Welcome to follow the WeChat subscription account of "Sina Technology": techsina
Wen/Zhou Xiaoqi
Source: Wired Insight (ID: lxinsight)
"In the era of the Internet of Everything, no one will be an island." At the end of the press conference, Yu Chengdong, Huawei's executive director and CEO of consumer business, said enthusiastically.
On June 2, Huawei officially released the HarmonyOS 2 system, and launched smart watches, tablets, headsets and other smart devices equipped with the HarmonyOS 2 system.
The protagonist of this conference is undoubtedly the HarmonyOS 2 system. In the one and a half hour conference, Wang Chenglu, president of Huawei's consumer business and software department, demonstrated the intelligence, convenience, smoothness and other features of the HarmonyOS 2 system, and He Gang, chief operating officer of Huawei's consumer business, demonstrated Huawei's latest intelligent hardware devices.
Of course, all the smart devices released by Huawei this time are equipped with the HarmonyOS 2 system. At the same time, Huawei will also push and upgrade HarmonyOS 2 to Huawei's mobile phones, tablets, smart screens and other smart terminal devices. It is planned to upgrade HarmonyOS 2 to "100" devices in the first half of next year.
Huawei equipment upgrade list, which is the official source of Huawei
However, it is regrettable that Huawei's P50 series mobile phones have not yet been released. "For some well-known reasons, the launch time of Huawei's P50 series mobile phones has not yet been determined." Yu Chengdong said.
In August 2019, Yu Chengdong officially released HarmonyOS at the Huawei Developers Conference. Now, HarmonyOS is officially installed on smart phones, and HarmonyOS can be called the "spare tire".
Since then, the main goal of the Hongmeng operating system is undoubtedly to carry more intelligent devices. Huawei has also set a "small goal" of 300 million, that is, to cover more than 300 million devices in 2021, of which 200 million are from Huawei's own mobile phones, watches, tablets and other devices, and 100 million are targeted at various types of terminal devices of ecological partners.
It can also be seen from this press conference that Huawei's smartphone business has plummeted after being cut, and it is difficult to recover its former glory in the short term.Therefore, Huawei has chosen to break through from watches, bracelets and IoT devices. This alternative way of finding a way out may help Huawei reach the goal of 200 million yuan.
In addition to the goal of 100 million yuan, Huawei has chosen to cooperate with ecological partners.At the press conference, Wang Chenglu also showed the use skills of smart devices such as Midea Steamer Oven, Haier Refrigerator and Jiuyang Soymilk Machine that support HarmonyOS Connect.
"Hongmeng system has been launched for two years. In fact, Huawei first used it on smart screens and other devices, which is actually a very smart approach," said Sun Yanbiao, president of the First Mobile Network Research Institute.
Huawei partner, Tuyuan Huawei official
Huawei naturally expected that after being sanctioned, its smartphone business would be hit hard, and it has already begun to broaden the new scene for Hongmeng system.
In April this year, Huawei exhibited a number of technologies of intelligent car solutions at the Shanghai Auto Show, among which the Hongmeng OS car operating system has attracted much attention, which also means that the Hongmeng operating system has entered the field of intelligent cars.
However, it is not easy for Hongmeng operating system to survive.Throughout the past, Samsung, Microsoft, Ali and other domestic and foreign giants have launched their own operating systems, but all ended in failure.
"Now Hongmeng's operating system occupies the right place, right time and right people, but if it wants to really run out, it must find its own business model, which is the key factor for Hongmeng's future growth." Sun Yanbiao said to Wired Insight.
HarmonyOS: Smart control, not just mobile phones?
HarmonyOS 2 is finally here.
In the one and a half hour press conference, Wang Chenglu spent most of the time introducing HarmonyOS 2. He mentioned that "HarmonyOS is a new generation of intelligent terminal operating system, which provides a unified language for the intelligence, interconnection and collaboration of different devices."
In Huawei's settings, HarmonyOS is a system oriented to the entire smart hardware ecosystem, which means that it is not only suitable for mobile phones, but also for various smart hardware, such as watches, bracelets, smart screens, home appliances, etc.
