Struggling domestic operating systems

How many Chinese companies are developing domestic (desktop) operating systems? Ni Guangnan's answer is 15, but "all added together, we are only a few percent ahead of them (referring to Microsoft)."

Ni Guangnan is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He has been promoting domestic open source software developed based on Linux since 1999, which is 15 years ago. He has done two things recently: one is to call on Microsoft's Win8 operating system to be detrimental to national information security, and the other is to advocate and establish the China Smart Terminal Operating System Industry Alliance, and serve as the director of the alliance's technical expert committee.

On September 13, Ni Guangnan attended the press conference of Puhua Basic Software Company, a member of China Electronics Technology Group, as the only invited guest. The latter released the Puhua series operating system version 3.0 based on the Linux kernel on the same day, and the focus of its external publicity was "domestic operating system".

However, neither Ni Guangnan nor Bai Ke, general manager of the basic software division of Puhua, could give a clear definition of domestic operating systems. Bai Ke previously served as vice president of another domestic operating system manufacturer, Zhongke Hongqi. Zhongke Hongqi has recently attracted industry attention due to rumors of bankruptcy and acquisition, and Puhua participated in the bidding.

Ni Guangnan said that for domestic operating systems, the most basic thing is still self-controllability. However, "self-controllability" has become the most important label in the external publicity of domestic operating system manufacturers, including Shanghai Liantong, which previously released the COS operating system, and Zhongbiao Software, which has launched multiple operating systems and also has the background of China Electronics Technology Group.

In the name of safety and industry interests

In fact, self-control is almost equal to safety. Ni Guangnan said that the government's decision not to purchase Windows 8 was definitely not due to technical reasons, but entirely out of security considerations. "This is the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China that the country has announced that it cannot purchase basic software operating systems from foreign multinational companies."

Ni Guangnan also said earlier, "If we do not use the operating system independently developed by our country, the backdoor key of the system will always be in the hands of others, then our country's information security will not be guaranteed, and objectively it will leave opportunities for surveillance plans such as the 'Prism Gate'." After the safety of personal use has risen to the level of national security, everything has become more meaningful.

In addition, Microsoft's announcement to stop supporting Windows XP has also become one of the most important reasons for emphasizing "security". Some analysts said, "There are still many users in the Chinese market who are still in the XP era and have not kept up with Microsoft's upgrade pace."

Subsequently, the twists and turns of Win8 in government procurement and the antitrust investigation faced by Microsoft all showed that the market began to pay attention to the impact of the overly large Microsoft on the stable development of the industry.

In addition, Ni Guangnan's plan also takes market factors into consideration. Ni Guangnan said, "We hope to replace Win7 and XP within one or two years." According to the average Chinese market, computers are updated every five years. If all computers use the full version of Microsoft, the software cost will be about 2,000 yuan. Based on this calculation, the market size will reach 200 billion.

In Ni Guangnan's view, the cost only needs to account for a small part of Microsoft's price, which can support China's software companies. "This is an opportunity for the industry. It not only meets the country's requirements for building a strong network and mastering core technologies, but also meets the requirements of industrial development, allowing the basic software industry to develop faster."

The new thinking is "App Store"

The introduction of a domestic operating system is obviously a defensive measure. However, this is not a new idea. There have been domestic operating systems such as Zhongbiao Kylin, Zhongke Hongqi, Ningsi Panshi, and SPG Sipu in the market, but their market share has been difficult to break through and their development has been difficult.

Among them, Zhongke Hongqi was dissolved by its shareholders in February this year due to a broken capital chain. All employees' labor contracts were terminated and the company entered liquidation procedures.

In fact, one of the doubts about domestic operating systems is that there is no complete ecosystem, and it is difficult for users to obtain software applications of the same magnitude as Microsoft.

In this regard, Ni Guangnan said that the App Store model, which meets user needs and network characteristics, can be used to counter Microsoft's traditional model. He hopes that through the form of an alliance, it can quickly cover a large number of operating systems.

Previously, Ni Guangnan had said that he hoped to launch a domestic desktop operating system in October and support an app store. He also said that he would adopt a corporate operation model, uniting domestic operating system developers and formulating standards.

However, the industry's thinking is more realistic, and companies often hope to establish their own voice.

Puhua Software has introduced the concept of "software center" in its products, which is similar to an app store. Chen Jianhui, product director of Puhua Software's basic software division, said that this is not a complete app store. What it has done is to select many mature applications and tools based on open source technology and optimize them to support the products released this time. As for the future, it hopes that more developers will submit more applications on its software center.

Regarding the alliance's plan, Chen Jianhui said that through the alliance's cooperation in the future, Puhua Software Center will become a universal application store on 18 operating system platforms.

As for the domestic operating system for mobile terminals, Ni Guangnan said it still takes time. But at present, the latter's application store is more market-oriented and more difficult to unify than the desktop terminal.

Market prospects or in key industries

Unlike the rich applications on mobile terminals, desktop software programs are relatively fixed and mature, and users do not have many choices. In addition, although the desktop PC market has a downward trend in the personal consumer market, there is still a large demand for corporate users. This makes some domestic operating system manufacturers believe that "replacement" is realistic.

According to Zhao Xiaoliang, General Manager of Puhua Software, Puhua has prepared a relatively complete solution for the office needs of the party, government and military systems. Puhua Software has deployed corresponding products in the confidential terminals of the headquarters of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation and its subordinate second-level units such as the China Electronics Technology Research Institute, the 11th, 14th and 54th institutes, and government agencies such as the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee.

At the press conference, Puhua Software also revealed that some of China Post Savings Bank's customized terminals and China Post's agricultural trade chain store cash register systems have deployed the company's products, while the General Administration of Customs and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have also completed related deployments.

After the latest general software agreement supply bidding items were released by the Central State Organs Government Procurement Center, as the list of personal operating systems increased from the original 4 to 8, some domestic operating system manufacturers began to receive orders from the industry: Zhongbiao Software signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Dell and planned to pre-install Zhongbiao Kylin operating system on Dell's commercial computer series products; SIP has reached a cooperation agreement with Lenovo and will pre-install SIP SPGnux operating system on 7 Lenovo computers to be launched in the second half of the year.

Analysts pointed out that for domestic operating systems, government agencies and key industries will be their important markets. If relevant policies can be introduced to guide them, they will have the opportunity to develop. Therefore, some industry insiders also regard Microsoft's antitrust investigation as a big benefit to domestic operating systems.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.