Huawei is getting cozier and cozier with Russia, it seems, as we’ve just learned that it plans on installing the Aurora OS on 360,000 tablets. The platform has its origins in the Sailfish OS project from Finland, but it was bought by a big Russian telecom giant.
Huawei already got close to Russia, after resorting to Yandex to develop a future Huawei mapping solution, useful for Harmony OS. Before Harmony was a thing, there was speculation that the Chinese were looking at the Russian OS. Now the installation of said platform is confirmed and it’ll place by August next year, on 360.000 tablets, according to Reuters.
It’s all done to aid with the census of the Russian population and last I heard there were over 130 million people to count. A Huawei representative claims that the company is in talks with the Russian Ministry of Communications, but other sources have confirmed a done deal. It’s a pilot project for now, but one that will suddenly create a brand new OS that matters on the mobile market. Between this and Harmony Android and iOS must be feeling the heat right now.
Aurora OS is owned by Rostelecom, Russia’s telecom provider. To be honest I’m surprised Russia didn’t make its own tablets, but if they’re any good like the YotaPhone, you may as well forget about them. The Russian deal alone could boost Huawei’s finances, since a 360k tablet order is no small feat.