HarmonyOS provides a unified language for the intelligence, interconnection and collaboration of different devices. Based on distributed technology, HarmonyOS improves the experience of interconnection between hardware products, and makes smart devices such as mobile phones, tablets, watches, and smart screens easily connected.
Specifically, in the past, if different hardware devices want to be connected together, they need to use auxiliary devices such as data lines, or Bluetooth and other functions.HarmonyOS has established a concept of "super terminal". Different hardware devices form a super terminal, which can be switched easily and quickly through different hardware of the super terminal.
For example, when a user watches a movie on his mobile phone outdoors, he can pull the smart screen icon to his mobile phone through the "super terminal" when he returns to the room, and the video image will be automatically connected to the smart screen from his mobile phone for playing without any auxiliary facilities.Suppose the scenario is upgraded. If the user wants to watch video through the headset, he or she will also pull the headset icon to the phone through the "HyperTerminal". Three different hardware devices will be perfectly connected together.
At the same time, users can see the tasks of other devices and switch to other devices at any time on any device that forms a super terminal.For example, it is not convenient to play games on a mobile phone. Just slide up and hover to call out the background, send the task to the tablet or computer, and you can continue playing games on a larger screen.
In the setting of HarmonyOS, the natural connection and interaction between different devices are smooth and convenient, which is also the biggest difference for users in the era of Internet of Everything.
"Now 5G chips and components are more mature in technology. As power consumption decreases and components become smaller, they can be installed on smaller hardware devices, which also accelerates the arrival of the era of Internet of Things," said Sun Yanbiao.
Figure Source Huawei Press Conference
However, although the current HarmonyOS has achieved interconnection between multiple products, it still needs to be based on Huawei's huge hardware ecosystem. In short, it can only work if there are hardware devices equipped with the HarmonyOS system. Otherwise, everything is empty talk.
Previously, Yu Chengdong disclosed that Huawei has sold more than 1 billion full scene smart connection devices, including more than 700 million mobile phones on the Internet. About 90% of Huawei's stock and mobile phones on sale can upgrade the Hongmeng operating system.
At this press conference, Yu Chengdong also announced the plan to upgrade the HarmonyOS 200.Specifically, on June 2, Huawei Mate40, Mate40Pro, Mate40pro+, P40, P40Pro, Huawei Tablet MatePad Pro and other devices can directly upgrade the HarmonyOS 2 system;By the third quarter of this year, Huawei Mate Xs, Mate 20, nova 8 and other devices support upgrading the HarmonyOS 2 system;In the fourth quarter, there are a number of Huawei devices that can be upgraded. By the first half of 2022, 100 devices will be upgraded to HarmonyOS 2.
However, Huawei's own products alone obviously cannot make the HarmonyOS system truly an independent operating system. It needs to cooperate with major intelligent hardware manufacturers to enable more intelligent hardware devices to carry the HarmonyOS system.
To this end, in addition to Huawei's own equipment, HUAWEI HiLink (an open ecosystem of smart hardware for the consumer field) has newly upgraded HarmonyOS Connect, which allows smart home and mobile phone to be connected by a touch.
At the press conference, Wang Chenglu also demonstrated how "smart" hardware devices that support HarmonyOS Connect have become.For example, Midea Steaming Oven can select recipes for one click cooking, Haier refrigerator can intelligently change the temperature according to the fresh-keeping requirements of different ingredients, and Jiuyang soymilk machine can recommend drinks according to the health data of different individuals.
Midea steam oven equipped with HarmonyOS Connect, Tuyuan Huawei
All hardware devices seem to be more convenient to use and understand users' needs better.However, the foundation of everything still needs to be based on the willingness of different hardware equipment manufacturers to carry the HarmonyOS system, which is also the next major test for Huawei.
The core mobile phone business is lost, and Hongmeng needs partners
After several rounds of sanctions, Huawei has disappeared from the list of global mobile phone shipments.
According to the report on global mobile phone shipments in the first quarter of 2021 released by the market research organization Strategy Analytics, the global smartphone shipments in the quarter reached 340 million units, a year-on-year increase of 24%, and the growth rate hit a new high since 2015.
Specifically, the top five mobile phone manufacturers on the list had the lowest year-on-year growth of 32% and the highest of 85%, while Huawei was classified as "others".
