New Huawei Warning For Trump And Google: There Is No Turning Back After OS Launch - Forbes
New Huawei Warning For Trump And Google: There Is No Turning Back After OS Launch - Forbes |
- New Huawei Warning For Trump And Google: There Is No Turning Back After OS Launch - Forbes
- Trump Campaign, GOP Groups Attack Google’s New Ad Policy - U.S. News & World Report
- Google's 'Thanksgiving Four' present a challenge to leadership as campus activism rises - CNBC
| New Huawei Warning For Trump And Google: There Is No Turning Back After OS Launch - Forbes Posted: 27 Nov 2019 12:06 AM PST  AFP/Getty Images Huawei has reiterated its warnings to the U.S. government and Google that the time is fast running out for a return to business as usual, that once the company launches an alternative operating system, there will be no turning back. The implications for the U.S., the company says, will be stark. If Huawei is forced to "resort to alternatives" to Google, CEO Ren Zhengfei told CNN, if a Plan B gains momentum, returning to previous versions of its OS and software will become less likely. And we know that any return would, at best, be in parallel with the newer alternatives. At issue is the loss of Google—the theme of the blacklist. Ren described this as "a critical moment for all of us," suggesting "the U.S. government considers what's best for American companies." In an interview with CNN, released on November 26, Ren also warned Samsung and Apple that it still intends to capture the global top spot for smartphone shipments—despite the U.S. blacklist. "I don't think this will be a problem, but it will take time." Google is the one technology Huawei can't "un-Americanize." This has softened sales outside China, but, Huawei is now emphasizing, may hit Google harder in the long term. If Huawei is forced into a Plan B, the company and the U.S. more broadly risk losing their monopoly influence over key elements of worldwide technology standards. Six months after the blacklist hit, Huawei should have been reeling, that was the plan. But the company has been shored up by sales in China, where it has built a 42% market share. This has become the new theme of Huawei's message platform—the blacklist isn't working, and you will now pay the long-term price. As I reported on November 22, Microsoft has now secured a U.S. Commerce Department license to renew its mass-market software supples to Huawei. There remains no word as to whether Google will receive the same, but Ren confirmed that the Google situation remains wait and see, with no decision one way or the other on its license. The lobbying continues and Google has not commented. And so to the warning. Ren talks of a backup plan. What he means is significant investment in Huawei's own mobile services to compete with Google's—the Play Store, Maps, Gmail, Pay. And underpinning this, an ecosystem of app developers and service providers creating a third-way alternative to full-fat Android and iOS. Huawei has committed more than $1 billion to the incubation of this ecosystem, and importantly has signalled that it will offer price breaks to app developers—essentially asking for as little as half of the commissions taken by Google and Apple in their own stores. Ren referred to this backup plan as "very large scale." The CEO and other company execs have acknowledged that this is the greatest impediment to continued international growth—convincing an international Android consumer base to shift from the familiarity of Google is no mean feat. Attempts in recent years to carve any alternatives to Google (and Apple) in the mobile sphere have failed. There has been stability for a decade—Huawei would need to change that. If that happens, if an app ecosystem can be nurtured that competes with the two global operating systems, and if manufacturers from China and South East Asia jump onboard, the tech landscape will have changed materially. None of the U.S. tech giants want to see this, a new landscape driven by Washington's actions that has a drastic impact on the country's own tech sector. As I've written before, this latest interview is part of a well-orchestrated media campaign. Yes, the company says, the blacklist is having an impact—but not one that is going to change the global technology landscape in the way you want. Huawei's twist has been to shift from touting an alternative to Android with its new HarmonyOS, and instead suggesting an evolution. An alternative ecosystem built around the open-source version of Android that is not restricted. "Harmony is not a replacement for Android," Huawei VP Vincent Pang told the press a week ago. "It's a next generation of Android," but one without Google. And so this is a pivotal moment. If Google does receive a license, even with caveats and qualifiers, Huawei will be back onboard—but not exclusively if its alternative is ready. And so the implied threat is that time is fast running out for a return to business as usual. "We cannot wait more, we missed one flagship," Peng said, referring to the Mate 30. By next year's releases there needs to be a resolution, there needs to be certainty. Since the blacklist hit, Huawei has continued to grow its consumer business, leaving Apple further behind and chasing down Samsung for the global crown. Huawei also still leads the pack for network equipment sales, despite a relentless U.S. campaign claiming the company is a national security risk. But with the impact of the blacklist being called into question at a macro level, would Washington be better served using it as leverage in wider negotiations with Beijing? That's the key question. Shenzhen has reason for optimism. The company is bullish again, staking claims as to what the next year will hold. Ren told CNN that Huawei will be expanding its international business next year and the year after. There are also rumblings from China that even if Google is restored, the company might continue its efforts to shore up a "break glass in case of emergency" plan for any repeat of the U.S. action. I would venture that what we have seen in the last six months will change the technical landscape for years to come.  |
| Trump Campaign, GOP Groups Attack Google’s New Ad Policy - U.S. News & World Report Posted: 26 Nov 2019 03:14 PM PST [unable to retrieve full-text content]Trump Campaign, GOP Groups Attack Google's New Ad Policy U.S. News & World Report  |
