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Huawei is an electronic center that has leveraged partnerships with Google and Microsoft to strengthen its global business. But Chinese society must now face the possibility of a future without its American partners.
Microsoft on Friday removed Huawei laptops from its online store, marking the latest decision against Huawei after it was blacklisted by the US Department of Commerce on May 15 for security reasons. A spokesman for Microsoft declined to comment.
"I believe that Huawei's withdrawal from the Microsoft Store is heralding a future where Huawei, which has already left the US for phones, is spreading on top-notch PCs," said Patrick Moorhead, Senior Analyst at Moor Insights. & Strategy. Huawei's existing business requires it "to rely on US companies in the short and medium term," he added.
The company also relies on several US semiconductor companies, including Qualcomm, Intel, Nvidia and Lattice, as well as the British-American chip maker ARM, to supply parts needed to build its smartphones and laptops. Some of these chip makers would have stopped providing Huawei, but none of them has confirmed it.
"It will take China a decade to replace these capabilities," said Moorhead.
Google briefly removed Huawei's Android license on Sunday, but restored it on Tuesday after the Trump administration issued a temporary order to allow operations to continue for Huawei's existing mobile users.
Without this license, Huawei would not be able to sell smartphones with Google services, including Maps, Gmail and Google Assistant, which would essentially require the company to develop its own backup plan or risk losing market share. . Huawei laptops use Microsoft Windows. However, Microsoft has not specified whether it plans to withdraw Huawei's license to use Windows on future products.
Huawei does not take any chances. The company has just been awarded a trademark for an internal operating system by China's National Intellectual Property Administration.
A spokesman for Huawei said Fortune the operating system is a "plan B" and "very last resort".
"We prefer to use Microsoft and Google, but we have a" Plan B "that can be deployed in the first or second quarter of 2020," said the spokesman.
The operating system would be similar to what Huawei's customers in the Chinese market already see, because Google's services are banned by the country's censors. It would include the Huawei Apps Gallery store, as well as alternatives to popular Google services.
However, doubts have been expressed about the ability of Huawei, or anyone else, to effectively build an operating system capable of competing with the dominance and customer satisfaction of Android. Google's open source platform accounts for 80% of the market.
Huawei delivered 59.1 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2019, making it the second-best-selling smartphone maker in the world, just after Samsung, according to research firm IDC. At a time when smartphone sales have stagnated, Huawei has also recorded a 50.3% growth from one year to the next.
Huawei's blacklist comes as the Trump government is engaged in a growing trade war with China. Earlier this month, President Trump imposed a new round of tariffs on $ 200 billion worth of Chinese goods. China has responded with plans to increase tariffs by 35% out of 5,000 products in a wide range of sectors, including food, building materials and consumer goods.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping both said they were ready for a long fight, if necessary, without plans to back down.
Speaking at the national conference on national cyber security held in Potsdam on Thursday, Ken Hu, vice president of Huawei, warned that the blacklist of his company "sets a dangerous precedent" for consumers and businesses.
"This goes against the values of the international business world, cuts the global supply chain and disrupts fair competition in the marketplace," he said. "This could happen to any other sector or business in the future if we do not face these problems together."
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