Huawei to dump Windows for PCs in favor of its own HarmonyOS Huawei's current PCs are the last it will make that run Windows, and future machines will run its own HarmonyOS instead, according to the chair of the Chinese giant's consumer business group, Yu Chengdong. Yu's remarks were made in a Friday interview, in which he also talked up HarmonyOS Next – the version of the OS that is …
"built without Linux, and won't run Android apps. Huawei promotes the OS as offering superior performance and security."
This laptop can't run any software built for any operating system, has no i/o and no network support.
Ironically comes with McAffee pre-installed
Outstanding progress under the benevolent and enlightened leadership of the MPP exceeding even the ambitious digitalisation targets of the previous five year plan.
In other news from important nations at 115 E, the Honourable Jackie Jarvis announced that live sheep export numbers are broadly in line with her government's forward looking planning white paper.
Up till now HarmonyOS has been Android/Linux with (extensive) crap on top, though they still claimed it was 'their own' totally Chinese homegrown OS all along.
Now they're 'replacing' Linux and Android with 'their own' microkernel wink wink wink. So like the Chinese space program it will totally not be mostly 'borrowed' tech from NASA/ESA and this will totally not be Linux/Android with the serial numbers filed off.
HarmonyOS from the outset was a multi-kernel system.
Only phones and tablets had anything to do Android/Linux so the rest was 'its own'. Routers, wearables, TVs...
Major HarmonyOS changes were still present in the Android based systems. I believe the entire network stack was taken from 'pure' HarmonyOS in order to improve connectivity, speed of connection and stability. And IIRC one of the current Android file system options was also created at Huawei.
Now the Android/Linux part is being phased out on Chinese phones and tablets with HarmonyOS NEXT.
Huawei may be only 10% of the China PC market, but if they are successful in selling Windows free PCs there they will offer/license their OS to other China PC OEMs and it could quickly become the China standard or one of several non-Microsoft PC standards.
If Microsoft loses 40 million PC licenses a year that's probably about as big as when Intel lost 20 million CPU sales a year when Apple dropped x86 on the Mac (because those 20 million were higher end it probably equated to 40 million CPUs at their ASP)
What's more it would give ideas to India. That's a small market by comparison, but probably where Microsoft has been hoping a lot of future growth would come from.
Yup, it will be a major blow if the CCP decide that it is to become the defacto system for anyone wishing to use the banking, medical, voting etc systems.
Huawei are easily capable of making necessary party required changes to a kernel especially when backed by the state. 1st block all Comms then slowly add in the state authorized channels ..
A new platinum sponsor for Wine?
Huawei's proprietary microkernel would be interesting to examine - Huawei must believe it's performance is reasonably decent. Still I wouldn't be entirely sure that it hadn't been half inched from somewhere else. :)
In theory, the microkernel is FOSS, is handled by the "OpenAtom Foundation", a chinese non-profit that manages it and other FOSS projects in china. Said foundation has a cooperation agreement with the Eclipse Foundation.
Take that as you may.
The good thing for Huawei, and many of the other memebers of the foundation, is that they control the hardware (for example, Huawei makes their own processors), so, for them is the same effort to do a driver for HarmonyOS as it is to do a driver for Windows or Linux
And, the OpenAtom foundation is leaning heavily onto Risc-V
Agaim take this as you may.
The Eclipse/Open Atom collaboration, IIRC, pertains to 'OpenHarmony' (the open source version of HarmonyOS) which forms the base of many different operating systems (many for specialised use cases). For example Eclipse Foundation is working on OniroOS which uses OpenHarmony.
Nice to see how Korea (Republic) is #4 while North Korea (DPRK) is #184, but I'm not sure what to make of China (#35) that is just below France (#34), and Russia (#43) that is above Canada (#47) and Belgium (#56) (Mongolia is #46 as noted in TFA).
The UN's E-Government concept may not properly differentiate between services and mass surveillance IMHO ...
Don't you just love it when someone touts the utility of an OS?
Strange to say, but every user I've ever met thinks that APPLICATIONS are the reason they use a computer!!!
This applies whether it's a gamer, or a business user, or even someone managing a server.
So the question for "HarmonyOS" is simple: What applications can it run?
....if the answer DOES NOT INCLUDE email, office suites, familiar web browsers....and so on....then HarmonyOS is just pathetic marketing!
