HTC develops smartphone operating system for mainland China

Sina Science and technology news Beijing time, August 28 afternoon, according to the Wall Street Journal, people familiar with the matter said HTC is developing a dedicated smartphone operating system for consumers in mainland China, hoping to help it boost shrinking sales. People close to the situation said HTC chairman Wang was overseeing the project, and she had already communicated with government officials in mainland China. It is reported that the system will be in-depth integration of micro-blog and other Chinese applications, and will be released before the end of the year. The move underlines the attractiveness of Chinese consumers and responds to Beijing's plans to step up home-grown systems to counter U.S. technology giants such as Google and Apple. In fact, HTC claimed to have developed its own operating system as early as two years ago, and now it looks like the plan is finally going to bear fruit. Although many HTC employees speak Chinese, giving them language advantages, many mainland consumers are unfamiliar with the brand. HTC did not start selling its own-brand handsets in mainland China until 2010, when it used the Dopod brand. HTC's system for mainland China is also in line with the Chinese government's policy of nurturing native software ecosystems in the hope of reducing reliance on western manufacturers. China's Ministry of Science and Technology said in a white paper this March that the country's mobile industry relies too much on Google's Android operating system and praised companies such as Alibaba and Baidu for developing their own operating system plans. Google's Chinese search engine in 2010 to jump to Hong Kong, China, increased access difficulty, its application stores can not be fully effective in mainland China, which also provides some local manufacturers with opportunities for development. But some local operating systems have sparked controversy. Acer, for example, abruptly canceled a smartphone launch plan for Alibaba's operating system last year because Google blamed the operating system for violating Android's copyright and threatened to stop working with Acer. But Alibaba denied the allegations. It is unclear whether HTC's smartphone operating system is proprietary or based on Android. People familiar with the matter said the company had changed plans several times over the past few years, wavering between the development of new operations and the design of an Android-based interface. Like Acer, HTC is also a member of Google's "open cell Phone alliance", so it must comply with some of Google's rules. The phones carrying the new system are being tested and have sent prototypes to some mainland Chinese officials, people familiar with the matter said. China's Ministry of Industry and Information technology did not comment. HTC's move comes at a time when the company's global business is shrinking. Even as a leading manufacturer of the Android camp, HTC's share of the company has shrunk over the past two years as a result of delayed product releases and improper marketing campaigns. The company now expects operating losses in the third quarter, the first quarterly operating loss since its 2002 IPO. Many analysts even suspect that HTC could be the target of other companies ' acquisitions. Some insiders in HTC think that part of the projectThe aim is to forge a relationship with the mainland's political and business sectors, as Third-party operating systems struggle to confront Google's dominance of Android and Apple's iOS. According to Gartner, the US market research firm, Android currently has a global smartphone market share of 79%,ios 14.2%, with less than 4% of other operating systems. HTC is not the first company to develop its own smartphone operating system, and Samsung has long since started investing in a system called Bada, but it has not yet been widely recognised. The Korean company is currently investing with Intel to develop a system called Tizen. Meanwhile, Jolla, a Finnish start-up company set up by former Nokia employees, launched the Swordfish (Sailfish) operating system earlier this year. HTC has sharply adjusted its strategy for the Chinese market this year, for example by replacing executives of mainland markets earlier this month. HTC CEO Peter Chou also highlighted the Chinese market as an important growth point in an analyst conference call last month. (PEI)