Huawei Founder Urges Shift to Counter U.S. Sanctions

Date: 25 May 2021 - 22:15

News ID: ۹۰۶۰۶

BEIJING (Reuters) -- Founder of Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Ren Zhengfei has called on the company’s staff to “dare to lead the world” in software as the company seeks growth beyond the hardware operations that U.S. sanctions have crippled.
The internal memo seen by Reuters is the clearest evidence yet of the company’s direction as it responds to the immense pressure sanctions have placed on the handset business that was at its core.
Ren said in the memo the company was focusing on software because future development in the field is fundamentally “outside of U.S. control and we will have greater independence and autonomy”.
As it will be hard for Huawei to produce advanced hardware in the short term, it should focus on building software ecosystems, such as its HarmonyOS operating system, its cloud AI system Mindspore, and other IT products, the note said.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump put Huawei on an export blacklist in 2019 and barred it from accessing critical U.S.-origin technology, impeding its ability to design its own chips and source components from outside vendors.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has given no indication it will reverse Trump’s sanctions.
The blacklist also barred Google from providing technical support to new Huawei phone models and access to Google Mobile Services, the bundle of developer services upon which most Android apps are based.
Huawei’s 2020 annual report did not break down how much of its 891.4 billion yuan ($138.70 billion) revenue was from its software.
Ren’s note also said the software push would depend on finding the right business model and that the company should adopt an open source approach, calling on staff to “absorb nutrients” through open source communities.
He said the company’s Welink business communication platform had relied on traditional software licensing, which was unsuited to cloud computing and inferior to a rival product from tech giant Alibaba.
Given the difficulty of working in the United States, Ren’s note said the company should strengthen its position at home and build up its territory with a view to possibly excluding the United States.