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Huawei backtracks on plans to bring a Windows Phone / Android dual-boot device

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Huawei-HeadquartersAnd another one just bit the dust. Following the surprising news that Huawei would be selling a phone that dual boots Android and Windows Phone in Q2, the company has come back to shut those plans down not even a full week later. Huawei issued a statement to Fierce Wireless on the matter:

“Huawei Consumer Business Group adopts an open approach towards mobile operating systems to provide a range of choices for consumers. However, most of our products are based on Android OS, [and] at this stage there are no plans to launch a dual-OS smartphone in the near future.”

It’s an odd turn of events, for sure. The original news was delivered by Huawei’s chief marketing officer Shao Yang, and it didn’t sound like there were any translation errors going on. Apparently Huawei did, in fact, have plans to do exactly what Shao Yang said they were, but ultimately decided against it.

The only question is why. Was there some bit of data that discouraged Huawei from innovating? Did investors express displeasure with the move early on? Could Huawei’s plans have been canned due to pressure from Google just as ASUS’ dual-boot Android netbook was rumored to be?

The Chinese company wouldn’t elaborate on any of that, unfortunately, but that’s where we are today. Whether a good deal of users really want or need a dual-boot phone is another question for another day, but it would be sad if Google is stifling these companies’ ability to find out the answer to that very question.

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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2 Comments

  1. I think dual boot is a great idea. I wish they would reconsider.

  2. Many seem to forget what Samsung officially announced the ATIV Q laptop, which was a dual-boot laptop. There were some patent issues that were preventing that from happening, and I strictly remember it being connected to the dual boot. And before that, remember the ASUS tablet/all-in-one? http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/asus-transformer-aio/ http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/samsung-ativ-q/4505-3126_7-35796877.html

    Both products went dead. No way I would’ve imagined Huawei would be the first to offer dual boot, when other more prominent manufacturers were so close to production, but got the axe by Microsoft and Google.

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