China's ZTE may lose Android software license as U.S. market woes build

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://www.nasdaq.com/article/chin...icense-as-us-market-woes-build-20180417-01331

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - ZTE Corp may not be able to use Google's Android operating system in its mobile devices after the U.S. limited ZTE's access to American suppliers this week, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, potentially adding another drag on U.S. sales for the Chinese firm.

ZTE and the Alphabet Inc unit have been discussing the impact of the U.S. government ban, the source added, but the two companies had not reached a decision about the use of Android by ZTE as of Tuesday morning.

A day later, U.S. telecoms regulator the Federal Communications Commission voted 5-0 to advance new rules to bar government programs from buying from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. telecoms networks, a rule that could also hurt U.S. sales of ZTE and China'sHuawei Technologies.

The United States and China have threatened each other with tens of billions of dollars in tariffs in recent weeks, fanning worries of a full-blown trade war that could hurt global supply chains as well as business investment plans.

The proposed new FCC rules are expected to be finalized this year. They would prevent money from the $8.5 billion FCC Universal Service Fund, which includes subsidies for telephone service to poor and rural areas, from being spent on goods or services from companies or countries which pose a "national security threat to the integrity of communications networks or their supply chains."

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Big deal, China will reinvent the wheel if necessary, in short future China will come up with their own chip and software as how we reverse engineer the black hawk to Z-20 after facing US embargo. Now the question is if US is ready to face China's retaliation from ban US firm to get cheap Chinese components, we can hit US where it will hurt and disrupt US company's business.

US dirty trick is not going to make China weak but create opportunity for Chinese chip and software industries to make even better thent US's counterpart and kill US monopoly, crisis is equal opportunity for Chinese, China will not let ZTE and Huawei drawn.

 

[srshkmr]

Big deal, China will reinvent the wheel if necessary, in short future China will come up with their own chip and software as how we reverse engineer the black hawk to Z-20 after facing US embargo. Now the question is if US is ready to face China's retaliation from ban US firm to get cheap Chinese components, we can hit US where it will hurt and disrupt US company's business.

US dirty trick is not going to make China weak but create opportunity for Chinese chip and software industries to make even better thent US's counterpart and kill US monopoly, crisis is equal opportunity for Chinese, China will not let ZTE and Huawei drawn.

I am not sure why the US government is fighting a war that will end up making their economies and exports to go down. With both technical and manpower capability China smartphone makers can build their own version of Android pretty soon.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

I am not sure why the US government is fighting a war that will end up making their economies and exports to go down. With both technical and manpower capability China smartphone makers can build their own version of Android pretty soon.

US is so desperate to find options to pressure China to back down on tariff war and make concession, they're ready to use all kind of dirty tricks include Taiwan to black mail China...this is a typical bad loser attitude...the world will look down on US and never trust to use their components or software.

From history record, when US banned of selling high tech or military embargo on China, the outcome only made China stronger, when Clinton banned of selling Satellite components, that had not prevent China to make space station, sent probe to moon nor make our own GPS system, quantum sat...and thank to them China has a complete independent space industry shielding from their future blackmail.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

I am not sure why the US government is fighting a war that will end up making their economies and exports to go down. With both technical and manpower capability China smartphone makers can build their own version of Android pretty soon.

This was going to happen anyway even if Trump wasn't in office. ZTE sold US tech to Iran. They got caught last year. Article last year about it and the stuff: http://iran-times.com/fbi-probes-zte-sales-to-iran/

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/p...-pay-over-4304-million-violating-us-sanctions

“ZTE Corporation not only violated our export control laws but, once caught, shockingly resumed illegal shipments to Iran during the course of our investigation,” said U.S. Attorney Parker. “ZTE Corporation then went to great lengths to devise elaborate, corporate-wide schemes to hide its illegal conduct, including lying to its own lawyers.”

When they said they would fix things..they got caught not doing it. So now they are on a banned list.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanba...upts-chinas-telecom-giant-zte/2/#1a8258814089
How The U.S. Export Ban Effectively Bankrupts China's Telecom Giant ZTE: Analysis

"we expect ZTE, a publicly traded company on the Hong-Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, to file for bankruptcy in the next few weeks."

..and people wonder why the US Government doesn't trust them for infrastructure projects.

 

[Shamsher1990]

Big deal, China will reinvent the wheel if necessary, in short future China will come up with their own chip and software as how we reverse engineer the black hawk to Z-20 after facing US embargo. Now the question is if US is ready to face China's retaliation from ban US firm to get cheap Chinese components, we can hit US where it will hurt and disrupt US company's business.

US dirty trick is not going to make China weak but create opportunity for Chinese chip and software industries to make even better thent US's counterpart and kill US monopoly, crisis is equal opportunity for Chinese, China will not let ZTE and Huawei drawn.

