Huawei is now offering $1.5 billion to attract global developers to partner with them and help build software for the tech giant amid the tension between them and the U.S. Ken Hu, Huawei Deputy Chairman said that the money is an investment to the company’s existing developer program spread over the next five years. He was talking to attendees at an annual customer conference.
This program was created to attract external parties to develop apps for the companies services including its future chip and computing platforms. With the launch of Harmony OS, Huawei’s in-house operating system, this initiative will be imperative for the OS to be deemed successful. And with uncertainty over Huawei’s use of Google’s official Android, development of apps to serve its future phones running Harmony OS need to be accelerated.
The Huawei Mate 30 series that are about to be launched tomorrow will come with no Google services and apps and will be a letdown to a lot of users. It has been reported that it will run on an open-source version of Android but we’ll wait and see what Huawei unveils tomorrow.
We already know that Huawei is already working on a Google Maps alternative aptly named Map Kit that is set to launch next month. Map Kit isn’t meant to immediately replace Google Maps but to be a platform for developers to come up with applications that will utilise Map Kit’s mapping capabilities.
Yandex and Booking Holdings, an American company behind Booking.com and other fare aggregator sites have already shown interest and are partnering with Huawei.
