company's new HarmonyOS. [PHOTO/ AFP]

Chinese phone company Huawei has today launched its own operating system, HarmonyOS (HongMeng in Chinese) to rival Android after being blacklisted from doing budiness wth US companies.

The new OS, according to Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s consumer business, the new OS will be compatible with Android and will come live later this year.

“If you’re asking when will we apply this to the smartphone, we can do it at any time. However, if we cannot use it (Android) in the future, we can immediately switch to the Harmony OS,” he said.

Yu further stated that the new OS is set to “bring more harmony and convenience to the world”.

In May this year, the US government barred US companies from having business ties with China that involved transfer of hardware, software and technical services except those publicly available via open source licensing.

Read: Prime Bank, Toyota Woo Insurance Brokers With Car Loan Facility

Huawei has reportedly been working on its own operating system since 2012 as a plan “B”, just in case US companies decided to cripple it.

Android, developed by Google, is the most popular open source OS, with Sammsung’s Tizen having failed to break even, same to Windows for phones.

iOS is exlcusively programmed for Apple devices.

For all the latest technology and business news from Kenya and the world, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: