Google apparently suspending some business with Huawei.

[koeiwong]

Yeah,but Chinese firms are also investing in manufacturing and transport in other countries,as part of the BRI. This involves countries like Greece,Serbia,parts of Africa,etc.

Also,companies like Samsung,etc get state backing too in the form of big contracts awarded to them by the South Korean government. Apple,also spends very little of its money on R and D,considering how much it has,and US firms do get help in terms of preferential tax breaks,employment laws which favour them,etc.

You are right on Samsung, they also past on the cost to their subsidiaries to make their margin look good, and they also not treating their workers well too.

For BRI it does help some countries but I can say it is also a financial black hole for some countries and Chinese companies, debts are too big to pay back base on the return from projects and it is normal for Chinese companies (usually state owned) to take on contracts even at a loss. I am sure we will see some projects cancel and a lot of quality problems.

It is normal for firms getting support from government because R&D cost a lot and many projects ended up with zero return, without support we will see more short term gains instead of long term plans. But it is not the same when chinese companies get backing from government, it is hard to explain.

For games and others like Intel/Apple, we can choose what to buy, I never own an Apple product because I think they are over priced and I will go for AMD for my next PC. And don't buy games if publishers don't care their customer, no one put a gun on us to buy them.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The profit made by apple may exceed their competitors despite the smaller worldwide market share (to wit the X's price, smaller volume, but sustained company profit),
so Apple have postitoned themselves via clever branding at a market point where increased volume and selling for lower margins abroad might not yield higher profits,
are the Chinese themselves even immune to the siren allure of the apples marketting ?
Foreign currency should be more important to Apple, so whether they will have to compete at a lower price point, against the dragon ... rather than exploiting there own populus

I don't think Apples technology/R&D is too delinquent for optical, , rather the importance of the camera and audio systems have been de-prioritized versus displays/cpu-power and battery life ... the old Nokia had the lead there with Zeiss, so the tech could be regained in the west, if the end customer wanted it.

The problem is the moment they and Samsung started jacking up prices,sales started going down and people kept the devices longer and longer. This is the problem,if they had kept to old price points and pushed more innovation,none of these Chinese high end phones would even get a look in.

TBH,if they were fully made in the US,I might understand if they cost £1000,etc,but not when they are built in China by subcontractors which make budget electronics too.

New Nokia/HMD Mobile seem to be making a comeback,so we will see how they go. The Nokia 9 Pureview looks impressive - sure its still Chinese made,but not a ripoff price compared to the incumbents.

Having said that LG are South Korean,and AFAIK still make quite a few of their phones there(?). Might be an avenue for one of your earlier questions.

Arm have decades working with fab's creating power/perfromance/area effective architecture - reproducing that in China takes time - the holy grail
]

Huawei are an ARM licensee though(or were looking at later posts!),and create some of the few custom SOCs on the market like Samsung,Apple and Qualcomm. Remember we have been pushing production to China for close to 30 years,and that gives them hands on experience on how to make complex devices.

In fact most of the indigenous Chinese designs seem to be more MIPS based or MIPS-like in designs and China now owns them and Imagination technologies:

https://www.eenewsanalog.com/news/imagination-mips-be-sold-china-california-connected-vcs

And how did Imagination technologies get sold - Apple stabbed a fellow western company in the back and one of our own!

You are right on Samsung, they also past on the cost to their subsidiaries to make their margin look good, and they also not treating their workers well too.

For BRI it does help some countries but I can say it is also a financial black hole for some countries and Chinese companies, debts are too big to pay back base on the return from projects and it is normal for Chinese companies (usually state owned) to take on contracts even at a loss. I am sure we will see some projects cancel and a lot of quality problems.

It is normal for firms getting support from government because R&D cost a lot and many projects ended up with zero return, without support we will see more short term gains instead of long term plans. But it is not the same when chinese companies get backing from government, it is hard to explain.

But long term it creates a dependence on China you see,so they get entrenched especially as China can have guarenteed access to transport,land and raw materials,and for a number of these countries China is literally the only actor in town. I honestly can't believe,we didn't even see this either.

For games and others like Intel/Apple, we can choose what to buy, I never own an Apple product because I think they are over priced and I will go for AMD for my next PC. And don't buy games if publishers don't care their customer, no one put a gun on us to buy them.

Same here,but it worries me with mobile tech,how many of the non-Chinese companies are more concerned about very expensive stuff more and more now. Nokia/HMD Mobile,LG and Sony don't seem too bad,but Apple and Samsung dwarf them and seem to care less and less about mere mortals!

