If it were up to Huawei, the company would have released its last laptops with Windows. The company also wants to run laptops with its own HarmonyOS.

Huawei laptops still run Windows today, but that could soon change. Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei’s consumer business, says in an interview on China’s Weibo that the company plans to abandon Windows. Future laptops from the brand would run on its own HarmonyOS.

Huawei is working on a new version of the Harmony Next operating system, Yu confirmed in the same interview. The kernel was developed entirely in-house and without Linux. Huawei is promoting the operating system as one that offers “superior performance and security,” although compatibility with applications not developed for Harmony Next could be problematic.

On your own two feet

Huawei launched Harmony OS in response to trade restrictions imposed by the United States that denied the company access to Google applications. The brand’s smartphones have been running the operating system for several years now. The connection with Android has now been almost completely severed, and now Huawei seems to be doing the same with Windows.

Except for a few sports watches and wireless earbuds, Harmony OS hasn’t really caught on in Europe yet. The company is keeping the door open for a return to the European smartphone market, as it confirmed earlier this year during MWC. The laptops with Windows are available in Europe, but not in every country.

The difficulty for Huawei, however, is convincing app developers to optimize their applications for the operating system. It will therefore take many years before the Harmony Next ecosystem can offer a full-fledged alternative to Windows. Microsoft is not losing a major customer with Huawei: Huawei also plays a rather modest role in the PC industry in its home country of China: Lenovo reigns supreme there.

Huawei also has to make its own plans when it comes to hardware. The company is doing quite well, as shown by the flagship phone Mate 60 Pro, which was only launched in China. The company is also working hard on its own AI chips in order to be able to compete with Nvidia.