Huawei has lost ground in the field of smart phones, but smart phones are an important carrier of mobile applications and Internet of Things services, as well as an important entrance to Hongmeng.
"Among the global consumer electronics products, smart phones are relatively large in size. The overall shipment volume is calculated in hundreds of millions. Next may be smart watches, smart bracelets, smart appliances and other products. The overall shipment volume is also good, but at this stage it cannot be compared with mobile phones." Sun Yanbiao said,"Huawei will definitely need more 'ant heroes', that is, more intelligent devices to support the Hongmeng system to establish an ecosystem after losing the important entrance of mobile phones."
Huawei is naturally aware of this. "We hope to work with more partners and developers to prosper Hongmeng ecology and provide better experience, better products and better services for global consumers." Yu Chengdong called again at the press conference.
In order to make Hongmeng system grow rapidly, Huawei has indeed sought partners in many ways, among which home appliance manufacturers are undoubtedly the best entry point.
Although the interaction frequency between household appliances and users may be calculated in days, and users only use it once a day or more, which is far less frequent than the interaction with mobile phones, as long as they occupy the home scene and have used a hardware device equipped with Hongmeng system, as long as the experience is good enough, they are likely to choose the device equipped with Hongmeng system next.
On the contrary, once users owned a Huawei mobile phone, they were more likely to purchase other hardware devices equipped with the Hongmeng system. Now, it is possible for users to purchase a Huawei mobile phone to control various hardware devices more easily in a longer period of time after they own a device equipped with the Hongmeng system.
To this end, Huawei is also increasing cooperation with intelligent hardware manufacturers.Previously, Midea has launched dozens of home appliances equipped with Hongmeng system. This year, Midea announced that its cooperation with Hongmeng will be large-scale, covering all categories and nearly 200 SKUs.
Domestic home appliance manufacturers are also the direct beneficiaries of Hongmeng system. The original smart hardware of home appliance manufacturers is interconnected through the Android system, and its connection cost is high. Even after the connection, users need to download a special APP for manipulation, which undoubtedly increases the user use cost.
In other words, it is impossible for users to download a special APP on their mobile phones for control every time they buy a smart device from a different manufacturer, which is neither convenient nor intelligent.
It can be said that, to a certain extent, Hongmeng system does make domestic household appliances more intelligent and easier to use.For this reason, after Midea cooperated with Hongmeng, Jiuyang, Boss Electric and other household appliance manufacturers all cooperated with Hongmeng.
Jiuyang soymilk machine equipped with HarmonyOS Connect, Tuyuan Huawei
At present, there are more than 1000 hardware manufacturers in Hongmeng ecology, and the number will continue to rise in the future.
In addition to cooperating with more hardware manufacturers, Huawei is also looking for more new scenarios for Hongmeng.
Smart cars have undoubtedly become the next key scene of Hongmeng OS.
During last year's Beijing Auto Show, Huawei officially released its smart cockpit solution, which includes three platforms: Harmony (Hongmeng) car machine OS software platform, Harmony car domain ecological platform and smart hardware.
In Huawei's introduction, Harmony Car OS defined HMS-A (HMS for Auto, including 7 core capabilities such as voice, sound effect, vision and AI), 12 car subsystems and more than 500 HOS-C APIs to build an OS software platform for car scenarios.
According to Huawei, Hongmeng OS intelligent cockpit solution has been supported by more than 30 hardware partners and more than 50 application ecological partners, and will continue to increase the openness and cooperation with the automotive and application fields in the future.
At the Shanghai Auto Show held in April this year, Huawei also exhibited a number of technologies of intelligent car solutions, and the Hongmeng OS car machine operating system is an important part of them.
At present, Hongmeng OS car machine operating system has also been officially "on board". BAIC Jihu's Alpha S is the first car model equipped with Huawei Hongmeng OS car machine operating system.
At present, Huawei is still carrying out in-depth cooperation with Chang'an and GAC. In the future, Hongmeng OS car machine operating system will also be installed on more models.
"Ant Hero" is on the way, but Hongmeng system needs more advanced business model and more perfect ecosystem if it wants to break through the life and death line of 16% market share.
