Huawei isn’t rolling over and just accepting the USA’s ban on it’s ability to sell goods to the government. The company has filed a motion in Texas asking for a judge to rule that the ban is unconstitutional as it explicitly names Huawei and there is no evidence that the Chinese telecommunications giant is involved in spying.
It was only a day or so ago that it seemed Huawei was paddling up the faecal river without a paddle. But things have changed a little. They have filed a motion in court asking for a summary judgement on the ban.
In asking for a quick decision, Huawei is hoping to avoid a lengthy discovery process that could take months as the government and Huawei would then need to provide a stack of documents and other evidence.
The WiFi Alliance, Bluetooth SIG and SD Association have all re-added Huawei to their membership lists, after dumping it just a few days ago.
That said, Huawei is still in a pretty bad place. Its status with Google is still a mess. Although security and app updates for devices that are already on the market seem to be safe, there’s no guarantee that anticipated upgrades to Android Q will happen. And the fickle nature of politics in the USA could see the White House issue a changed edict that still blackballs Huawei.
Even if that doesn’t happen and Huawei wins this court case it’s hard to see a way back from a commercial perspective while President Trump sits in the Oval Office.
The one thing in Huawei’s favour is that it will be thinking, I believe, in much longer time frames than the American government. Campaigning for the next presidential election will start soon and President Trump will be using his strong-arm tactics against China as a way to rally voters. Huawei, having moved into the number two slot for global smartphone sales with 45.5% year on year sales growth according to Gartner, will be thinking about its future well beyond the next two years.
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