Politics

Huawei's plan to replace Android with its own operating system is likely doomed from the start, mobile industry experts say

SHENZHEN, CHINA - JANUARY 18: (CHINA OUT, SOUTH KOERA OUT) Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd CEO Ren Zhengfei attends a press conference on January 18, 2019 in Shenzhen, China.
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei, whose company is working on its own smartphone operating system to replace Android. The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
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Huawei's effort to replace Android with its own smartphone operating system may well be an impossible task.

That's the take of former mobile industry executives who spoke with Business Insider recently. Building the operating system itself won't be all that difficult, they said. What will likely prove to be a Herculean endeavor will be developing the services and app ecosystem for it that consumers around the world have come to expect.

"It's is extremely challenging," said Andreas Gal, the former chief technology officer at Mozilla, who helped lead the development of that organization's Firefox OS.

Go to BI Prime to read why tech insiders who created their own operating systems think Huawei will have problems replacing Android.

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Troy is formerly a senior tech correspondent at Business Insider. Previously, he worked as a technology columnist, editor, and reporter for The Mercury News. A longtime tech journalist who has covered everything from Amazon to Yahoo, Troy also worked as a senior writer at TheStreet.com and a reporter for CNET News.com.