Things don’t look good for the smartphone giant Huawei after losing Google support on Monday when the Trump Administration added the company to the entity list. Things are only going to get worse as it seems that all major tech brands and CPU manufacturers, in general, have begun blacklisting the company.
According to the BBC, UK-based chip designer ARM has told its staff it must suspend business with Huawei straight away. Employees were instructed to halt all active contracts with Huawei pending engagements. This was due to ARM tech containing US-origin technology now affected by the Trump administration ban.
Huawei pays a license fee to ARM in order to build its own chips which are designed with ARM’s underlying technology. In a statement, it said it was “complying with all the latest regulations set forth by the US government.”
In turn, Huawei responded;
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#0097FF” class=”” size=”21″]”We value our close relationships with our partners but recognise the pressure some of them are under, as a result of politically motivated decisions. We are confident this regrettable situation can be resolved and our priority remains to continue to deliver world-class technology and products to our customers around the world.”[/perfectpullquote]
But ARM is not the only company that has started to cut ties with Huawei. Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom and Xilinx have also announced that are suspending sales of products to Huawei. However, according to sources, the company has been stockpiling chips for months in preparation for this turn of events.
The three big chip suppliers are used in Huawei devices in some way or another meaning Huawei will not be able to use their chips as the underlying technology in any way at all.
Strangely, Microsoft has also started with their own Huawei blacklisting too. According to The Verge, the company has removed Huawei from its online stores completely including the MateBook X Pro. If Microsoft was to fully blacklist the company, it would mean no more Windows licenses which would cripple all of Huawei’s notebooks.
Everything points to Huawei having backup plans for these unfortunate events. Sources claim Huawei is working on its own version of Windows and its own OS to run on its notebooks and smartphones. The catch is they will not be able to sell any of these devices at all in certain parts of the world if the supply chain has any connection to the US.
The South African Government is taking a leisurely approach to the situation stating they are treating Huawei like a local business regardless of what is happening. Seems no Huawei blacklisting in SA for now.
