Huawei's Ren Zhengfei Calls for Focus on HarmonyOS and Software Businesses

Technology Author: 马渭淞 Editor: 张宇喆 May 30, 2021 04:35 PM (GMT+8)

On May 30, in an internal memo, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei called on the company's employees to dare to lead the world in the software field, thus gaining greater independence and autonomy while the company is actively seeking growth outside its hardware business.

Huawei logo

In face of external constraints on hardware production, Huawei is endeavoring to focus on building its software products, such as the operating system HarmonyOS, full scene AI computing framework Mindspore and other IT products. 

On May 25, Huawei EMUI updated a message on the official blog, saying that it would officially be renamed to 'HarmonyOS' and indicating that EMUI was about complete its mission and formally leave the stage.

In addition, according to Xinhua News, Huawei will hold an online press conference on June 2 to officially announce the launch of the Harmony OS operating system that covers mobile phones and other mobile terminals, which would be the first time that the system is formally incorporated into smartphones after the official announcement of the Harmony operating system in 2019.

Despite Huawei's positive attitude, the industry is still casting doubt on the operating system. OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi and Lenovo haven't indicated they would participate in the Harmony OS system. The senior executive of OPPO's public relations department even tweeted on May 25 that Huawei developed the Harmony OS system upon the template of AOSP. The basic version is so rudimentary that the cost of adaptation and maintenance is enormous. For this reason, he is not optimistic about the Harmony OS system.

On May 28, Meizu Technology, the only domestic mobile phone manufacturer supporting the Harmony OS system, issued a new poster on its microblog, with the words "Hello, Harmony OS" under its circular lighting pattern. 

Huawei estimates that the number of devices equipped with the Harmony OS operating system will reach 300 million by the end of 2021, including more than 200 million Huawei devices and more than 100 million terminal devices for third-party partners.