Less than 24 hours before the official release of the native HarmonyOS, the busiest people were not the organizers of the conference but the application developers from various internet companies who hoped to make a perfect debut on the native HarmonyOS. They were striving to update even a single line of code... Since the public beta test of the native HarmonyOS was launched on October 8, a large number of users have flooded into the HarmonyOS app market, downloading, evaluating, discussing, and even trying to master these apps. Meanwhile, application developers have been optimizing their existing apps to the greatest extent based on continuous user feedback. It can be said that the entire Chinese internet industry is bustling with activity over this matter.

In "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," Thomas Kuhn has already revealed to us that whenever a technological paradigm shift occurs, there will inevitably be an interaction between driving forces and resistances, as well as confrontations between the advanced and the lagging behind. Progress comes at a cost. However, once the key rhythm of the technological paradigm shift is mastered, it will become the dominant paradigm of the era. I believe this is the greatest common divisor between HarmonyOS and China's entire information industry, and the fundamental reason why partners from all walks of life are willing to support HarmonyOS.

-- Introduction

01

Thousands of Troops Marching towards HarmonyOS

The official release of the native HarmonyOS finally arrived on the evening of October 22.

At the Huawei Developer Conference in June, the Beta version was launched for developers and pioneer users. In late September, a Oath taking ceremony was held in Bantian, Shenzhen. On October 8, the official public beta test was announced... Together with tonight's "Native HarmonyOS Night," people have finally come to believe that HarmonyOS has fulfilled every promise on its annual roadmap, and the native HarmonyOS has arrived as scheduled.

Simultaneously, Huawei announced that over 15,000 apps and meta-services have been listed on the HarmonyOS NEXT app market, and the number of HarmonyOS-enabled devices has exceeded 1 billion, marking a significant increase from a month ago.

However, what makes me even more convinced that the native HarmonyOS will have an extraordinary start is the relentless development efforts of HarmonyOS ecosystem partners in the lead-up to the release.

This is a harder and more empirical fact than Huawei's unilateral promises.

As I wrote before, HarmonyOS is not just Huawei's; it is complete only when it includes its ecosystem, which is precisely what China's information technology industry expects and needs from HarmonyOS.

Numerous companies have undertaken Herculean tasks in preparation for the Native HarmonyOS Night, aiming to provide native HarmonyOS users with a great first experience.

As a super app that permeates every aspect of our lives, encompassing countless functions and capabilities, Alipay's efforts have been low-key yet sincere.

On December 7, 2023, Huawei and Alipay jointly announced the official launch of native HarmonyOS application development.

Since then, Alipay has fully committed to supporting HarmonyOS development. The term "fully" here is not a mere modifier but a factual description.

Alipay has deployed hundreds of technical experts to participate in concentrated closed-door research and development, and these experts are not just ordinary R&D engineers but truly capable senior experts. This is also closely related to the priority and breadth of Alipay's cooperation with Huawei, involving close collaboration in multiple areas such as ArkUI and application architecture within the HarmonyOS ecosystem.

Another testament to Alipay's enthusiasm for joining the HarmonyOS ecosystem is the rapid iteration speed of its HarmonyOS Beta version.

Many industry insiders know that to determine whether a company is truly committed to a software or system, updates and iterations are crucial and the most tangible actions... I understand that within just over three months, the Alipay HarmonyOS version underwent numerous iterations, almost once a week on average.

Crucially, Alipay is not a small app. Although I don't have the latest code data for Alipay, I have historical data indicating that in 2019 alone, Alipay added 400 million lines of code.

Note that this is 400 million new lines, not the total. It is easy to imagine the astronomical amount of code in Alipay. Despite this, Alipay updates its HarmonyOS version weekly, and even as I write this, they are still working hard on the next version. This represents an incredible workload and an unspeakable level of commitment and sincerity.

As a result, the HarmonyOS version of Alipay already boasts millions of mini-programs and over a hundred types of lifestyle services, with an overall performance improvement of 15% compared to HamronyOS 4.2. In other words, Alipay may be the first super app that consumers experience on the native HarmonyOS, and one of the smoothest to use.

