Author |The bell has been ringing.
Text |Bell said.
After Alipay cooperated with HarmonyOS with great fanfare, unicorn companies in more than 10 fields, such as AutoNavi Map, Bilibili, Ali DingTalk, Meituan, Alipay, and Xiaohongshu, collectively announced that they would develop HarmonyOS native applications and work with Huawei to jointly promote the development of the HarmonyOS ecosystem.
Earlier, the news that Huawei's HarmonyOS system may launch an incompatible Android version next year has attracted widespread attention. The surging news quoted Huawei officials as saying that in the future, iOS, Hongmeng, and Android will become three independent systems, but the current launch time is uncertain.
As early as this year, at Huawei's autumn all-scenario new product launch conference, Huawei's executive director Yu Chengdong announced that the HarmonyOS native application will be fully launched, and some experiencers pre-installed the developer preview version of HarmonyOS Next, and found that the Android APK file could not be opened, and only the HAP file of the HarmonyOS system could be opened.
However, the fact that Hongmeng will eventually move towards "independence" is not sudden for Huawei. Hongmeng is positioned as a full-scene operating system of the Internet of Things, while Android is mainly a mobile phone operating system.
In order to reduce the user's Xi learning threshold and the cost of trial and error for developers, Hongmeng's compatibility with Android is also a "small force miracle".
It's just that Hongmeng and Android seem to have come to the point of "parting ways", at the moment when Xiaomi, vivo, and Honor have developed their own operating systems, Huawei is the first to become independent, is it a "good move", or a "dangerous move"?
01 The birth of "pure-blooded Hongmeng", a "risky move"?
In 2019, Huawei's HarmonyOS was officially released, but before that, HarmonyOS was just a "spare tire" for Huawei. At that time, Android and iOS each occupied 2283% and 7714% market share, other mobile operating systems combined only 004%, which is completely less than a fraction of Android and iOS.
Therefore, it was actually difficult for the HarmonyOS system to subvert the market pattern of mobile phone operating systems back then, but for well-known reasons, Huawei still "had to" do so.
Prior to this, Google abruptly withdrew its GMS authorization for Huawei, and GMS is the basis for Google's programs to run, and the absence of authorization means that Huawei phones cannot access Google apps and services, which has caused Huawei's overseas sales to plummet.
Therefore, for the sake of security and independence, Huawei must personally make the mobile phone operating system. According to Counterpoint data, in the first quarter of 2023, the share of the HarmonyOS system in the Chinese market reached 8%, becoming the third largest mobile operating system in China.
And behind this, is Hongmeng's deepening "confidence". In terms of user scale, as of August 2023, the number of devices in the HarmonyOS ecosystem has exceeded 700 million, and the number of developers has reached 2.2 million. In addition, HarmonyOS has more than 150 ecological partners and more than 350 software and hardware products.
On the other hand, after four iterations, HarmonyOS's technical base has been continuously improved, and there are currently more than 100 million lines** and more than 20,000 APIs, which can provide users with a better user experience. For example, at this year's Huawei Developer Conference, Yu Chengdong proposed to integrate the smart assistant Xiaoyi into the AI large model capability to bring a smarter experience to HarmonyOS.
But despite this, the change from "compatible Hongmeng" to "pure-blooded Hongmeng" has attracted a lot of controversy. From the user level, the current ecological environment of Hongmeng is not mature enough.
Long before the official launch of HarmonyOS, Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei once mentioned: "The most important thing for the operating system is to build an ecosystem, and it will take about two or three years to re-establish a good ecosystem. ”
But now two or three years have passed, and the ecological environment of Hongmeng is still not very optimistic. According to PCConline statistics, as of August 1, 2023, there are only 91 apps in the "HarmonyOS section" of the Huawei App Store.
If Huawei's own apps and apps that only provide HarmonyOS services are excluded, there are only 66 HarmonyOS native apps. But by the end of 2022, the number of apps on Google Play had exceeded 2.65 million, and the total number of apps in the App Store had also exceeded 1.78 million.
This also means that in the four years that Hongmeng and Android have "walked side by side", Hongmeng has not actually stepped out of the territory of Android. At the developer level, if Android apps can run under the HarmonyOS system, then why bother developing an independent version of HarmonyOS?
Moreover, the sales of Huawei mobile phones have been suppressed in the past few years, which means that the market demand for the HarmonyOS app is not much, coupled with the competitive pressure brought about by the huge size of the Android camp, developers must also consider the issue of profitability first.
Even if the technical base of Hongmeng is advantageous enough, without the participation of developers and users, the operating system will not be able to continue to improve through user feedback, and the entire system will lose its vitality and competitiveness.
Therefore, it is time for Hongmeng to break away from Android, only in this way, users and developers must "choose one of the two", in this process, Hongmeng can give full play to its own advantages to strengthen the camp, but this is also a "risky move".
On the one hand, there is still great uncertainty about whether the HarmonyOS ecosystem can attract more users and developers to join, because it means that some users need to abandon their original usage Xi, and it will take time to verify whether the ecosystem can be improved.
On the other hand, considering the policy risk factors, HarmonyOS may face more challenges and pressures to develop in the global market, and these risks will also be passed on to users to a certain extent. Whether these thresholds will lead to the loss of Huawei users is the biggest risk.
02 "Intelligent connection of all things", one step "good chess"?
But in the business world, there are always risks and opportunities. Huawei's move to "independence" is not to ignore the "insistence" of developers and users, but rather to explore "new value" in the context of peak Internet traffic.