Its not the wheel that is the problem. Its the goods that you carry in cart that is the problem. There is a reason why still Windows is hard to replace completely even after so many years of mobile onslaught. Its called third party support. No one in their right mind will like to start from scratch when it comes to apps.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Its not the wheel that is the problem. Its the goods that you carry in cart that is the problem. There is a reason why still Windows is hard to replace completely even after so many years of mobile onslaught. Its called third party support. No one in their right mind will like to start from scratch when it comes to apps.

With ZTE and Huawei experience, they pretty much know what they want and with Chinese electronic design and manufacturing industries, I don't think that they will have to start from scratch, sure it will be a setback for them for short term period but they get away and will be independent of US suppliers. In the future US will not only lose Chinese market but to face a "Un-blackmailable" competitors.

 

[Shamsher1990]

With ZTE and Huawei experience, they pretty much know what they want and with Chinese electronic design and manufacturing industries, I don't think that they will have to start from scratch, sure it will be a setback for them for short term period but they get away and will be independent of US suppliers. In the future US will not only lose Chinese market but to face a "Un-blackmailable" competitors.

You don't manufacture apps. You develop them. There is a reason why there are only two dominant OS in terms of Apps in mobile space.

 

[jhungary]

I am not sure why the US government is fighting a war that will end up making their economies and exports to go down. With both technical and manpower capability China smartphone makers can build their own version of Android pretty soon.

China already have their own Mobile OS system created back in 2014, I think it was called COS, but it was not caught on, even with Chinese phone maker and decided to use a licensed version of Android instead.

First of all it's the cost, COS is a closed system, which mean it's proprietary, meaning you will have to pay a certain amount of fee/royalty to use. On the other hand, android is a free open source system which licensed under Apache License agreement, which charge nothing, and you don't have to pay royalty on it.

Second thing it's the availability. While it would be okay if they were to use COS in all Chinese phone, and getting rid of feature such as YouTube, Gmail, Google map, play store and so on that featured in android system. But the rest of the world use them quite often. And if phone maker in China started switching to COS, then they are going to have to say goodbye to overseas sale.

The last thing is the mobile phone market shares itself. Samsung alone take up about a quarter of world mobile phone sale alone, second is apple. If Chinese phone deviate from these 2 platform, unless their platform is super good, it will not be able to complete with the 2 and starting to lose customer. There is a reason why there are 360 millions mobile phone out there, 317 millions of those are running on android.

 

[Shamsher1990]

If Chinese phone deviate from these 2 platform, unless their platform is super good, it will not be able to complete with the 2 and starting to lose customer.

Its even not the question of super good. Mac OS was and is super good compared to windows but it never captured the majority share of desktop market. Its usually the first movers or fastest mover advantage. Also, software follows more of a power law. An already popular OS keeps on getting more popular.

May be when another form-factor or kind of computing device catches on, Chinese companies will be able to capture the market.

 

[jhungary]

Its even not the question of super good. Mac OS was and is super good compared to windows but it never captured the majority share of desktop market. Its usually the first movers or fastest mover advantage. Also, software follows more of a power law. An already popular OS keeps on getting more popular.

May be when another form-factor or kind of computing device catches on, Chinese companies will be able to capture the market.

Well, if I am the boss of Chinese phone maker, I will start looking at stuff that beyond smartphone, I wouldn't bother with other form factor. I think the whole smartphone game is fixed, done and dusted. Any attempt on anything other than current model is futile. I wouldn't waste millions of dollars trying to get a foot hole in the OS field regarding today's smartphone.

On the other hand, Chinese phone maker have to struggle between developing their own system and selling their phone to outside market. It does not compatible (as is foreign phone selling in China too) and in better days, I would think they can do the better of the two worlds, but increasingly, those Chinese phone maker have to choose either their own market or foreign market with the recent development.

 

[Shamsher1990]

Well, if I am the boss of Chinese phone maker, I will start looking at stuff that beyond smartphone, I wouldn't bother with other form factor. I think the whole smartphone game is fixed, done and dusted. Any attempt on anything other than current model is futile. I wouldn't waste millions of dollars trying to get a foot hole in the OS field regarding today's smartphone.

On the other hand, Chinese phone maker have to struggle between developing their own system and selling their phone to outside market. It does not compatible (as is foreign phone selling in China too) and in better days, I would think they can do the better of the two worlds, but increasingly, those Chinese phone maker have to choose either their own market or foreign market with the recent development.

I will also look for next big thing in communication and computing. Interestingly, iPhone was not the first in the market. It was definitely a leap big enough to make touch based smartphones mainstream. Funny thing is how every one knew that next thing in computing is smaller form factors but no one actually did it right! Intel sucked in power because they couldn't let x86 and windows go. Microsoft was stuck in the mindset of classic windows UI : Start button and all. Apple experimented with a purely touch based iPod and then expanded it in a phone and tablet.

May be next will be vanishing computing and communication devices. I don't know...