So... How screwed is Huawei now?

[ultimatebob]

Google won't offer them Android updates for new products, and ARM will not help them with new processor designs.

If you were in Huawei's shoes, what would you do next? Roll your own Android version, and design your own custom processor architecture from scratch? I know that they're a big company, but I'm not sure if they have the technical chops to pull that off. Maybe they should just claim bankruptcy and reorganize as a different company.

 

[BudAshes]

Google won't offer them Android updates for new products, and ARM will not help them with new processor designs.

If you were in Huawei's shoes, what would you do next? Roll your own Android version, and design your own custom processor architecture from scratch? I know that they're a big company, but I'm not sure if they have the technical chops to pull that off. Maybe they should just claim bankruptcy and reorganize as a different company.

Step 1: Steal Technology
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!

 

[sandorski]

Could be similar to Intel locking AMD out of their Chipsets. The whole situation stinks of Legislating your competition out of existence.

 

[Red Squirrel]

They're a big Chinese megacorporation, and they don't care about patents or other IP laws and can do what they want. They'll be fine. Not to mention they are backed by the Chinese government as their main purpose to exist in North America is to spy. The Chinese are just going to keep a couple more people hostage in their torture chambers as collateral. And isin't Android open source? I'm sure they can get it on there anyway even if Google is telling them not to. As for chipsets, they *MAKE* the chipsets in China. They'll find a factory willing to make one for them and that's that.

What would hurt them slightly is to simply ban their devices and telecom gear here. Let them continue to make it, just don't allow companies here to sell/use it. The real money is in the cellular base station radios and other equipment and those are going up like nobody's business.

 

[ultimatebob]

The base Android OS is open source, but all of the branding for it is not. Also, all of the connectors to the various Google services like search, maps, and the Play Store are proprietary.

So, yeah, you can make your own "Android like" OS like Amazon did with Fire OS. You'll need your own app store, search engine, and media players, though.

 

[manly]

They already have their own ARM SoC. They could easily fork Android, as the huge Chinese market uses home-grown app stores (typically third-party) and services. But this won't really do them any good in non-Chinese markets, which rely on Google Play for app distribution.

This is all a sideshow anyway. The problem isn't that they are a top phone vendor; it's that the world is planning to roll out 5G wireless networks with their carrier grade equipment. Although the U.S. may have legitimate doubts about how independent Huawei truly is from the Chinese Communist government, has there ever been any proof of wrongdoing?

A year ago, the Trump admin gave ZTE the death sentence but ultimately negotiated a settlement against Senators' objections. I wouldn't be surprised if the Huawei ban is just a trade war bargaining tactic, but it isn't likely to succeed if European countries happily deploy Huawei telecom gear.

Red Squirrel sounds like a spokesperson for the Trump administration.

Edit:
Didn't realize ARM is pulling their license. So Huawei will just buy SoCs from Mediatek instead.

 

[pmv]

I am constantly surprised that international commerce and tech functions as well as it does, given the obvious grounds for mutual distrust.

The attack on Iran's nuclear program, for example, apparently involved multiple zero-day exploits in Windows. MS does development work in Israel, does it not?
I would have expected any state at loggerheads with the US or its allies to be very wary of using MS or other US tech products.

Likewise with Chinese made phones or routers etc being used in sensitive Western contexts.

I'm surprised the whole system doesn't grind to a halt with everyone wanting to invent their own secure O/S and hardware.

 

[ultimatebob]

Don't forget that Huawei makes their own ARM based server processors as well. That's going to be a problem now that they can't get a technology license from ARM anymore.

Maybe they're just clone the technology, make just enough changes so it doesn't look like blatant copyright infringement, and then call it something else to shirt around the patents. "Red Dragon" processors and "DragonOS" kinda sound cool

 

[Red Squirrel]

Red Star OS mobile edition.

 

[BudAshes]

I am constantly surprised that international commerce and tech functions as well as it does, given the obvious grounds for mutual distrust.

The attack on Iran's nuclear program, for example, apparently involved multiple zero-day exploits in Windows. MS does development work in Israel, does it not?
I would have expected any state at loggerheads with the US or its allies to be very wary of using MS or other US tech products.

Likewise with Chinese made phones or routers etc being used in sensitive Western contexts.

I'm surprised the whole system doesn't grind to a halt with everyone wanting to invent their own secure O/S and hardware.

Yeah it is kind of funny that we are always pointing the finger at China when we know the US is as bad as anyone at spying/sabotage. There are just less blatant links between our government and our corporations.