First of all, HarmonyOS can bring new traffic value to ecological developers. In recent years, the development of the Internet has gradually entered a bottleneck, and the scale of users, the number of apps, and the organic traffic of apps have all begun to hit the ceiling.
According to a report released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the number of various apps on the shelves in China at the end of 2022 was about 2.58 million, a decrease of about 870,000 compared with the end of 2020, and the pace of new applications launched by leading Internet companies has also slowed down significantly.
In the context of the gradual stabilization of user increment, Huawei hopes to jump out of the traditional model and inherent thinking to tap new traffic, and proposes a "1+8+N" smart life strategy, in which 1 represents the smartphone entrance, and 8 represents tablets, PCs, VR devices, wearable devices, smart screens, smart audio, smart speakers, and car machines. N represents the pan-IoT hardware ecology, while HarmonyOS is the "network" of "intelligent connection of all things".
For example, Harmony40The newly upgraded "meta service" can provide services to users with a card-based experience, which changes the huge size of the previous APP, but splits the APP into meta services, so as to provide services to users more scientifically and intelligently, and also bring more traffic and business opportunities to developers.
At the moment when "experience is the entrance, the entrance is the user, and the user is the traffic", HarmonyOS can provide more direct access to high-quality content, and also open the door to business opportunities for mobile application developers.
Second, HarmonyOS can bring new business value to ecosystem partners. With the empowerment advantages of cross-device, cross-scenario, and cross-application, HarmonyOS can help ecosystem partners participate in ecological co-construction from multiple dimensions such as core R&D of operating systems, chip platform adaptation, software development support, industry scenario customization, and industrial landing, and obtain incremental benefits from them.
Recently, Huawei and Changan Automobile officially announced their cooperation to jointly establish a company focusing on the intelligent car solution business, including the Hongmeng cockpit, high-end intelligent assisted driving system, and smart lights and other automotive businesses will all be independent.
From a technical point of view, with the in-depth development of "intelligent connection of everything", the operating system will need to connect more and more devices, and the forms of these devices are different, so a more intelligent, more efficient, and more secure technical base is needed to solve the interconnection problem.
For example, providing end-to-end development kits for developers, HarmonyOS application adaptation costs are expected to save more than 30%; By improving the efficiency of cross-terminal development, the amount of feature development can be reduced by 40%, thereby effectively reducing development costs and improving development efficiency.
Thirdly, HarmonyOS can bring ecological value to ecological partners. With the full launch of HarmonyOS native applications, Huawei has been further accelerating the improvement of the HarmonyOS ecosystem, and a number of major Internet companies have announced that they have joined the HarmonyOS camp, including Alipay, Xiaohongshu, DingTalk, Bilibili, Meituan, Qunar, etc., to fully cooperate in many fields such as social networking, audio-visual, games, information, and finance.
In addition, Huawei plans to invest 10 billion yuan to build the HarmonyOS ecosystem partner development program "HarmonyOS Plan", which will provide partners with all-round resource support in terms of technical support, ecological marketing, and business cooperation, and further promote the development and application of the HarmonyOS system.
Driven by the Hongmeng ecosystem, there are currently 21 985 colleges and universities that have opened Hongmeng courses, in addition, a number of major Internet companies have hired Hongmeng talents with high salaries, Huang Bo, director of the operation department of Huawei Developer Alliance, has predicted that the demand for Hongmeng-related jobs will reach one million next year.
Judging from the above points, the HarmonyOS ecosystem has become more and more mature. If when HarmonyOS was first launched three years ago, its direction and trend were not yet certain, then the current HarmonyOS not only adds cutting-edge technologies such as large models and AI, but also takes into account application stability and cross-screen compatibility at the same time, bringing more personalized designs to developers and users.
In addition, the HarmonyOS ecosystem is still accelerating its development, attracting a number of technology giants to join, and under the influence of the head effect, the future of HarmonyOS has become extremely certain.
In this context, the attitude of partners and developers towards HarmonyOS will also change from "wait and see" to "rush in", and early layout can further enrich the practical experience and seize the opportunity to grasp the Internet of Everything, for ecological partners who have missed the opportunity of the smartphone era, the most important thing is to seize the next decade.
Finally, the industrial value brought by HarmonyOS has far exceeded the business and enterprise value itself. As mentioned above, the original intention of Hongmeng's launch has the consideration of domestic software and hardware technology "it is better to seek others than yourself".
After four years of development, Huawei now has independent R&D capabilities in the field of chips and 5G, and as long as the operating system is completed, Huawei and its ecological partners will be able to further enhance their voice in the global electronics industry, which is Huawei's ultimate goal to make China's Internet ecosystem go global.
Zhu Yonggang, President of Huawei's Device Cloud Service, once said, "In the HarmonyOS world, there are no fences, only common irrigation", and HarmonyOS is striving to create a new ecosystem where "everything is a service and everything can be shared".
Perhaps at present, it will take some time for HarmonyOS to gain the support and use of hundreds of millions of users, but from a longer-term time perspective, the ecology that HarmonyOS is committed to building is not only to serve users, but also to empower ecological partners and ecological developers, and "co-creation and co-construction" can be "win-win".
Looking back on the rise and outbreak of Android and iOS, each system and ecological switching cycle often lasts for more than ten years, and now HarmonyOS is in its infancy, but it is also a critical period of "dividend explosion".
All of this article is on the Internet.