 

[koeiwong]

There's an opportunity here for OnePlus to offer P30 & Pro trade ins and come out as heroes

Better not to do that now, in Chinese polities some people might report them for taking the advantage when US bullying a Chinese company. If they take it lightly, people will call them a traitor and on news for few days, if they take it as a big case or want to set an example, some seniors in company will be reported to have financial wrong doing or having affair or worst case is jumping off from high place with a notice saying suffering from depression.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Better not to do that now, in Chinese polities some people might report them for taking the advantage when US bullying a Chinese company. If they take it lightly, people will call them a traitor and on news for few days, if they take it as a big case or want to set an example, some seniors in company will be reported to have financial wrong doing or having affair or worst case is jumping off from high place with a notice saying suffering from depression.

TBH,I can see BBK being a target too and Xiaomi. Those two make the rump of the remaining Chinese smartphone makers.

 

[jpaul]

Huawei are an ARM licensee though(or were looking at later posts!),and create some of the few custom SOCs on the market like Samsung,Apple and Qualcomm. Remember we have been pushing production to China for close to 30 years,and that gives them hands on experience on how to make complex devices.

I was curious whether Huawei have a soft or hard IP license - I didn't see an answer but apparently the fab/tsmc lost £550M$ due to a processing error, on their chips, which puts some of the figures into perspective. - a soft IP license indicates a much higher skill level on huawei's part.

[ ooi - look like samsung are leading in essential 5G patents https://www.iam-media.com/who-leading-5g-patent-race,
they coincidentally have an article on patent quality , I mentioned earlier ]

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I was curious whether Huawei have a soft or hard IP license - I didn't see an answer but apparently the fab/tsmc lost £550M$ due to a processing error, on their chips, which puts some of the figures into perspective. - a soft IP license indicates a much higher skill level on huawei's part.

[ ooi - look like samsung are leading in essential 5G patents https://www.iam-media.com/who-leading-5g-patent-race,
they coincidentally have an article on patent quality , I mentioned earlier ]

Top 5G SEP owners

Top companies making technical contribution to the 5G standard

Top attendance at 5G meetings


Lets add up the patents per country according to your article by IPlytics:
1.)China -2081
2.)South Korea - 1787
3.)United States - 1221
4.)Europe - 1093
5.)Japan -468

Hilisilicon is part of Huawei - nearly 19000 contributions to the 5G standard?? WTF??

That is more the Nokia and Ericsson combined. More than Qualcomm and Samsung combined.

ZTE has more 5G patents than any US or Japanese company?? Your link only shows how bad it has become - I am shocked. I didn't realise we were so far behind in Europe.

How is Asia,ie,South Korea,China and Japan leading so far ahead of Europe and the US??

Wow,its only proving what I have been saying - our firms seem to be more worried about the short term than the long-term.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I decided to look at essential 5G patents:
https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/02/...nd-and-south-korea-with-34-of-key-5g-patents/

According to IPlytics, companies in China have applied for roughly 34% of the world’s major 5G patents as of March 2019, compared with South Korea’s 25%, and 14% each for the United States and Finland. Sweden stood at nearly 8%, and Japan at almost 5%, while Taiwan, Canada, the U.K., and Italy rounded out the top 10 countries, each with under 1% shares.

Also interesting: China’s share of 5G patents is around 50% higher than its 4G share, where it was almost identical to South Korea — each had roughly 22% of global patents. While South Korean, Finnish, and Swedish companies have slightly increased their relative percentages of patent filings in the 5G era, the U.S., Japan, and other countries have all fallen at least a little behind their 4G paces.

What,they had the same amount of 4G patents as South Korea??

This the period upto March 2019.

BTW,IPlytics is the same people who published the earlier report we are talking about.

Edit!!

I saw this mentioned elsewhere:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-s...s-to-consortium-for-775-million-idUKKCN1J10RM
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/...51_per_cent_of_arm_china_for_a_bargain_7752m/

SoftBank has announced it is offloading 51 per cent of chip designer Arm's Chinese subsidiary to a China-led group of investors in a deal worth $775.2m.

Japan-based SoftBank expects the deal to be done in June 2018 and while it will retain the remainder of Arm and continue to enjoy licensing and royalty revenues, Arm China will no longer be a SoftBank subsidiary.

SoftBank acquired Arm back in 2016 and the chip designs of the Brit silicon botherer can be found in the majority of mobile devices around the world, including China, which accounted for around 20 per cent Arm's revenue in the fiscal year to March 2018.

