Those following technology news are pretty aware that Huawei is going through a bad phase right now as the US government has issued a National Emergency and blacklisted the Chinese smartphone giant. This ban by the US Commerce Department has forced technology giants to cease exports to Huawei. Immediately after this ban was enforced, Google severed ties with Huawei alongside a range of other technology companies. This could potentially mean that Huawei will be cut off from Android updates. In what may come as good news to Huawei, Google is reportedly lobbying hard to secure a government exemption for Android, The Financial Times reports.
An article by Android Police states that although Android is an open source platform, features that make it popular are licensed by Google. With the potential blanket ban and the future of Android updates in peril, Huawei has been said to be working on its own operating system that’s capable of running Android apps but doesn’t feature any of Google’s technology. The report by The Financial Times states that Google is working hard behind the scenes and states that by blocking Huawei is a greater risk to national security. Google points out that Huawei’s custom operating system would be far simpler to hack than an operating system it develops and the Chinese government could easily exploit this software.
Huawei is as of now on a 90-day reprieve before the ban goes into effect and Google is lobbying with the Commerce Department to extend it in order for them to work out a solution, but what it really seeks is a permanent exemption. Just like other companies including Qualcomm, Google is afraid of the financial impact that will arise from being cut off from a large customer.
As of now, no company is going on record to comment on the same.
