This is why China wants to build its own smartphone software – InformatBlog (Blog)

Almost all smartphones today use an operating system designed in the United States. Together, Android and iOS are installed on nearly 97% of smartphones. But China would like to change this fact.

 

The Chinese state-owned companies are working to develop its own mobile operating system, reports the Wall Street Journal, justifying the move as an attempt to escape the US surveillance as revealed by Edward Snowden. Fear of China is that American companies could enter “doors” in electronic devices sold abroad, at the behest of the NSA or other government agencies. Backdoor software or hardware are essentially a shortcut that makes the affected devices easy to hack.

If American companies have actually implemented backdoor is now under discussion. Apple, for example, strenuously denies the accusation. But there is a significant amount of evidence that the United States has at least explored that possibility.

Although the Chinese brands (such as Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE) represent a growing number of smartphones sold worldwide, many of their essential components are still controlled by American companies, as well as be sold with Android software. For example, many devices use a processor sold by Qualcomm .

ZTE and Alibaba are among the companies that have been exploited by the Ministry of Public Chinese security to create new operating system “developed in-house,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Spreadtrum Communication would be planning a chip that will run on these operating systems later this year. Initially, the resulting product is likely to be a bare-bones affair for civil servants in sensitive positions, such as police officers, and the devices that power may not have the essential characteristics for common users as a camera or the Wi-Fi.

 

The distrust on imported technology goes in both directions. An American company has famously accused the Chinese Huawei , currently the third largest producer of smartphones in the world, to be a threat to national security and to use backdoor to channel corporate intellectual property sensitive to the government Chinese. However, a report in the UK earlier this year concluded that Huawei is not a threat.

This is not the first time that China leverages companies to build replacements for American software. Recently he encouraged the use of an alternative Windows developed in Shanghai called NeoKylin . According to Dell, the 40% of PCs sold in China are running that operating system.

Although safety is the public reason to encourage China’s development of its own mobile operating system, there is also a clear economic case for China for its citizens using domestic technology. The company was able to keep the American Internet companies like Google largely out of the market for years, and this has given Chinese companies a chance to take hold. Companies today as Baidu are multibillion companies that compete with their American counterparts.

 

So, while the effort of China’s smartphone homemade may not have a major economic impact in the short term, it could easily become a rival to Google and Apple across the board. (Source)