With the acquisition of Arm Holdings itself coming in at over $31bn, the sale of 51 per cent of Arm China for $775.2m seems a little on the low side.

The deal comes at a time when trade relations between China and the US are strained, with US sanctions causing headaches for Chinese manufacturers. Mobile maker ZTE announced last month that it was having to halt operations due to a US government block on American suppliers selling its hardware and software, though Reuters reported today that the ban may be lifted soon.

China will also have eyed up the difficulties encountered by Broadcom during its aborted attempt to acquire US-based Qualcomm. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) will be unable to directly weigh in on the potential for technology transfer this time around.

Once completed, the sale will make it easier for China to get hold of chip designs to accelerate the growth of its indigenous tech industry, something that may alarm chipmakers such as Intel and Qualcomm as the republic continues with its "Made in China 2025" strategy to decrease dependence on imports. ®

The timing seems very convenient!

 

[jpaul]

The timing seems very convenient!

this was all last year, but, while I wasn't aware of it, the follow up question is what did the USA think of an Arm/chinesejoint venture where the arm technology could bleed into China.?
(you rather spammed the thread with extensive posts of stuff from links - people will folllow the links if they are interested)

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

this was all last year, but, while I wasn't aware of it, the follow up question is what did the USA think of an Arm/chinesejoint venture where the arm technology could bleed into China.?

Probably not happy,but I am not sure why they should care considering ARM is a British/Japanese company. However,we have bigger issues in the UK,and it also leads to a really worrying presidence of how independent European tech firms are from what the US,China,etc dictate to us.

Japan no doubt gained a lot of insight into processor design by buying ARM too,hence why they invested in them. Apple destroyed Imagination Technologies which was one of our main tech firms,by literally bankrupting them overnight - they opened an office near by and hired away many of their key engineers. What was left was bought by the Chinese. So,one has to ask why our government seems to not be able to stop most UK tech firms being bought up or destroyed by foreign companies,who end up benefiting the most. It is why the UK has lost so many of its great tech companies! This has been happening for decades now!

But the US needs to be more wary of US companies selling them whole operations - Lenovo bought IBM's consumer business,and Google sold them Motorola.MIPS was bought by Imagination,who ended up selling MIPS to another Chinese company when they were sold,thanks to Apple. So two for the price of one! Thanks,Apple!

AMD set up a JV to develop Zen based server CPUs too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD–Chinese_joint_venture

VIA of Taiwan bought up what was left of Cyrix and Centaur Technology(both US companies) and had an X86 license transferred with the former, but they started falling behind compared to AMD and Intel.They then got a cash infusement in their CPU division due to this JV to make CPUs for the Chinese market:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin

Nvidia is collaborating with Baidu on machine learning:
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/07/nvidia-and-baidu-join-forces-in-far-reaching-ai-pa.aspx

Intel has one of its fabs in China.

The issue,is that many companies have managed to be acquired by China legally,which gives them access to certain technologies,and other companies have formed joint ventures willingly due to the large size of the market,so it means China has an easy means to examine various technologies.

 

[elrasho]

Do we think Huawei will push their own OS once the 90 days is over? Thing is they wont have access to Play Store so essentially these phones are useless.... unless we root them and install GAPPS

 

[jpaul]

AMD set up a JV to develop Zen based server CPUs too:

It seems they can only sell the x86 processors they build in China https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-zen-x86-processor-dryhana,37417.html
so, any x86 backdoors will be 'ok', but,
Huawei escape a similar constraint using ARM IP ... purely down to Softbank/Japan ARM ownership ?
or just because the USA has negligible sales for any Chinese phones .. I assume you can connect one to their networks.

Moreover, if you heard some of all day R4 discourse on China (no uk politics allowed) ...they reminded us of their human rights record so perhaps should be considering that in our purchase choice.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems they can only sell the x86 processors they build in China https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-zen-x86-processor-dryhana,37417.html
so, any x86 backdoors will be 'ok', but,
Huawei escape a similar constraint using ARM IP ... purely down to Softbank/Japan ARM ownership ?
or just because the USA has negligible sales for any Chinese phones .. I assume you can connect one to their networks.

Moreover, if you heard some of all day R4 discourse on China (no uk politics allowed) ...they reminded us of their human rights record so perhaps should be considering that in our purchase choice.