Try to run the same app (say, libreoffice) in windows, mac and linux, and tell me if the OS makes a difference or not.
try to program a non-trivial application in windows, mac and linux, and tell me where it is easier.
the os can have virtues, both for users and programmers.
companies would be foolish not to extoll said virtues.
Well, if you were along for the ride since 2019 when HarmonyOS was first officially presented there was a lot to tout in terms of utility, and since then all the pieces have been developing and falling into place.
It's not fully there yet but obviously they are trying hard and yes, there is an email service and client. As for a familiar browser, that depends on what you mean by familiar. Huawei Browser is certainly familiar to people in China and that's a huge market. There is a native office suite too.
Utility-wise, it is a pretty good stab at just that with the idea of distributed services, distributed file systems, distributed authentication etc. The idea being that a device can pool its hardware features as services to other devices, seamlessly, quickly and in a stable fashion. Perfect for IoT.
For HarmonyOS NEXT, Huawei said it needed 5,000 native key apps to cover 90% of key user needs at launch. Today it announced that 10,000 are ready and will cover 99.9% of their requirements.
This year HarmonyOS overtook iOS in China.
Huawei also said this week that it has developed HarmonyOS to its current state in what took Apple and Google 17 years to achieve.
There is still a lot of work (and polish) to be done but it seems to be shaping up nicely. Even going places where Apple and Google still haven't: Car integration at a deep level.
The kernel has the highest security certifications of any consumer device kernel if I'm not mistaken but I haven't dug into that.
@Avon_B7
Link: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/huawei-long-awaited-windows-challenger-will-likely-come-to-pcs-this-year
Quote: "HarmonyOS Next hasn't yet arrived on PC, but recent leaks suggest it soon will, paving the way for a new Chinese homegrown desktop OS."
Thanks for the information about the wonders of HarmonyOS.
......but I can't download an ISO and try it out! And much of the Huawei information seems to have additional drawbacks from my perspective:
(1) Plenty of talk that HarmonyOS is only available to "developers"
(2) Plenty of talk that HarmonyOS is targeted at smartphones and Huawei computers
(3) Plenty of talk that HarmonyOS is trying to look like Apple
So.....it does look like the wonders of HarmonyOS are VERY distant for this interested consumer....even just to try it out on some unused PCs lying around the place.
Neither HarmonyOS NEXT nor HarmonyOS for PCs have been released yet.
HarmonyOS NEXT is available to registered developers and is in Beta. Release is scheduled for Q4. At first, a limited range of devices will be supported with a wider roll out to older devices coming later. Just like with every HarmonyOS release.
"HarmonyOS NEXT abandons all traditional foreign elements. It has the first microkernel which is 3 times more efficient than Linux. This kernel is highly secure and has qualified for various industry-higher-level certifications.
HarmonyOS native apps claim to deliver high-quality renderings, faster transitions, more fluent task completion, easy-to-use features, and a comprehensive experience.
During the HDC 2024 event, the Chairman of Huawei Consumer Business Yu Chengdong said HarmonyOS exceeded 900+ million installations.
HarmonyOS NEXT app count exceeds 10000. The figure includes both apps and meta-services.
Input reveals the company has covered 18 vertical domains to develop native apps. As a result, HarmonyOS NEXT apps can meet 99.9% of consumers’ usage time needs. The company adapted 470+ SDKs to HarmonyOS NEXT. This ultimately lessens the app development workload by 90%.
After the HarmonyOS NEXT beta launch (2024), the company kicked off over 6 versions. It also received 1 million+ feedback and suggestions.
Huawei, with the company reportedly allocating 6 billion yuan ($851 million) annually to attract developers. This commitment, combined with over 6.75 million (a 10 times increase in 5 years) registered developers on the HUAWEI Developer Programs, is fueling the expansion of the HarmonyOS app landscape.
900+ million devices already run on HarmonyOS, HarmonyOS has already outperformed iOS in Q1 2024 in China."
HC
* History of development - 5 mil lines of code - v3.0 26 mil - v4.0 100 mil.
Android itself has about 30% of Huawei contributed code, developed while they cooperated together. Since they parted away, Android has visibly stagnated in its development, which we can attribute to Huawei's non-participation in it.
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