JD.com is naturally not far behind. Despite the tight schedule and heavy workload, since June this year, leveraging the advantages of the HarmonyOS platform, all JD.com applications and internal enterprise applications have gradually completed native HarmonyOS adaptation. The JD.com app, in particular, completed full-process verification for shopping, payment, and delivery within just one month.

In other words, we will experience a JD.com app that is "out-of-the-box ready" on pure HarmonyOS, complete with all functions and a smooth user experience.

WPS, an undisputed powerhouse in productivity, started developing for HarmonyOS even earlier. WPS is a pride of China's software industry, having competed with Microsoft Office in the office field for over 30 years and ultimately surpassed Microsoft in the mobile internet era. WPS's entire codebase embodies the efforts of generations of Kingsoft employees, and the R&D team spent years completing the feat of reconstructing over 40 million lines of code to ensure efficient operation on the native HarmonyOS system.

It is worth mentioning that as the de facto platform supporting China's social relationships, WeChat has always been a core app eagerly awaited by HarmonyOS consumers. Every update and compatibility news about it stirs the interest of millions of users. Although the HarmonyOS version of WeChat is still in beta testing, some users have noticed that it underwent three updates within three days, undergoing repeated refinements, tests, and validations. We have reason to believe that when the HarmonyOS version of WeChat is officially launched, it will meet the expectations of hundreds of millions of HarmonyOS users.

In addition, on the evening of the HarmonyOS Night, Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, Chairman of the Terminal BG, and Chairman of the Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, specifically honored a group of popular apps that quickly adapted to HarmonyOS and used a slide in a PowerPoint presentation to thank the developers of these apps:

      02

      Super Project

I believe the popular term "super project" aptly describes the native HarmonyOS, whether for Huawei's internal R&D team or its external partners.

Internally, within less than a decade, Huawei rapidly integrated multiple operating system-related projects within its system, overcoming numerous challenges. Among them, HarmonyOS has undergone five years of development, written over 110 million lines of code, and now boasts over 1 billion HarmonyOS-enabled devices.

If you have no concept of this scale, consider that the development of Microsoft's Windows Vista system, an upgrade rather than a brand-new version, involved over 25 R&D teams, more than 1,000 R&D personnel, and took over five years to complete.

In short, the resource consumption of native HarmonyOS development is on par with that of Windows, the world's largest computer operating system in terms of installed base. This not only demonstrates that HarmonyOS is a world-class operating system but also represents a monumental feat in China's operating system development history, involving massive resource investment and a grand overall scale.

However, in my opinion, the success of native HarmonyOS also depends on its external "super project," namely, building the native HarmonyOS ecosystem. The ambition and scale of this project are also worthy of being described as "super."

The external "super" aspect encompasses the cooperation of tens of thousands of partners, the full commitment of millions of developers who work day and night, and the invaluable feedback from millions of C-end consumers during the beta phase. It is through the concerted efforts and full support of these partners and users that the native HarmonyOS has been continuously iterated and improved, ultimately achieving its scheduled official release at the end of October.

I have also mentioned that the adaptation of tens of thousands of partners to native HarmonyOS embodies a simple sense of national sentiment. However, I also believe that native HarmonyOS attracts ecosystem partners through its tangible technological and performance advantages and brand charm, making this combination stronger and more enduring.

For example, the head of DingTalk believes that their decision to go all-in on native HarmonyOS was due not only to shared design ideas in areas such as native intelligence, the one-more framework, and meta-services, enabling them to "recreate a brand-new DingTalk on the HarmonyOS system," but also to the overwhelming demand from users. "A large number of government and enterprise clients, as well as top-tier customers on DingTalk, eagerly expressed their desire for HarmonyOS adaptation."

These government and enterprise clients and top-tier customers also happen to be the user groups with the highest density on Huawei phones, and their demands are genuinely heartfelt.

For Alipay users, their focus is on the smooth functioning of the millions of mini-programs on Alipay within the HarmonyOS ecosystem on new devices and systems.

These long-tailed, fragmented mini-programs come from various industries and serve a wide range of purposes. If they cannot be used, it would be a significant drawback for users. Alipay not only "relocated" these mini-programs as a whole but also optimized the user experience by leveraging the advantages of native HarmonyOS. For instance, in the novel "tap-to-pay" experience, Alipay and HarmonyOS further optimized their integration, resulting in a smoothness improvement of over 30%.

