The government of China doesn’t like the fact that foreign operating systems are dominating its mobile landscape. And is now doing something about it, launching its very own COS, which stands for (guess) China Operating System.
The venture was launch as a joint effort between a company by the name of Shanghai Liantong, ISCAS (Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences) and the government. No handset makers were mentioned just yet, but we’re hearing HTC may be on board and support the new platform on day one. Expectedly, though, when asked about it by Engadget, the company’s representatives declined to comment, saying they remain “focused on working with its current OS partners” and don’t want to “comment on speculation regarding other OS.”
In addition, we would expect that a number of Chinese vendors join the scheme in no time at all.
As far as we (don’t) know, COS is a Linux-based OS made to break the foreign software monopoly, while providing better localization for the likes of language input, cloud services and monetization. Moreover, the idea is to make the platform more open than iOS and more secure than Windows Phone and Android… while also leaving room (backdoor) for government spying, we would add. Cause if NSA is snooping inside phones of American citizens, the Chinese agencies gotta be doing the same with phone users in its backyard. And with their own platform, they get improved capabilities to do so…
[Via: Engadget]