Nothing human is alien to Android

VK, Yandex, Sberbank and Rostelecom are planning to establish a company that will develop a new mobile operating system (OS) based on Android and a platform that can replace Google Mobile Services (GMS), Kommersant learned. Experts note that the Android-based OS will be in demand among citizens due to its compatibility with a large number of applications. The Aurora OS promoted by Rostelecom is rather intended for the public sector and corporations with high security requirements.

The Ministry of Digital Development will connect a consortium of developers to the development of the domestic mobile ecosystem, a source in the government told Kommersant. According to him, VK, Yandex, Sberbank and Rostelecom are planning to establish a company that will develop a mobile OS based on the open source Android code and create a mobile services platform compatible with it that will replace Google Mobile Services (GMS). VK, Yandex, Rostelecom declined to comment, while Sberbank and the Ministry of Digital Development did not respond to Kommersant.

A Kommersant source on the Russian electronics market also knows about this initiative. According to him, VK and Sberbank are interested in developing an analogue of GMS: “There is no formal consortium yet, but major players are ready to unite to develop the platform. It is needed by everyone who wants their applications to have adequate functionality.

The development of a new OS by a group of players does not contradict Rostelecom’s plans to develop a mobile ecosystem based on the Aurora OS, which, according to a Kommersant source in the government, will be used in the corporate and public sector “to work with sensitive data”: “The new OS will target the consumer segment.

In December, the government included Rostelecom’s project to create a national mobile ecosystem based on the Aurora OS by 2030 in the New General System Software roadmap. The cost of the project, which includes the production of 70 million devices, was estimated by the operator at 480 billion rubles. until 2030. Funding source not approved (see “Kommersant” of December 28).

The Russian authorities, having decided to support the development of a new OS based on Android, are actually following the path of Huawei. When the company lost its partnership with Google in 2018, falling under US sanctions, it began to develop the Harmony OS based on open Android, the AppGallery app store and the Huawei Mobile Service (HMS) platform. In 2021, the number of AppGallery users reached 580 million, in general, 730 million people use HMS services, and 5 million developers are involved in their creation.

Launching a mobile services platform for an OS based on open Android will be easier than for the Aurora OS, one of Kommersant’s sources says. Most of the applications of Russian developers have already been adapted for Android, and their adaptation to Aurora will require time and investment: “Therefore, for the consumer segment of smartphones and tablets, it was decided to make an OS on Android, especially since the main add-on, namely the RuStore application store, has already been launched VK.

The development of an ecosystem based on open Android will cost several times cheaper than the Rostelecom project, agrees the interlocutor of Kommersant in the mobile development market: “Such an OS will be able to receive Android security updates, like Huawei, they are available for free on the Google website, like itself system”. In his opinion, it would be even easier to negotiate with Huawei on the use of its mobile development libraries in RuStore. A Kommersant source in the Russian electronics market adds that it will take no more than a year to develop an OS based on Android: “This is a feasible task if companies combine expertise.”

Nikolai Komlev, director of the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises, considers the idea of ​​developing various mobile operating systems for the consumer market and the public sector successful: “The platform running the Aurora OS can be implemented in institutions where there are high requirements for data security, for example, in law enforcement agencies and state corporations.” In this vein, the harmonization of Aurora with devices on domestic processors would be appropriate, the expert adds.

Julia Silence, Nikita Korolev, Timofey Kornev