 

[TXHokie]

Huawei started out stealing IP left and right. It copied Cisco so blatantly back then it didn’t even bother to change the menu or the misspelling in the manual. It also hacked and stole much of Nortel IP and backed by the state used predatory pricing to run Nortel out of business. It can stand up its own mobile OS but would be tough to get developers to support it outside of China. It’s already a pain to support Apple and Android apps ecosystem as is. That’s what killed off Blackberry - good hardware but no app. Plus I wouldn’t trust a Chinese company to maintain user security and data privacy and keep itself separate from the Chinese Communist government. Besides if I had to choose being spied on by US or Chinese govt, I’ll take the US side.

 

[Fritzo]

They'll just make a product called "Andoid" and make fake versions of everything...the way the Chinese tend to do.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

They're a big Chinese megacorporation, and they don't care about patents or other IP laws and can do what they want. They'll be fine. Not to mention they are backed by the Chinese government as their main purpose to exist in North America is to spy. The Chinese are just going to keep a couple more people hostage in their torture chambers as collateral. And isin't Android open source? I'm sure they can get it on there anyway even if Google is telling them not to. As for chipsets, they *MAKE* the chipsets in China. They'll find a factory willing to make one for them and that's that.

What would hurt them slightly is to simply ban their devices and telecom gear here. Let them continue to make it, just don't allow companies here to sell/use it. The real money is in the cellular base station radios and other equipment and those are going up like nobody's business.

Didn't Verizon or somebody find a bunch of obvious exploits in Huawei telecom gear and then shrug and order a bunch of it anyway because of how cheap it is?

 

[WelshBloke]

So they have a ton of patents for 5G and a load for other networking and mobile phone stuff.
Does this mean that US companies are not allowed to license that stuff off them?

 

[Rifter]

Who cares, after what they did to nortel they can rot in freaking hell for all i care. I hope they go bankrupt.

 

[Raincity]

They already have their own ARM SoC. They could easily fork Android, as the huge Chinese market uses home-grown app stores (typically third-party) and services. But this won't really do them any good in non-Chinese markets, which rely on Google Play for app distribution.

This is all a sideshow anyway. The problem isn't that they are a top phone vendor; it's that the world is planning to roll out 5G wireless networks with their carrier grade equipment. Although the U.S. may have legitimate doubts about how independent Huawei truly is from the Chinese Communist government, has there ever been any proof of wrongdoing?

A year ago, the Trump admin gave ZTE the death sentence but ultimately negotiated a settlement against Senators' objections. I wouldn't be surprised if the Huawei ban is just a trade war bargaining tactic, but it isn't likely to succeed if European countries happily deploy Huawei telecom gear.

Red Squirrel sounds like a spokesperson for the Trump administration.

Edit:
Didn't realize ARM is pulling their license. So Huawei will just buy SoCs from Mediatek instead.

Mobile phone sales are huge in China and SE Asia and its a big market Apple, Samsung,LG hold the least in those market.. If some entity was to clone Google Play Google Services and call it their own. I am sure companies like Facebook, Grab share , Paypal that are huge in that market will develop on the new platform.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I won't be buying any of their products, but as mentioned. They're trying to infiltrate networks by undercutting the competition in price. There are quite a few towns, cities, counties, and private phone companies that buy equipment without asking security questions. It ends up putting anyone on those networks at risk. Implementation costs make it difficult to remedy once the mistake is made.

 

[pmv]

Huawei started out stealing IP left and right. It copied Cisco so blatantly back then it didn’t even bother to change the menu or the misspelling in the manual. It also hacked and stole much of Nortel IP and backed by the state used predatory pricing to run Nortel out of business. It can stand up its own mobile OS but would be tough to get developers to support it outside of China. It’s already a pain to support Apple and Android apps ecosystem as is. That’s what killed off Blackberry - good hardware but no app. Plus I wouldn’t trust a Chinese company to maintain user security and data privacy and keep itself separate from the Chinese Communist government. Besides if I had to choose being spied on by US or Chinese govt, I’ll take the US side.

The Chinese lack of respect for IP is absolutely a legitimate gripe, though I would point out the US also didn't pay much attention to foreign copyright and patent laws in its early years of development. It seems like another way in which China is echoing the early history of the US (along with building a continental empire by pursuing its 'manifest destiny' at the expense of the other ethnic groups on the continent, almost to the point of genocide). I guess I just hope that China changes its ways at some point, as it gets wealthier with a more educated population, as the US mostly did.