The thing is GCHQ already has access to Huawei products before they are released(our government made it a prerequisite if they wanted to keep selling stuff here IIRC),so they haven't said anything about any hardware backdoors in their phone SOCs so far but some noise about the software backend not being as good as it should for the network stuff. But the US is trying to push South Korea not to use Huawei products:

https://www.gsmarena.com/united_states_pushes_south_korea_to_ditch_huawei_products-news-37188.php
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/reg...to-reject-huawei-goods-citing-security-risks/

The pressure is being put on a part of LG. I assume the sale of the ARM JV,was in anticipation of what is happening now,as it was around the same time ZTE got into trouble,as it would probably would have to be disbanded to some degree if the bans starts affecting other Chinese companies.

I do wonder if they do stop using ARM based SOCs in the future,whether it will be MIPS or RISC-V based,the former is Chinese owned now,and the latter is an open source instruction set. IIRC,some of the first indigenous CPUs are MIPs based/MIPS like.

Well also TBH,if human rights were a concern,it wouldn't be just China we would not be looking at,but at certain other countries in the ME,we have no issue buying oil from and selling lots of stuff to. Its not like these countries were any different in these regards even 30 years ago. None of these companies care,as long as they can increase their margins. Come to think of it,people think a £700 Huawei high end phone is "value" since the Samsung and Apple equivalents are more £1000+ but in both cases are flipping overpriced. I can still remember when a top end phone was £400 to £600 and that was under 10 years ago. Plus we used to get far better network subsidies too.

 

[Silly Goose On The Loose]

I don’t know if we can trust Huawei.

I also don’t think we can trust the US Government.

My understanding is the biggest backdoor in history came from Ericsson equipment in a telecoms network. But because they’re American they get away with it.

Quite frankly with the amount of spying and data collection the USA does, it’s a bit rich they have a go at China. They should lead by example.

 

[Flibster]

My understanding is the biggest backdoor in history came from Ericsson equipment in a telecoms network. But because they’re American they get away with it.

They're Swedish.

 

[jpaul]

The thing is GCHQ already has access to Huawei products before they are released(our government made it a prerequisite if they wanted to keep selling stuff here IIRC),so they haven't said anything about any hardware backdoors in their phone SOCs so far but some noise about the software backend not being as good as it should for the network stuff. But the US is trying to push South Korea not to use Huawei products:

yes I had read most of the commitee report (that I also linked earlier) it's more about their 5G s/w process, than, evaluating characteristics of their phones
to ensure there was no hardware backdoor.

ARM or a 3rd party would have to perfrom formal verification that the secure code execution modules, going onto the phone soc had not been modified versus the original specification and behavoural description ... but I have not seen mention of such a process ... so much easier at least for high security commerical companies and security services just to say no Huawei in their environment.

[ the wiki leaks document on Gamma the Uk company used for surveillance makes intereresting reading https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/docs/GAMMA-2011-NewsQ1-en.pdf
just the banality of it ]

edit - afterthought, given all the monitoring china conducts for it's own population, a phone backdoor has to be the easiest solution - listened to an article about their face recognition, setting off alarms if 'undesirables' arrived at the train station or outside schools.

 

[koeiwong]

I don’t know if we can trust Huawei.

I also don’t think we can trust the US Government.

It depends on what system each countries have, at least in US you can argue and complain about spying or what data should be collected. But I am not sure about that in China, people might try to argue but quite likely those who complain will have family holidays in remote area sponsor by the government.

And recently a city in China, local police use data from mobile payments to track down people who spent over the average amount in spa which likely link to some "special services", police sent them message and asked those people to go to police station that, I believe this is unlikely happen in here or US.

 

[shaunwwfc]

Do we think Huawei will push their own OS once the 90 days is over? Thing is they wont have access to Play Store so essentially these phones are useless.... unless we root them and install GAPPS

That is just not true though. I wish people would stop talking as if all this means Huawei devices will suddenly not turn on. It is borderline fake news unless you are talking about devices that will be released after those 90 days, and even those may have been greenlit whilst in production and failing that they are still not "useless"

Although it is not ideal any current Huawei phone will still receive support from Google Services (including Play Store) just not upcoming Google OS updates. They will be the same phone in 2-3 years that they are now, is that useless? Not for me, far, far from it.

 

[hardkore]

delete

 

[neil_g]

Trump now saying a deal can be done with Hu.

Wait, so it's not about security then Trump?

 

[cu3ed]

Trump now saying a deal can be done with Hu.

Wait, so it's not about security then Trump?

Well hes also having to give about 16 billion to US farmers from all the business he costs them with China.