Very rarely does a company call on the U.S. government to take a deep look at it but that’s exactly what Huawei is doing in order to clear up misconceptions about its connections to the Chinese government and to gain traction in the U.S. market.
According to the New York Times, Huawei has written an open letter to the government asking it to investigate the telecommunications equipment making company.
The company is very, very clear in its intentions, as the letter said, “We sincerely hope that the United States government will carry out a formal investigation on any concerns it may have about Huawei.” The move comes as Huawei has been rebuffed on its attempt to purchase parts of Motorola’s assets, 3Com and more thanks to concerns about “national security.”
If you’re not hip to the flavor of the U.S. government right now, China has become the latest boogeyman thanks to its growing GDP and the fact that it owns a boatload of U.S. debt. I do hope that the investigation plea is met with an honest look at the company and if everything is on the up and up, let it invest in the country.
Huawei is a sleeping dragon too, as it has multiple fingers in all parts of the telecom industry. It can make the backhaul you need, as well as nearly any of the networking equipment. It is also dabbling in the handset market, as the Android-powered Ideos is a low-cost smartphone that has landed at T-Mobile as the Comet.
I think this is an incredibly savvy move by Huawei and wish that we could get more of this type of transparency from companies, no matter what country of origin it is from. Xenophobia shouldn’t get in the way of innovation and good business.
[Via New York Times, photo]
