Huawei has been planning for possible legal action against the company by the US government for some time. On the mobile side of things, this has meant that the company has been developing its own alternative to Android for years.
Huawei"s worst nightmare finally came true last month, and with the US government placing it on an export blacklist, the Chinese company may finally be forced to switch its phones to this operating system.
There have been conflicting reports over the last few weeks regarding whether the OS will be called Hongmeng OS or Ark OS, or if there will be some bifurcation in the branding inside and outside China. Now, we know the answer. Reuters is reporting that Huawei has filed trademark applications for Hongmeng OS in up to nine countries in Europe, as well as a similar appeal in Peru, indicating that the OS, if it does come to light, will be known by the Hongmeng moniker.
The company has also started trying to lure developers into its own app store, AppGallery, as it no doubt tries to furnish a substantial app library for its OS before revealing it to the public.
The trademark filings were all made in mid- to late-May, right after the US instituted its new rules preventing American companies from doing business with the phone maker.
The result of these legal challenges by the US has been significant. Huawei has already had to halt some of the production lines for its smartphones and also stopped the production of development of its notebook PCs, which this week resulted in the company having to indefinitely postpone the launch of its newest MateBook laptop. Huawei"s plans to become the largest smartphone maker in the world by the end of the year, something that was almost taken as a given at the start of 2019, have also been affected, as the company reassesses the feasibility of its objective in light of the current situation.
Source: Reuters