Huawei banned from using products from American firms

May 28, 2019 05:22 GMT  ·  By

After previously removing Huawei products from its own stores, Microsoft makes another step towards complying with the government order banning the Chinese firm from working with American companies.

Microsoft has stopped providing Huawei with Windows licenses, according to a report from SCMP, which means that the Chinese tech giant can no longer launch new products running this operating system.

As per the government order signed by President Trump earlier this month, Huawei is not allowed to use products developed by American companies, and these include both Android and Windows. Google has already revoked Huawei’s access to Android licenses, and now Microsoft is doing the same for Windows.

Huawei uses Windows for its lineup of laptops, so now that it can no longer install the operating system on new devices, it is expected to make the switch to its in-house built platform.

Codenamed Hongmeng, Huawei’s operating system is supposed to serve as a universal platform and replace both Android and Windows on mobile devices and PCs. The OS is already in the works, and it should go live on Chinese devices in the fall. The international launch is projected to take place next year.

Existing PCs not affected

In the meantime, Huawei will continue to provide updates to Windows devices that are already on the market. The same applies to Android smartphones and tablets, as Huawei says that existing devices will receive updates despite the ban.

People familiar with the matter told the cited source that Huawei’s collaboration with Microsoft could resume at some point in the future depending on how these restrictions in the United States evolve.

“This does not mean that Microsoft is not cooperating with Huawei any more. The suspension in business between the two companies could be just temporary,” one source was quoted as saying.

Neither Microsoft nor Huawei confirmed the report at the time of writing this article.