The US Government’s fraud management efforts appear to have made the world go hysterical as it had ordered Alphabet’s Google to revoke the license of Android and Google proprietary apps from Huawei. In a sudden turn of events the Department of Commerce has given Huawei a temporary general license to maintain its current products.The general license allows Huawei to maintain its current networks as well as providing software updates to Android devices. It would also allow the company to push updates without concern that they could negatively affect the functionality such as the Google Play Store on devices in the international market.
Take note that the general license’s effectivity will last only until the 19th of August. If a sound deal will not be reached by that point, Huawei will lose access to the license indefinitely this time. The license only grants Huawei to support and push updates on Huawei handsets that were available to the public on or before May 16, 2019.
Android Q will be released to the public this 19th of August. Assuming that there will be no resolution on the blacklisting it is unlikely that the Huawei devices will be releasing the newer version of Google’s OS to customers without losing Google proprietary apps and services.
The limited license does not mean that the relationship between Huawei and the US government is going well. The actions were just focused to give time to push updates that were on hold, and also time for negotiation.
The blacklist is said to be a retaliation against China’s unfair trade practices, and possibly linked to being known that Huawei has close ties with China’s ruling party. The rumored information is yet to be confirmed.
The latest move will benefit consumers and the business alike in terms of product support, and information security for the end users at least. Allowing Google to collaborate with Huawei devices for security patches will avoid zero day vulnerabilities on Huawei devices, and at least could spell continuity until the said deadline.
