Huawei to help create China’s first open source software foundation; unveils Honor Vision smart screen with Harmony OS

Posted on by Alan Weissberger

Huawei Technologies Co. said today that it plans to partner with other companies to set up China’s first open-source software foundation, which is expected to begin to operate in a month or two to expand the nation’s software community.

Wang Chenglu, president of the software department at Huawei’s consumer business group, said software development relies on open-source codes and communities. “If China does not have its own open-source community to maintain, manage and host these open-source codes, the domestic software industry will be vulnerable in the face of uncontrollable factors,” Wang said. The first open-source foundation in China will be nonprofit and open to all companies and software developers. “The plan is going forward very fast. It may officially operate in one or two months,” Wang said. Wang added it is widely agreed that open-source communities are created to be fair and equitable for all, but now have become a means of making a power play between countries.

The first open-source foundation in China will be nonprofit and open to all companies and software developers. [Photo/IC]

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Last month, Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, said on Twitter that GitHub is subject to US trade law just like any company that does business in the US. GitHub has enforced restrictions to prevent users in sanctioned countries from accessing private repositories and the GitHub Marketplace and from maintaining private, paid organization accounts, technology news website TechCrunch reported.

Maral Khosroshahi, who identified herself as a deep-learning scientist at Microsoft and founder and chairwoman of Iranian Women in Computing, said in a post on Twitter on July 27th that GitHub suspended all accounts of Iranian developers without any prior notice. “This is a shame, … especially for those who keep saying that sanctions are not supposed to affect ordinary people,” Khosroshahi said in the post, adding that those views are her own.

Xiang Ligang, director-general of the telecom industry association Information Consumption Alliance, said the GitHub incident sent a warning to Chinese professionals that heavy reliance on U.S.-led open source communities may carry risks.

The open source plan also came after Huawei unveiled its in-house operating system Harmony OS on Friday, with the idea of using it in smart TVs, automobiles, wearables and other hardware over the next three years. Lyu Tingjie, a telecom professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said Huawei decided to build Harmony into an open-source system because it knows that support from a wide range of partners is needed to build a robust ecosystem. “The foundation plan, if well-executed, will help accelerate the development of Huawei and China’s overall software industry,” Lyu said.

For more information contact:

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China Daily Multimedia Co. Ltd.

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George Zhao, president of Huawei’s sub-brand Honor, unveils Honor Vision series during the Huawei Developer Conference held in Dongguan, South China’s Guangdong province on Aug 10, 2019. Honor Vision is the world’s first smart screen equipped with HarmonyOS, or Hongmeng in Chinese, Huawei’s open-source operating system. [Photo/Xinhua]

“Huawei will continue to lead a broader effort to build China’s software developer ecosystem and complete industry chain for the electronic information industry, rather than just launch its OS,” Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times.

The HarmonyOS is an open-source system, but without the support of most application developers, it can’t grow at a rapid pace and neither can the industry, Xiang said.  The HarmonyOS was initially seen as an alternative plan to deal with the risks of losing access to Google’s Android software and overseas market share after the US attack. Huawei is confident in keeping its overseas market share and displayed an ambition to make the HarmonyOS successful.

Richard Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, said that the HarmonyOS can make Huawei’s devices functional again overnight, if the Android OS on the devices fails.  Huawei has obviously entered a whole new stage of fully developing its OS, developer ecosystem and more terminals equipped with the OS. It will eventually build its Internet of Things based on its leading communication systems, rather than just focusing on mobile phone products, a veteran industry analyst told the Global Times on condition of anonymity.

References:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201908/13/WS5d51ed9ea310cf3e35565513.html

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201908/12/WS5d512715a310cf3e35565454.html

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1161064.shtml

 

4 thoughts on “Huawei to help create China’s first open source software foundation; unveils Honor Vision smart screen with Harmony OS”

  2. Huawei claims AI leadership with launch of Ascend 910 chip and MindSpore

    Networking giant Huawei reckons the new Ascend 910 is the world’s most powerful AI processor.

