Following today’s news (Friday 9th August) that Huawei has announced a new operating system (OS);

Lynnette Luna, Technology Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view:

“Huawei is smart to position this device as an enabler for internet of things (IoT). No one operating system (OS) is dominating there, and there is a lot of fragmentation. Still, competition such as Google and Apple have a huge head start, and the key will be convincing developers to adopt the platform.

“Over the years, many companies have tried to create that third OS only to not gain enough developer support. The mature OS platforms now have huge economies of scale, rich ecosystems and the ability to leverage their smartphones into the IoT market.

“Samsung uses its own Tizen platform for its wearables, home media devices and appliances, and is working to rally developers around Tizen and its voice assistant Bixby. Tizen has been around for a while, and Samsung is still struggling to gain developer support. Huawei does have an advantage over Samsung in that it wields a lot of market power in China. So, mass acceptance of Harmony OS-based products could convince developers to adopt the OS. However, we still have this chicken and egg problem: developers want to see mass adoption of products before they invest in a platform, while consumers want to see all of the popular applications from developers on devices before they buy them.

“Huawei is going to have to invest a lot of money and give a lot of incentives to convince developers to adopt the platform. In addition to all of this is the trust issue. This move just may end up being an OS that only dominates in China.”