Seven years ago, Ren Zhengfei said that if they suddenly cut off our food, Android and Window Phone 8 would not be used for us, would we be stupid?

Finally, seven years later, in March this year, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business, said again: if Android doesn't give me a door one day, we still have a plan B.

While spectators are still talking about Huawei's sudden Plan B, Alphabet Inc-CL C of the United States sounded the bugle of the Internet debate. On May 19th, Alphabet Inc-CL C said: stop authorizing Huawei's Android. Before waiting for visitors to sort out their thoughts, on May 23rd, the latest news from the British company ARM said that it was complying with all the regulations laid down by the US government. In other words, Huawei is threatened by hardware chips as well as Alphabet Inc-CL C's restrictions on system software.

As the saying goes, God closes one door and opens another window for you. But it is not God that opens another window for Huawei, but itself.

In late May, Huawei Hongmeng operating system brand was announced to the public. Today, seven years later, in the face of Alphabet Inc-CL C's strong ban on Android, Huawei complied with the trend and launched the long-planned Plan B plan, sounding the bugle of the system battle. In fact, the system debate is nothing new.

Saipan who has not kept pace with the times

As early as the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, when 2Compact 3G was still popular, Nokia functional phones contracted almost all the data traffic of that era. Symbian, which was born in that era and attached to Nokia's functional phones, rightly became the biggest winner of that era.

However, in the face of the change of opportunities in the high-speed and convenient 4G smartphone era, Symbian's lengthy underlying code, complex and tedious architecture, boring mode of operation, all the features are very much like an out-of-date star, always can not get rid of their idol baggage, and eventually inevitably follow the fall of the Nokia dynasty and die on the eve of 4G. In this way, the popular superstar Symbian system was finally run over under the rolling wheel of history.

At the other end of the scale, Alphabet Inc-CL C's Android system smelled life, and it quickly occupied the highland of intelligent systems. Diversified open source concept, interesting mode of operation, gorgeous system interface and other elements, Alphabet Inc-CL C attracted many brands of smartphones to follow, but also accumulated a huge user ecological group for these smartphones. Android has become a must for most smartphones because of its open source technology. After that, it sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, deeply rooted in the major smartphones.

A BlackBerry that goes its own way

A high-standard niche market is a piece of gold, which can be dug deep, but not eaten alone.

BlackBerry with its own strict system architecture, efficient operating system is the era, the well-deserved king, occupied a variety of advantages of BlackBerry, successfully harvested the hearts of a large number of users. However, its arrogant niche positioning makes it difficult for it to lower its profile and launch a flagship model that can be applied to the masses and influence the world.

In this way, the user market is shrinking, which makes BlackBerry app developers see no hope, gradually less BlackBerry updates and progress. The BlackBerry attached to the niche market is like a singing cicada living on dew and tree sap, but it will not survive that summer. In the end, BlackBerry, stuck in a niche market, became an outcast in the Internet age.

BABA Yun OS, who ran out of ammunition.

Then, the good show is staged one after another, some people sing well, others must sing bad, even though you are BABA is no exception. BABA Yun OS, who grew up with a golden spoon, opened the curtain of the domestic system drama in a high profile.

As early as July 28th of 2011, BABA launched BABA Yun OS based on Linux. This system is different from Baidu, Inc. Cloud OS and XIAOMI MIUI-BABA Yun OS is not based on Android changes, but belongs to a relatively independent system. In September 2012, BABA invested 200 million US dollars to upgrade BABA Yun OS to strategy and products. But the system without a manufacturer as a carrier is incomplete, so BABA and Meizu, who has always been at odds with Alphabet Inc-CL C and Qualcomm Inc, have a low-key marriage, just for a better blockbuster.

In this way, in 2015, the Meizu phone carrying BABA Yun OS went on sale, and then they tasted the benefits from the system war. Good news: in 2015, BABA's new Yun OS users increased by 700% compared with the same period last year; in the first quarter of 2016, it added 17 million users. At the same time, Meizu shipments accounted for 16.08% of the domestic smartphone market. This is a success for BABA Yun OS, which at that time was the third largest mobile operating system after Android and IOS, but Meizu's market and BABA's appeal in the system field have become a major hidden danger for the follow-up development of Ali Yun OS.

Finally, due to the technical closure of a large number of applications of BABA Yun OS by Alphabet Inc-CL C in the second half of 2016, BABA Yun OS was seriously blocked in the mobile market. In addition, under the double blow from Qualcomm Inc and Alphabet Inc-CL C, in September 2017, BABA Yun OS changed its name to AliOS and moved to the IoT field, followed by the launch of AliOS Things, a lightweight Internet of things embedded operating system for IoT.

Have a full house, Kai OS.

Kai OS, which was born in 2017, with its low price and the help of Alphabet Inc-CL C, has become the second largest mobile operating system in India after Android in just one year.