    The chip was launched alongside ‘an all-scenario AI computing framework’ called MindSpore at an event positioned as the realisation of the AI strategy announced in October of last year. “Everything is moving forward according to plan, from R&D to product launch,” said Huawei Rotating Chairman Eric Xu. “We promised a full-stack, all-scenario AI portfolio. And today we delivered, with the release of Ascend 910 and MindSpore. This also marks a new stage in Huawei’s AI strategy.”

    Huawei chucked around a few datapoints involving things like Teraflops, to support its claim that the Ascend 910 kicks AI ass. It also consumes around 10% less power than Huawei had previously expected it to. “Ascend 910 performs much better than we expected,” said Xu. “Without a doubt, it has more computing power than any other AI processor in the world.”

    MindSpore is not the omniscient, Skynet-like AI platform implied by the slightly creepy name, but an AI development platform. Among its priorities are flexibility, security and privacy protection and it’s designed to be used to develop AI stuff across both devices and the cloud.

    For obvious reasons anything Huawei announces these days features liberal references to the importance of security and privacy. “MindSpore will go open source in the first quarter of 2020,” said Xu. “We want to drive broader AI adoption and help developers do what they do best.”

    At the same event Xu reportedly addressed the impact of all the US aggro on its bottom line. Referring specifically to the consumer business unit Xu said he’s optimistic it won’t be as badly affected as previously feared, but that the impact of US sanctions could still be as much as $10 billion in revenue.

    http://telecoms.com/499303/huawei-claims-ai-leadership-with-launch-of-ascend-910-chip-and-mindspore-framework/

  4. Huawei is seeking local app partners to help build out its ecosystem for 2020

    Honor, the budget smartphone sub-brand of Chinese tech giant Huawei, is in talks with top Indian developers to tailor their apps for Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), Huawei’s set of in-house mobile apps and services, according to the Economic Times. For context, HMS is not an operating system, but rather a core suite of apps and services that will be preinstalled on Huawei’s family of phones.

    China Makes Up The Majority of Huawei’s Revenue
    Business Insider Intelligence
    HMS is designed to rival Google Mobile Services, which includes Google Maps, the Play Store, and Search. Huawei says most core HMS apps, such as navigation or messaging, will be ready in the immediate future. This move by the smartphone manufacturer is part of a broader effort to appeal to developers across the globe, which has also seen the company enter into talks with developers in South Africa, China, and Europe. Huawei will focus on attracting the top 100 to 150 developers in every market to create apps to populate the HMS ecosystem.

    Huawei has been aggressively pushing to develop basic apps and services in-house after losing access to Google’s family of apps earlier this year. In May 2019, Google announced it would end Huawei’s access to core Android apps and services, after the US government placed the Chinese telecom on a trade blacklist.

    Following those sanctions, Huawei began work on a number of solutions to overcome the loss of access, including its own operating system, called HarmonyOS, and a mapping toolkit. To accelerate the development of its in-house offerings and to bolster what it could provide to consumers, Huawei announced it would spend $1 billion to incentivize developers to build apps for its app store.

    Huawei’s strategy of going after local developers should help it bring unique, market-specific offerings to consumers, thus better enabling the company to overcome the loss of Google’s popular services.Huawei’s developer program is aimed at cultivating a community to populate its app store, which is essential for the company to remain a global leader in the smartphone space.

    One reason for this is, beyond the price and technical specs of the device, the appeal of a smartphone is also tied to the robustness of the app ecosystem that users will have access to — in the US, 90% of users’ smartphone screen time is spent in apps. If Huawei can offer popular local apps on its new devices, which won’t have Google services, it will better appeal to consumers and reduce the likelihood of them turning to competitors.

    However, given the importance of this app ecosystem for Huawei’s future growth, the company should be even more active in attracting developers to its platform. This could include higher commissions than those offered by Google or Apple, as well as monetary incentives if apps are developed by a certain date.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/huawei-engaging-global-developers-to-build-app-ecosystem-2019-12

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