DingTalk President Ye Jun famously said that HarmonyOS can be leveraged to "recreate DingTalk." In fact, this is also the aspiration of many ecosystem partners. As the potential of the Android architecture is increasingly exhausted, and iOS remains excessively closed and unlikely to open up, various players have pinned their hopes on native HarmonyOS for new features and experiences, precisely reflecting the urgent need for breakthroughs in China's information technology industry, especially in the application field.

JD.com has also been deeply impressed by the new features of HarmonyOS. In the past, the ability to take a screenshot by "circling" with a knuckle was a popular feature on Huawei phones. Thanks to HarmonyOS's AI capabilities, when users see something they like, the knuckle circling function has evolved from simply taking a screenshot to directly navigating to the corresponding product page on the JD.com app, allowing them to purchase it with just one click. Although this is a minor detail, it was previously unachievable on the Android platform for many years...

As a rising star in the field of office collaboration, Feishu's developers praise the efficiency of developing on the HarmonyOS system. "We completed the development and adaptation of features such as IM chat, document sharing, and video conferencing in just 3-4 months," they said. Not only can they quickly adapt in a short time, but the HarmonyOS version has also been fully optimized for video conferencing scenarios, including noise reduction, voice enhancement, and echo cancellation, providing an extremely smooth video conferencing experience.

03

A Historic Moment

Over Huawei Terminal's 20+ years, there have been many milestone hardware products. However, in terms of significance, the birth of HarmonyOS represents the most strategic historic moment for Huawei Terminal in the software realm. In the current international landscape, the emergence of HarmonyOS not only offers Huawei a way out but also adds an option, even a safeguard, to China's information industry.

When considering this issue, it is essential to adopt an external perspective, focusing not solely on what Huawei "wants" but rather on what native HarmonyOS can "bring" to China's information industry and "how" it can do so.

The best way to illustrate this is through stories.

In 2007, the iPhone was released. Although the initial iPhone offered a subpar experience and did not support 3G networks, its groundbreaking interaction methods and revolutionary hardware design significantly impacted the industry.

Faced with this challenge, Nokia, then the world's largest mobile phone shipper, was caught off guard. They had lingered in the comfort zone of feature phones for too long, even though they labeled their Symbian system as a smartphone OS. However, compared to the revolutionary iPhone, this level of intelligence paled in comparison.

Due to inertia, it took Nokia four years after the iPhone's arrival to introduce MeeGo, its operating system developed in collaboration with Intel, on a new device called the N9. Objectively speaking, this new device was comparable to early Android and iOS in terms of full-screen touch and interactive experience, giving Nokia a chance to turn things around.

However, despite its launch, MeeGo failed to gain traction due to poor timing and the lack of a robust ecosystem, rendering it less usable. At this juncture, Nokia abruptly abandoned its partnership with Intel and turned to Microsoft, a move that ultimately led to the failure of Intel's entry into the mobile processor market and paved the way for Qualcomm to capitalize on the opportunity.

Nokia believed that Microsoft's influence over software vendors (with a Windows ecosystem boasting 30 million apps) would quickly attract a large number of ecosystem partners to develop targeted applications. To this end, Nokia even abandoned MeeGo in favor of adapting to Microsoft's Windows Phone OS.

However, Microsoft struggled to build a mobile ecosystem. From Microsoft's perspective, issues such as slow version updates, lack of continuity, insufficient supporting tools, and unfair revenue-sharing mechanisms for Windows Phone were evident. From a consumer standpoint, the app store remained barren, lacking the latest and most popular apps, and its overall app volume paled in comparison to Android and iOS. Eventually, Windows Phone development ceased, Nokia nearly vanished from the mobile phone industry, and Microsoft nearly missed out on the entire mobile internet era.

These stories underscore that had Nokia focused solely on developing its MeeGo system and ecosystem rather than wavering between strategies, it could have potentially emerged as a smartphone giant alongside Samsung and Apple, leveraging its vast user base. Similarly, had Microsoft approached the development of Windows Phone with humility and a focus on serving developers by optimizing its framework, ecosystem, and user experience, it might not have faltered in the mobile era.

