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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Calabros - Sunday, May 19, 2019 - link
China will have the right to spy and dominate the world, but they need to bend the knee. Respect the rules, and then do whatever you like to do.Lord of the Bored - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
'S right! They have to pay tribute!webdoctors - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
Huawei doesn't even let you unlock the bootloader so you can't even load your own ROMs if the official ones are locked out. Its like they purposely shoot themselves in the foot.s.yu - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
Actually >90% of users probably won't even flash another ROM even if it's unlocked in the first place, so that's a puny caliber shot in the foot.david@van.dromme.net - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
The USA, in all it's hypocrisy needs to re-think a bit what they are doing. A very large percentage of technology is manufactured in China. They have the production know how and -capacity. The USA for sure no longer has that right now. This could seriously backfire if the Chinese suddenly decide no longer to deliver phones/tablets/motherboards/switches/chipsets/etc..., that are being produced largely in China & Taiwan, to the USA. All this posturing and taxing could lead to a point where even China would say: we don't care about the US market anymore. China has a large enough market in the rest of the world, not to mention China itself. Trump is acting like an 8 year old bully who doesn't get what he wants. This could all return like a boomerang into the US's face - and it won't be Trump eating the beans for it, it will be the US citizens! In the mean time, the Russians are having a good laugh about all this posturing and will take advantage of the situation. Besides: they are accusing Huawei of spying? What the hell does the US do? Let's not be naïve. Anybody ever heard of patriot act? I wouldn't be surprised the NSA, CIA, FBI are responsible for more backdoors and spying than the Chinese are.Vitor - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
You know Taiwan is an independent country, right? As much as the commies from mainland China hate that fact.s.yu - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
"The USA, in all it's hypocrisy"?China's GDP by PPP is higher than the US, its authoritarian government is very wealthy through high taxes, it has had a high customs barrier before and after it joined the WTO, and actively throws money behind many local companies giving them unfair advantage in global competition, and when Huawei (which enjoys unlimited debts from one of China's policy banks, among other government subsidies) gets banned they whine about obstruction of free trade.
WOFE?
david@van.dromme.net - Monday, May 20, 2019 - link
I know Taiwan is officially an "independent country", but unfortunately not 100% so - even if I and they would absolutely like that. I know Foxconn is a very large company - but much of its manufacturing capacity is currently still concentrated in China, even when they invested in Winconsin - that plant isn't ready for mass production yet. Just my 2 cents : Trump is alienating a lot of people at the moment and it will NOT be good for the US citizens if he continues this way. I'm not writing anything about China and it's authoritarian regime being a "good" thing. It's not like I even want to be positive about that. The only thing I'm stating is that the US needs to keep mind that - at the moment - they most likely do NOT have the know how and production capacity/knowledge anymore and they are really very dependent of China and Taiwan right now. In that position I wouldn't be storming around like an elephant in a porcelain store breaking whatever improvement of relations there is/was with such a big nation who would really be just as capable to say at some point: frell off, we can do without the US.s.yu - Tuesday, May 21, 2019 - link
I agree that it's really, really helped China play the victim here, both domestically and internationally, but currently China's export-oriented economy doesn't allow it to decouple from the US.Yojimbo - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link
David, do you think China is going to voluntarily not ship their products to the US? And if they don't have access to American technology products much of their own technology industry gets stuck in the mud, so it's not a game they would want to play even if they were willing to forgo the $500 billion a year in sales.In any case, it's been China that has been alienating people. They used carrots and sticks to buy off the CEOs and other wealthy elites while the rest of Americans were taken advantage of, but even those CEOs are now getting fed up because the promises made were never kept and all they see now is competition from protected Chinese companies with the technology they provided and still no true access to the markets they salivated over. At this moment, China are the ones that can't do without the US. Prices will certainly go up for the US, and the rest of the world, without China. But there are things that China needs that they cannot get without American companies.
Also, I know the CIA lies a lot, but don't dismiss the real possibility of security issues with Huawei equipment. Frankly, it's foolish for anyone to put such equipment in their infrastructure when the company is state owned and must answer to the CCP, an authoritarian regime. The only reason that it's passed so far is because people's greed has got the best of them.