Update: Huawei Issued Waiver by U.S. to Continue Software Updates & Hardware Maintenance
by Andrei Frumusanu on May 20, 2019 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Huawei
Update 05/20, 9pm: Following last week's ban and Google's suspension of business operations with Huawei, the U.S. Commerce Department has issued a new waiver for the company to continue purchasing limited goods from U.S. companies for maintenance purposes. Under the 90 day waiver, Huawei will be allowed to purchase hardware and software services to maintain current infrastructure as well as provide software updates for existing Huawei Android devices. As noted by Reuters, however, Huawei is still banned from buying parts and equipment for manufacturing new devices – meaning that as things currently stand, the company can only keep building affected products until their stockpiles run out.
While the waiver itself is initially only for 90 days, it can be extended as necessary by the U.S. Government.
Update 05/20: Huawei this morning has responded to reports and the U.S. Commerce Department’s ban, issuing the following statement:
Huawei has made substantial contributions to the development and growth of Android around the world. As one of Android’s key global partners, we have worked closely with their open-source platform to develop an ecosystem that has benefitted both users and the industry.
Huawei will continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphone and tablet products, covering those that have been sold and that are still in stock globally.
We will continue to build a safe and sustainable software ecosystem, in order to provide the best experience for all users globally.
This answers one of the most important questions for the moment – what happens to support for current devices – however it remains to be seen what this means for new Huawei smartphones, particularly the Honor 20, which is launching tomorrow.
Original: According to a recent report by Reuters, sources claim that Google is to suspend some business operations with Huawei due to the U.S. Commerce Department’s blacklisting of the company earlier in the week on Thursday.
Huawei is said to lose access to non-open source software and services provided by Google, which in layman terms means essentially all Google services besides baseline Android. Losing access to the Play Store would be a major blow to Huawei’s mobile operations besides the Chinese market where Google doesn’t operate any services.
Huawei will continue to have access to the version of the Android operating system available through the open source license that is freely open to anyone who wishes to use it.
But Google will stop providing any technical support and collaboration for Android and Google services to Huawei going forward, the source said.
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Source: Reuters
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s.yu - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link
Technically Huawei's private, but they're probably the "private" company most tied to the Party on this planet. In China, ownership status doesn't matter in the way it does in the rest of the world, because laws and policies are more flexible which enables the Party to enact its will very effectively. If your services are needed, there's no way to say no, not to mention Huawei had close ties to the Party from the very beginning and has always been very loyal to the Party.Yojimbo - Thursday, May 23, 2019 - link
Wikipedia says the shares are held by a trade union committee that is representative of the employees. But those shares are nontradable, have no voting rights - except to select from among pre-selected candidates for a "Representatives' Commission", which I am guessing has little power anyway - and must be relinquished upon dismissal (and I presume death) of an employee. This makes it sound to me like some sort of way to hand out yearly bonuses through "dividends" and service bonuses payable upon retirement while simultaneously allowing the claim to be made that it is employee owned, no matter how ridiculous that claim seems to be if the details on Wikipedia are accurate. In any case, the employees do not have any rights or powers that would be consistent with the usual definition of "ownership". It doesn't even sound like the shares are in any way indicative of the value of the company. How could it be? If 99% of the shares are held thus where would they get the money to pay for employee turnover if the share values accurately represented the value of the company? New employees would need to buy into the company with their own money for it to make any sense. In any case, I don't see any way for any other entity to invest in the company. But surely someone must be in charge to allow it to happen. The employees representative commission? And who pre-selects and controls that commission? So then who does own it? Who has the actual rights and powers? I think we know the answer.Yojimbo - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link
They demand to have "equal footing" in trade negotiations. I guess that means the right to take advantage of someone without being told they must stop by the party they are taking advantage of. At the same time they demand to be considered a developing nation by the WTO so they have access to special loans, then loan out money to other countries, including developed countries like Italy, for infrastructure investment. It's called gaming the system and it's great as long as everyone lets you get away with it.HardwareDufus - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
We have 3 Huawei Mate 10 LItes in our family. They are Dual Sim. 1 sim for Cricket/AT&T (USA) and 1 sim for Telcel (Mexico). I spend about 6 months in Mexico each year and when in the USA I live 30 minutes from the border and cross often (affordable dental and great Pozole in Mexico). I have a Sentry Pass so crossing is minutes. So, when I'm in Mexico, I'll just move the Telcel to Sim1 (faster 4G) and Cricket/AT&T to Sim2 and get my updates.That said, my phone received an update here in the USA on Saturday.
willis936 - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
I work at a test house. The lab director sent out an email that was in legalese saying to halt testing of Huawei devices while this is in effect.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, May 21, 2019 - link
I suspect that one reason why Google didn't put up a big fight when ordered to stop supplying Huawei with its software is that it didn't have that much to loose. Not that long ago, the Chinese government's insistence to tightly control internet searches led to Google leaving the Chinese search market, so they don't have that much at stake now. That's one of the big upsides of reasonably free international trade: hitting another country also hurts your own country's businesses.Yojimbo - Thursday, May 23, 2019 - link
The measure is strongly supported by both Congress and the Executive Branch and by both major political parties. It is supported by accusations of national security concerns by US intelligence agencies and it comes via a declared national emergency. I imagine if Google were to try to put up a fight against such a thing they would comply first, and then try to lobby behind closed doors.lejeczek - Thursday, May 23, 2019 - link
SwitfKey keyboard - can anybody rid of if it on Huawei smart phones and put back original Google's keyboard?It always felt to me like overaggressive to force users to this software while not allowing users to remove it. Sometimes I think that Chinese(some) are not just crazy about spying and stealing but also are simply dumb - for how do they not realize that pushing & pressing people can only backfire.