| Posted: 27 Nov 2019 04:40 AM PST  Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google Inc., speaks during the Google I/O Developers Conference in Mountain View, California, U.S., on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Google leadership may consider the leaking of sensitive information by employees as the biggest threat to its culture. But the more pressing issue the company faces is a massive wave of activism that's now turned some of its loudest critics into heroes. After weeks of investigation, Google fired four employees on Monday, claiming they shared confidential documents and breached security. In an internal memo, the company's security and investigations team called it a "rare" case. News of the dismissals went viral immediately because all four employees had either organized or participated in petitions or protests against the company. At least two of them identified as LGBTQ. The group earned the label the "Thanksgiving Four" because of the timing of the firing ahead of the holiday, and employees past and present weighed in on social media with their own stories of being targeted by leadership for their activism. Just hours after the firings were reported, Google organizers posted a blog entry titled, "Google's Next Moonshot: Union Busting." The post, which didn't include the names of any authors, claimed that Google framed the employees. "They think this will crush our efforts, but it won't," the post said. U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, two of the leading Democratic candidates for president, chimed in Tuesday evening on Twitter with their support for the employees and criticized Google for being "anti-worker." While Google parent Alphabet continues to crank along financially, pushing the stock up 26% this year, the company appears to be limping toward the 2019 finish line as tempers rage between top brass and rank-and-file staffers. Google recently ended a tradition of weekly all-hands meetings after 20 employees in San Francisco protested the treatment of two employees, Laurence Berland and Rebecca Rivers, who had been placed on sudden and indefinite administrative leave for allegedly sharing sensitive information. The latest flare-up follows a settlement between Google and the U.S. National Labor Relations Board in September, which called on the company to allow greater debate and more open discussion on campus after an employee filed a complaint last year, alleging Google restricted free speech and fired him for expressing conservative views. Far from establishing a truce, the agreement with the NLRB has created even more tensions, with The New York Times reporting last week that Google hired a firm known for its anti-union efforts to help it deal with rising unrest. Protests get bigger and louderOne reason these protests are gaining so much attention is that there are names and faces attached to them, providing human stories that inspire other employees to get involved. Berland and Rivers were at the center of recent worker protests in San Francisco, rousing a rally on Friday that attracted roughly 200 Google workers, nearly every major news outlet and even some employees from other companies. The No. 1 purpose of the rally, which was livestreamed and watched by people globally, was to reinstate Rivers and Berland. Their photos were on fliers promoting the protest. Berland and Rivers are part of the Thanksgiving Four. At the rally, Rivers and Berland each described their personal experiences, eliciting boos and jeers from the crowd as they slammed leadership for not communicating to them what they did wrong. Rivers was brought to tears recalling how she was put on leave and explaining how her personal photo collection had been deleted and the rest of her equipment confiscated. "I stand with Rebecca Rivers and her colleagues," Elizabeth Warren tweeted Tuesday evening. It's a bad look for Google. Berland had been involved in a protest against YouTube's hate speech policy earlier in the year, and Rivers spoke out about Google's contracts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The other two fired employees haven't been publicly identified. Further complicating the matter for Google is that some view the move as targeting individuals for their sexual orientation because at least two of the employees identified as LGBTQ. Members of the company's LGBTQ community have spoken up recently about feeling "unsafe" following Google's hiring of former Department of Homeland Security staffer Miles Taylor and after some were allegedly doxxed and received death threats on internal channels. Google isn't helping itself. Of the recent investigations and firings, leadership has been largely mum, choosing not to elaborate publicly on the specifics. Google's only explanation thus far was in the internal memo, which indicated that the employees were involved in security breaches. "Our thorough investigation found the individuals were involved in systematic searches for other employees' materials and work," the global investigations team wrote. In a statement to CNBC on Tuesday, a Google spokesperson provided additional reasons for the terminations. "The documents and links contained customer data, business partner information, and information relating to business strategy issues," the statement said. "They were also documents that were clearly intended for a limited group." Unclear explanationsThe vagueness of Google's public response has allowed critics to come up with their own conclusions, and to spread them widely. Advocacy group the Tech Workers Coalition, tweeted on Monday that the four employees had been fired for "organizing at work" and encouraged employees to "speak out against this draconian act." Meredith Whittaker, a former Google worker who organized a massive companywide walkout last year, called the firings a "craven retaliation," adding "I ask everyone who can to show up and support." Earlier this year, organizers of the big walkout said they'd been placed on leave for reasons that were unclear. Berland echoed that sentiment on Friday, saying he didn't learn that he was placed on leave until the news showed up in a Bloomberg story. Rivers said the company told her it was investigating her document access, but in the interrogation, many of the questions were about her opposition to the company's government contracts. Whether they were fired for legitimate reasons or not, internal dissent at Google is no longer a fringe concern and executives appear perplexed when it comes to dealing with it. Former employees are also staying vocal. Whittaker, Irene Knapp and Liz Fong-Jones are among activists who are no longer at the company, showing that Google increasingly has to contend with people who have little to lose. "For every one they retaliate against, there are hundreds of us who will fight, and together we will win," the organizers wrote in Monday's blog post, repeating a statement made by Knapp at the company's annual shareholders meeting and again at Friday's rally. "One of the most powerful companies in the world wouldn't be retaliating against us if collective action didn't work." WATCH: Google employees walk out to protest the handling of sexual harassment allegations  |
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