China Developing Its Own OS To Take On Apple, Microsoft, and Google

If it hasn't been made clear enough in recent months that China would love nothing more than to cut down on its reliance to American technology companies, its just-announced decision to create its own operating system should remedy that. At first, this OS will target the desktop, but eventually, it'll make its way to smartphones and other mobile devices.

At this point, we know very little about what China's OS will look like, or be like for that matter, but we do know that it's being designed to be a proper replacement for Microsoft's and Google's OSes. It seems very likely that China's OS would use Linux as a base, since there's little point in reinventing the wheel, and because of its open-source nature, the country would have complete control over the code. Further, Linux natively supports both x86 and ARM architectures, so that'd help take care of both the desktop and mobile aspect of the OS, and of course, Linux already supports a lot of software.

China's OS is likely to be Linux-based, like StartOS (Credit: DistroWatch)

China's decision to make a home-brewed OS is a direct response to multiple security run-ins between it and the US over the years, and heightened awareness of the US' goings-on that became clear after Edward Snowden blew the whistle on some groundbreaking NSA activities. We'd have to imagine that China's OS has been in development for some time, because its target launch window is this October. Given that sort of speed, it adds to the likelihood of its OS being Linux-derived.

In a way, it's going to be interesting to see what China's OS brings to the table, or will even look like. It has to be good given the country's ambitions for it: It expects it to be common on the desktop in 1 or 2 years, and common on mobile in 3 to 5 years.