I agree that I'd marginally prefer US snooping to Chinese, but as a non-American I find that a slightly closer call.

And in any case my original point wasn't so much about the actual degree of snooping that each country engages in, rather just that its a weird situation in that none of the different global powers have much reason to trust each other (I might have at least a bit of trust in the US system, but I don't see any reason at all to expect Iran or China or Russia to see it that way) - yet everyone is emeshed in a global economic and technological system that won't really function unless everyone maintains some degree of trust.

It's just a wonder to me that things work as well as they do, given we have a global techno-economic system in a world that is politically bitterly divided.

 

[manly]

Mobile phone sales are huge in China and SE Asia and its a big market Apple, Samsung,LG hold the least in those market.. If some entity was to clone Google Play Google Services and call it their own. I am sure companies like Facebook, Grab share , Paypal that are huge in that market will develop on the new platform.

You're missing the point. Where Huawei sells tens of millions of units (in China), Google is already banned. So while Chinese phones use the Android OS, they already have their own app stores. Furthermore, Facebook and most other Western social networks are banned in China. So Huawei doesn't have to do much to maintain their status quo in Asia. They'll lose the EU market.

I won't be buying any of their products, but as mentioned. They're trying to infiltrate networks by undercutting the competition in price. There are quite a few towns, cities, counties, and private phone companies that buy equipment without asking security questions. It ends up putting anyone on those networks at risk. Implementation costs make it difficult to remedy once the mistake is made.

I think these are fair reasons to be extremely wary of Huawei telecom gear, but where's the proof of espionage? I understand the NSA likely won't tell us any secrets they have discovered, but Western nations operate on the rule of law, not innuendo and baseless fear-mongering. Why are most of our allies allowing their wireless carriers to roll out Huawei 5G gear?

I agree with all of the IP theft concerns expressed in this thread, but those are not central to the "national security" issues that are used to justify the total ban.

As as unrelated example, Bloomberg reported months ago that the Chinese govt had infiltrated production of Supermicro motherboards. But Bloomberg was unable to offer a single example of a board that had been exploited. Experts nearly unanimously stated that while this attack vector is theoretically possible, it's not very logical as it leaves physical evidence behind. Much better and easier to hack the out-of-band BMC or Intel Management Engine.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I am constantly surprised that international commerce and tech functions as well as it does, given the obvious grounds for mutual distrust.

The attack on Iran's nuclear program, for example, apparently involved multiple zero-day exploits in Windows. MS does development work in Israel, does it not?
I would have expected any state at loggerheads with the US or its allies to be very wary of using MS or other US tech products.

Likewise with Chinese made phones or routers etc being used in sensitive Western contexts.

I'm surprised the whole system doesn't grind to a halt with everyone wanting to invent their own secure O/S and hardware.

The answer is easy. Money over everything. They only care about security as long as it doesn't interfere with profits. People can say 'but but' all they want but that is exactly why everything is made in china.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The answer is easy. Money over everything. They only care about security as long as it doesn't interfere with profits. People can say 'but but' all they want but that is exactly why everything is made in china.

Sadly the truth. Considering the horrible human rights issue China and other countries like SA we do business with have, it's pretty safe to say that most companies don't actually care about that stuff, they sometimes pretend to, and they'll be all wishy washy about how they might have donated to a cause or did some kind of community service, but at the end of the day they only care about money and it's never enough. Those things are just PR stunts. It's the capitalist mindset, you never have enough money and you have to do everything in your power to keep making more for your share holders and it's the only thing that matters. Most companies don't actually care at all about their product or their customers, or anyone. Just money. The amount of corruption that happens just because of money is sickening.

The sad part is the majority of people are ok with that. "They're a company they're suppose to make money" is typically the answer.

 

[Sgt. York]

Uh, don't you think it's a good idea for companies to make money?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Uh, don't you think it's a good idea for companies to make money?

Calm down enabler. No one said that

 

[pmv]

Uh, don't you think it's a good idea for companies to make money?

I'd rather they produced real value and met human needs. That's not synonymous with making money. Otherwise you'd have to be applauding the mafia. They make a lot of money.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Uh, don't you think it's a good idea for companies to make money?

Not at the expense of being reasonable. They can make money but they don't have to be greedy to the point of being evil, either. Once companies go public they just turn 100% evil, and no amount of money is enough. They no longer care about anything else. This should not be considered acceptable, but it is by many because it is capitalism and for whatever reason people praise that.