Huawei’s operating system will finally arrive on cell phones on June 2. The company has announced it through a video on YouTube and this means that HarmonyOS, after being presented two years ago, will also be present on the most popular screens in the world, those of smartphones.
In June 2 we will have an event where HarmonyOS for smartphones will be presented. It remains to be seen whether the arrival of HarmonyOS for cell phones also implies the presentation of new cell phones. If not, HarmonyOS will be available for high-end phones and the latest models of the Chinese company.
HarmonyOS, although it was a project that came from before, has had a huge impact within the company since the United States decided to put Huawei on its blacklist. Being on the blacklist means that U.S. companies are now prohibited from collaborating with Huawei, which means for example that Google cannot put its services on Android phones. Harmony OS is the answer.
Previously HarmonyOS has already debuted on other devices such as Huawei’s TVs. The smartphone however is a more complex device and more features are expected, so Huawei has taken a little longer to prepare the operating system for this platform. That said, we have so far had different beta versions of Harmony OS.
U.S. sanctions have taken their toll on Huawei. Once the world’s largest handset maker, it now ranks just sixth. One quick conclusion Huawei can draw from this is that it cannot rely solely on its revenue from selling hardware. Not collaborating with U.S. companies essentially means not being able to manufacture their phones and therefore not having what to sell. The solution? For Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, software.
In an internal statement, the company’s CEO has expressed that Huawei should become a company with a major focus on software. In this way, they could alleviate the impact of U.S. sanctions. Its two main assets would be MindSpore (its artificial intelligence platform) and HarmonyOS (its operating system). Time will tell.