Firefox OS, the predecessor of Kai OS, is a smartphone operating system that dares to compete with Android and iOS. According to the current situation, it lost. In the follow-up development, Kai OS changed its position, and it moved to India. With its own system with lower requirements for memory and hardware, manufacturers that provided themselves with a large number of processors are no longer limited by Qualcomm Inc's "squeeze"; because of this, the prices of mobile phones equipped with Kai OS system are relatively low, which also attracts many followers named users for Kai OS.

In this way, the low-end smartphone market was gradually eroded by Kai OS, and Alphabet Inc-CL C, also a businessman, saw the amazing strength of Kai OS, a dark horse, and bought a stake in Kai OS for $22 million in April 2018. To sum up, it is not difficult to see that the failures of Symbian, BlackBerry and Ali Yun OS all have their own causes of the times: the innovation that does not keep pace with the times, the lack of market penetration, the level of ecosystem scale, and so on, all determine the important factors that determine the ultimate success of an operating system.

Judging from the current pattern, Alphabet Inc-CL C-Android, Microsoft Corp-Windows, Apple Inc-IOS, the three technology giants, occupy an absolutely dominant position in their respective system fields, determine the lifeline trend of the global mobile phone and PC market, and also hold the throat of the fate of the global Internet. For Android and iOS, which have already sat firmly in the world, their status is very difficult to shake, and past cases have proved that even Microsoft Corp can hardly push the tower successfully.

In fact, it is not difficult to develop or migrate an operating system on fixed hardware. However, if you want this operating system, you can not only have hardware support but also software available, but also be compatible with a variety of network environments, which is a big problem. In the past, if the Hongmeng system ran stably on Huawei's own hardware, and the difficulty coefficient was set at 5 points, the difficulty of applying the Hongmeng system to major manufacturers around the world could be doubled or more.

Although in Android, iOS, Microsoft Corp, BABA and other giants have done to compete with the operating system, and finally helplessly lost to that era. However, with the excess hardware performance, we have also formed a large number of technical precipitation in the operating system, and it is no longer difficult for Huawei to launch a new operating system with the support of talents, industry and other hard conditions.

Is Hongmeng technically feasible?

Is Hongmeng technically feasible? The answer is yes.

Huawei has a very deep accumulation in the field of operating system, whether it is Android or Hongmeng, the core is based on open source Linux. After decades of development and countless iterations of improvement, testing and upgrade by experts all over the world, the core of Linux has been extremely stable and has been optimized efficiently.

Now Linux precipitates a large number of mature source code, on this basis to integrate an operating system, is no longer an unattainable thing. In fact, in China, based on Linux, there are many teams that customize their own operating systems, such as winning the bid, Kirin, Deepin Linux, etc., with beautiful interfaces, as well as office software, browsers and other software support.

Android is also developed based on the Linux kernel, but Alphabet Inc-CL C's secondary encapsulation on it, using the operation mode of the virtual machine, actually reduces the efficiency of its operation. However, the rapid improvement of the CPU kernel over the years, as well as graphics acceleration technology, AI acceleration and so on, have improved the efficiency of Android. At the same time, Chinese manufacturers, represented by Huawei, have also made in-depth improvements and customizations to Android, which has greatly improved its efficiency.

For example, the problem that Android has been criticized for getting stuck is almost unsolvable in the early years. As Huawei improves its Android file system, the problem no longer exists on Huawei's later phones, and Huawei's technical prowess can be seen.

As for ecological construction, although from an ecological point of view, Hongmeng is completely defeated at present, because Hongmeng has no ecological capacity at all, and it is even a prototype product that has not yet been officially put into commercial use. Compared with "giants" such as android and ios, which have millions of applications and hundreds of thousands of enterprises / developers are attached to them, Hongmeng is as weak as a chick that has just pecked through its eggshell.

However, Huawei has recently made an official announcement: encourage Android app developers to put up APP in their app store, face Google Play app store, cultivate the habits of APP developers, and cooperate with Hongmeng system to form a complete ecosystem.

From a technical point of view, the Hongmeng operating system is compatible with Android in the most critical mobile applications, and the original application can be accelerated by more than 60% through the Ark compiler system, which is a very good technical route. If this route works, Huawei's move is no different to android.

In fact, Android, Windows or IOS are not ideal operating systems. The operating system that people need is an operating system that can continuously support new hardware and new technologies, but the execution efficiency does not decline.

In addition, Portuguese app store Aptoide is in talks with Huawei to become a replacement for Huawei's Alphabet Inc-CL C store in mobile phones. Aptoide is one of the largest alternatives to Alphabet Inc-CL C's app store Google Play, with more than 900000 apps and 200m active European users. Although this has nothing to do with Huawei's operating system, it is a good first step.

This also means that in the future, there will be more partners to join this system, through large-scale application, let Hongmeng system mature and perfect as soon as possible. On the other hand, there are many new start-up teams that join Huawei's operating system ecological chain, which can stand on the shoulders of Huawei's giant and go higher and further.

In fact, Android can really be replaced.