HarmonyOS should learn from these lessons. That is why we see today that HarmonyOS considers its ecosystem as the first principle of system success, treating ecosystem partners with humility, and strategically and consistently optimizing each version of the HarmonyOS system. It is not difficult to imagine that this is due to HarmonyOS's thorough absorption of historical lessons and experiences.

So let's return to the topic. Why is the birth of the native HarmonyOS a historic moment for Huawei and China's IT industry?

This is because, as we are on the verge of entering the era of intelligence, China needs an independent and powerful operating system (mainly referring to the consumer side, excluding servers, HPC markets, etc.).

The dream of having a Chinese operating system has existed since the 1950s. Basically, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, China's self-developed mainframe computers were equipped with independent operating systems. However, these operating systems were primarily designed for specific scientific research projects and were too far removed from ordinary people's lives, making them impractical for widespread adoption.

After the 1980s, personal computers began to enter China, and the DOS operating system became popular. However, China lacked experience in operating systems at the time, and research focused mainly on localizing DOS systems. Thus, we missed the DOS era.

From the 1990s to the early 2000s, a group of domestically produced operating systems based on the Linux kernel emerged. Since Linux's core source code is open-source, these operating systems can indeed be considered self-developed. However, the biggest problem is that for ordinary consumers, Linux-based systems are not as user-friendly as Windows. For government and enterprise users, while domestic Linux systems can meet basic office needs, software scarcity and compatibility issues prevent them from truly breaking into the market.

In the second decade of this century, as domestic IT giants grew stronger financially and technologically, another wave of companies began to tackle operating systems, with a focus shifting from computers to smartphones. However, China lacked expertise in mobile operating systems, and more importantly, the Android and iOS ecosystems had already been established. As a result, domestic operating systems struggled to survive, and companies like Huawei continued to develop deeply based on Android and other platforms.

Yet, when Huawei was forced to shift from Android to HarmonyOS, we discovered that HarmonyOS possessed advantages that previous operating systems lacked:

First, HarmonyOS's development approach prioritizes user experience over development path, with a clear sense of purpose. In contrast to previous domestic operating system developments that lacked a clear vision for user experience and functionality, HarmonyOS is a project that Huawei decided to pursue after years of experience in the mobile phone market. This means that HarmonyOS has a clear understanding of what users want and what developers need to do to deliver and optimize that experience, giving the operating system development a strong sense of purpose and avoiding detours.

Second, HarmonyOS is positioned at the transition from the post-mobile internet era to the era of intelligence. With its deep technological expertise in distributed soft buses, native intelligence, and native security, as mentioned earlier, many super apps are paying close attention to these new features and hoping to use them to gain access to the era of intelligence. In other words, HarmonyOS is the culmination of the latest technologies and plays a crucial bridging role in China's entry into the era of intelligence. As every enterprise aspires to transition to the era of intelligence, not all of them can develop an operating system tailored for this new era.

Lastly, Huawei's attitude and efforts in ecosystem development are unmatched by any previous operating system ecosystem. HarmonyOS prioritizes the success of its ecosystem partners over its own, investing resources and tools to help enterprises reduce the difficulty of development and adaptation. This sincerity and dedication have united the industry in supporting the development of HarmonyOS. The dividends of entering the AI era drive these companies to devote themselves to research and development day and night, while the willingness to fully support HarmonyOS and its development into China's mainstream consumer operating system stems from emotional factors. HarmonyOS represents a harmonious blend of rationality and emotion, and its rapid ecosystem development is ultimately the inevitable outcome of meeting the expectations of the industry and even the entire sector.

Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" has already shown us that during periods of technological paradigm shifts, there is inevitably an interplay between driving forces and resistances, as well as clashes between the advanced and the lagging behind. Progress comes at a cost. However, once the critical rhythm of technological paradigm shifts is mastered, it becomes the dominant paradigm of the era. I believe that this is the greatest common denominator between HarmonyOS and China's entire information industry, and the fundamental reason why partners from all walks of life are willing to support HarmonyOS.