NEW YORK: China has announced that it plans to launch a home-grown operating system to replace Windows and Android for running the nation’s desktop and mobile devices. The first iteration of this “Made in China” OS could roll out as early as October.

And although the launch of a new operating system poses no immediate threat to Google, Apple or Microsoft, it does carry a number of implications for the way the Internet develops around the world.

The debate over operating systems in China mirrors, to a large extent, the broader debate over the future of the Internet that’s happening in developing markets. After years of borrowing and adapting Western technology, countries like China are now moving to develop their own version of the Internet where home-grown companies and technologies can flourish.

As a result, in China you have a growing number of companies that, arguably, are just as powerful as their Western counterparts.

For every Amazon, there is an Alibaba. For every Twitter, there is a Weibo. For every Apple, there is a Xiaomi. Now that Xiaomi is the No. 1 smartphone vendor in China, there does seem to be a competitive reason to develop a ‘Made in China’ operating system. You can think of the operating system as the engine that powers how people access and use the Internet, and so it’s only logical that Chinese smartphone and tablet makers would rather use a ‘domestic’ OS than a ‘foreign’ OS.

First and foremost, it would help them sell more products if the OS has been customised to domestic market parameters. Samsung, for example, developed the Tizen operating system as an alternative to Android as part of a strategy to sell more smartphones and tablets.

However, the development of a Chinese home-grown OS is about more than just China’s tech giants finally catching up with Silicon Valley. To a certain degree, it’s about the future of the Internet and the way it’s architected from here on out.

By arrangement with Washingon Post-Bloomberg News Service

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2014