On August 9, 2019, Huawei's Hongmeng "spare tire" turned positive overnight, and today, more than four years later (January 18), Huawei Hongmeng once again surprised all walks of life, because on this day, Huawei officially launched a completely self-developed Hongmeng version: HarmonyOS NEXT Hongmeng Galaxy Edition (that is, the outside world calls "pure-blooded Hongmeng" or "original Hongmeng").
Photo courtesy of Yan Cui
It has made a comprehensive breakthrough in the core technology of the operating system, based on the HarmonyOS kernel, and has achieved complete independent research and development from the operating system kernel, file system to programming language, AI framework and large model, etc., and is not compatible with Android, while most of the current operating systems in the world, including Android and iOS, are based on Linux or Unix kernels.
"The HarmonyOS has gone through ten years of tempering, and has changed again and again, and today it has been running on a wealth of all-scenario devices, Huawei has taken root downward, has core technologies, has full-stack capabilities, has a base, and has an ecology, which is the real operating system. Yu Chengdong's remarks on the spot just confirmed what he said at the 2020 Huawei Developer Conference: "No one can extinguish the starry sky."
HarmonyOS has officially entered the stage of "complete independent research and development".
On the afternoon of January 18, Huawei held a ceremony to launch the HarmonyOS Ecosystem in Shenzhen, and Yu Chengdong announced that HarmonyOS NEXT is open to developers.
据余承东介绍，HarmonyOS NEXT鸿蒙星河版内核为鸿蒙内核，不依赖Linux或Unix内核。
"For a long time, the development of software root technology for operating systems such as Linux kernel and programming languages has been dominated by foreign companies. In the era of the Internet of Everything, we have given us a very good opportunity to develop our own operating system, and we have made a comprehensive breakthrough in the core technology of the operating system, from the operating system kernel, file system to programming language, AI framework and large model, etc., down to the root, forming a complete set of core technologies of our own, laying a solid foundation for ecological construction. Yu Chengdong said.
At present, most of the world's operating systems, including Android, iOS, etc., are based on Linux or Unix kernels, and Hongmeng is based on Hongmeng kernel, it is worth paying attention to the future terminal operating system may be three sets: Hongmeng, Android, iOS, and a number of high-quality applications under 360 will also join the Hongmeng ecological territory.
It is worth mentioning that the success or failure of an operating system depends on the ecological construction.
A person familiar with the matter told the Securities Times e company reporter that after Hongmeng was launched in 2019, it had been in the stage of being compatible with Android and relying on Android to "be reborn without changing its bones, and break the thread", but the latest release of HarmonyOS NEXT Hongmeng Galaxy Edition is "pure-blooded Hongmeng" and will not be compatible with Android, which means that Hongmeng has officially moved towards the stage of "solo flight" and independence.
Yu Chengdong revealed that Huawei launched the expansion of HarmonyOS native applications in September 2023, and so far more than 200 leading companies are accelerating the development of HarmonyOS native applications, including Alipay, Meituan, JD.com, DingTalk, WPS, AutoNavi, Air China, CCTV, Xiaohongshu, Sina, NetEase, etc., covering convenient life, travel, cultural tourism, financial convenience, social information, productivity tools, audio-visual entertainment, games and other fields, and the HarmonyOS native application map has been basically formed. In addition, at present, the number of HarmonyOS ecological devices has reached 800 million (700 million in August 2023), and it has become a full-scene pan-terminal operating system equipped with various terminal devices such as mobile phones, tablets, computers, TVs, smart wearables, and car machines.
Photo courtesy of Yan Cui
"Today, the general trend of Hongmeng's ecology has been determined, and the sky is full of stars, and it will eventually converge into a bright galaxy." Yu Chengdong's remarks on the spot just confirmed what he said at the 2020 Huawei Developer Conference: "No one can extinguish the starry sky."
The industrial chain welcomes development opportunities
Judging from the progress of the follow-up HarmonyOS system, Huawei said that the HarmonyOS Galaxy version is expected to release the developer beta version in Q2 2024, and the commercial version for consumers in Q4. Industry insiders pointed out that according to the situation in previous years, it is expected that Huawei's consumer-oriented "pure-blooded Hongmeng" operating system will be released at the Huawei Developer Conference in the second half of this year.
In fact, about Hongmeng will become independent this year, incompatible with Android, as early as last November, a reporter from the Securities Times e company wrote an article entitled ""Spare tire" turned positive overnight! Huawei Hongmeng may not be compatible with Android next year, will other brands follow suit?", pointed out that with the increasing maturity of Huawei's Hongmeng ecology, the scale is growing, and the wave of artificial intelligence is coming, the current Android system version of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence support is relatively lacking, and next year Hongmeng may consider "flying solo" - that is, it is not compatible with the Android operating system.
At that time, a number of industry experts interviewed by reporters said that in the short term, other mobile phone manufacturers will not follow Huawei's "solo flight" road for the time being.
Yu Chengdong also said today that at present, most of the operating systems launched by other companies are replaced with new UI (user interface) on the Android operating system, which is equivalent to changing a layer of skin, and it is not a real operating system.
From the perspective of the industrial chain, Changjiang Securities believes that 2024 will become the first year of the original Hongmeng. The full launch of the HarmonyOS native application will create a HarmonyOS native ecology, and the entire HarmonyOS industry chain is expected to benefit.
According to relevant combing, at present, A-share companies such as Topway Information, ArcherMind Technology, iSoftStone, Runhe Software, Thunderda, and Hong Kong-listed company China Software International are Huawei's in-depth partners in the field of HarmonyOS ecosystem, which are not only independent software suppliers of HarmonyOS Zhilian, but also core participants in the construction of the open source HarmonyOS ecosystem, and they are actively promoting the construction of the HarmonyOS ecosystem with Huawei.
Specifically, as the core co-construction unit of the HarmonyOS ecosystem, Kaihong Zhigu, a subsidiary of Topway Information, has created industry-exclusive commercial distributions based on open source HarmonyOS for education, transportation, smart city and other fields, and has completed the delivery of open source HarmonyOS products and solutions in Hunan, Shandong, Guizhou, Guangdong, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and other places; Hongmeng smart camera and other terminal equipment products, iSoftStone's subsidiary Honghu Wanlian completed the adaptation of the Intel chip based on the X86 architecture of the OpenHarmony operating system on the PC side, and Runhe Software launched the full-scene intelligent IoT operating system HiHopeOS based on Open Harmony, and on this basis, it has successively launched industry distributions for finance, electric power, smart city, medical and other fields.
"The HarmonyOS ecosystem never belongs to a certain company, the HarmonyOS ecosystem belongs to every developer and everyone involved in the co-construction. Yu Chengdong said.
Editor-in-charge: Peng Bo
Proofreading: Liao Shengchao