Reports are now out that Silicon Valley giant Google has suspended some of its businesses with Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei Technologies, including its Android license, after the United States federal government added Huawei to its Entity List.
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the “Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain” which bans telecoms in the country to use any equipment designed, developed, and manufactured by companies or entities under the control of any ‘foreign adversary.’
Following the President’s executive action, The U.S. Department of Commerce added Huawei to its Entity List which prohibits the Chinese company from doing business with American companies without the approval of the U.S. government.
Although Google has not issued any official statement yet and the details are still being discussed internally, Reuters reported that the tech company has already stopped providing Huawei hardware and software. All except those covered by open source licenses.
Losing its Android License
The news is considered a big blow to the Chinese tech company who has earned the ire of the U.S. government due to its tie with the Chinese government.
Losing its Android license bans Huawei from getting access to significant Android operating system updates immediately. Also, the company’s next line of smartphones outside China will also lose access to popular services and applications run by Google, including Google Play Store and the Gmail app.
Huawei will still be able to access versions of the Android OS under the open source license. However, Google will no longer provide technical support and partnership for Android and Google services to Huawei. Furthermore, all Huawei devices running on any Android OS under open source license will not receive Android updates.
While partnering with non-American companies could be a solution to offer alternatives to Google applications, losing access to the Google Play store and other Google apps is a critical threat to Huawei’s business outside of China. At the moment, no one knows how this will affect Huawei and its customers if the news ends up being true.
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