Hongmeng made history, but how to break through the 16% life and death line?
"We analyzed the ecological development of PC industry and mobile industry in the past two decades, and found that 16% of the market share is a watershed, and more than 16% of the ecological development is basically successful." In January this year, Wang Chenglu mentioned the reason for setting 300 million sets of Hongmeng equipment in an interview with the media.
Market share determines everything.At present, in the field of mobile terminal operating system, Android and Apple iOS are playing neck to neck, occupying an absolute advantage.
According to StatCounter data, from April 2020 to April 2021, Google's Android system accounted for 72.2% of the mobile operating system market share, Apple's iOS accounted for 26.99%, and other operating systems accounted for less than 1% of the market share.
From the perspective of global operating system market share (including mobile and PC), as of April 2021, Android market share is 40.63%, Windows market share is 31.94%, Apple iOS market share is 16.26%, and Apple OS X market share is 6.83%.
Market share of different mobile phone operating systems in the world from 2009 to 2021
Can Huawei break through the life and death line in the competitive market?
Just last month, Google held the annual Google I/O Developers Conference, officially introducing the latest generation of Android system Android 12, and excluded Huawei from its published list of partners.
This means that Android 12 is no longer compatible with Huawei mobile phones.This is another big hit for Huawei after losing its chips.
In the future, Huawei has been comprehensively "banned" both at the chip level and the operating system level, and self-reliance has become the only way for Huawei.
Although Android 12 will not be officially launched for some time, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other domestic mobile phone manufacturers all said they would take the lead in upgrading Android 12 system.
However, if Hongmeng System really wants to go out, it is bound to attract major mobile phone manufacturers, which is also the key for Huawei to break through the life and death line.
At present, Meizu has announced to cooperate with Hongmeng, but only its smart home sector is connected to Hongmeng system, not involving mobile phone business.
"At present, domestic mobile phone manufacturers will certainly not use the Hongmeng system in the short term. On the one hand, the experience of the Hongmeng system is still unclear and remains to be observed; on the other hand, from a commercial perspective, Hongmeng system does not have a clear business model, and enterprises can never do loss making business." Sun Yanbiao said to Connect Insight.
In the past, Microsoft, Samsung and Alibaba have all launched their own operating systems one after another, but all of them failed without exception. On the one hand, they were affected by Android and Apple.
Google once threatened Acer, the mobile phone manufacturer that planned to launch Alibaba YunOS for the first time, to choose between Google GMS and YunOS, which directly curbed the development of other operating systems. On the other hand, it was also a big problem that other operating systems did not find a suitable business model.
"For a long time, Apple has built a stable ecological chain system by relying on the sharing model, while Android has not found a suitable business model before, and later built a solid business empire through advertising." Sun Yanbiao said, "Hongmeng needs to build a mature business model in addition to a large number of users and terminals."
At Huawei's global analyst conference in April this year, Xu Zhijun, vice chairman and rotating chairman of Huawei, also disclosed that at the end of 2018, the board of directors decided to invest $2 billion to improve software capabilities, and software engineering capabilities will be further improved within a five-year cycle.At the same time, we are also looking for opportunities in software, increasing investment, and improving the income of software and services.
At present, perhaps Huawei is still exploring the business model of Hongmeng, which is the key factor for the future development of Hongmeng.
It should be noted that Hongmeng is not an exclusive mobile phone operating system. Wang Chenglu previously said that Huawei would never make another Android or iOS, and it would be worthless to make another operating system of the same smart terminal.
Therefore, aiming at the interconnection of all things is Hongmeng's ultimate goal, which also gives Hongmeng the opportunity to develop.
"We have entered the post mobile phone era, and future mobile phones may be disassembled into a screen, a pair of glasses, or even some carriers that we cannot imagine. This is the best time for Hongmeng to develop." Sun Yanbiao said.
After the HarmonyOS 2 system press conference, lines of white words appeared on the black screen, of which "Today we created history together" was particularly striking.
Hongmeng has officially embarked on the road. It is an important battle for Huawei to survive in a desperate situation. Whether it can win or not determines Huawei's future development direction.
(Statement: This article only represents the author's view, not Sina.com's position.)
