Here is something that Google, Apple and Microsoft will all likely agree on: building an OS for thousands of variations of hardware is not easy. So when China says that it wants to build an OS to reduce its dependency on products from these three manufacturers, it is a monumental endeavor -- but one that is not impossible.
Here"s the deal. China isn’t happy with the US and already has beef with Windows 8, so to reduce its need on US-made software, it will make its own. While there are not many specifics on what China intends to start deploying in October, our guess would be that it would be a variation of Linux. Why? Well, to build an entirely new OS from scratch would take years to catch up to anything close of that of Windows or OS X, and Linux offers a shortcut to building your own desktop environments.
"We hope to launch a Chinese-made desktop operating system by October supporting app stores," Ni told the trade paper. Some Chinese OS already existed, but there was a large gap between China"s technology and that of developed countries, he added.
China hopes to start with a desktop OS and then move to smartphones utilizing a version of Android. By creating their own version of software, the goal is to reduce the fear that US based companies have built-in backdoors into their products so that the US can spy on foreign activities.
Of course, as we have seen, deploying Linux in an enterprise type setup does not always go as planned. Windows and OS X have advanced features for network management and group management, such as Active Directory on Windows, that is not as mature on a Linux setup. Still, China believes that it can work with the software to build a solution that is comparable to Microsoft, Apple, or Google"s current solutions.
China has quite a few citizens connected to the web, so if they are able to build and deploy their own OS, it could hurt the bottom line of Microsoft and others. Of course, Microsoft also said that 9/10 copies of Windows in that country are pirated, so it may not be that big of a financial hit.
Only time will tell if China is able to build and deploy its own OS and maintain the same level of productivity.
