153: What's a good name for Starry OS?

"President Chen, netizens are speculating whether the long-battery-life version of the Fruit 5s uses our Yangtze River Battery."

"Should we make a formal response?"

The newcomer Song Ziwei had quickly become familiar with the business; she summarized and reported on current events and internet hot topics daily, especially news regarding Red Star.

"Not for now. Isn't it more interesting to let the netizens discover it for themselves?"

"If we respond proactively now, wouldn't it look like we're just riding Fruit's coattails?"

"Besides, we took so much money from Cook, we have to give him some face. If we leak it now, how can we raise the price for him in the future?"

Fruit had agreed to Red Star's price hike, and Chen Chen was in a good mood; who wouldn't be happy about gaining over ten million us dollars for nothing?

As for the netizens' speculation, let them guess.

Red Star revealing it themselves wouldn't be nearly as explosive as netizens "accidentally" discovering that the so-called Apple cell was actually a yangtze river battery cell.

He could afford to give Cook some face right now.

"President Chen, Mr. Qian from Samsung China and Choi Jae-seok from Samsung Mobile have sent a visit request. They want to schedule a cooperation negotiation. What do you think?"

"Samsung China?"

"I expect Samsung was provoked by the Apple cell. I haven't even settled the score with them for trying to get our yangtze river battery cell technology through oled screens last time. Sending people directly this time is likely still about the yangtze river battery cell."

"Turn them down. Just say my upcoming schedule is full and I can't spare the time for now."

"Alright, President Chen." After saying this, Song Ziwei turned to leave with her long legs, but Chen Chen hurriedly called her back.

"Wait, it's not appropriate to reject them outright. Although we don't rely on them for screens, we still use Samsung for flash memory and RAM. I don't want this Qian Ganqian and Choi-whatever to go back and cause trouble again."

"Set the time for the 28th, after our Xingyao OS 4.0 launch event is over."

"Alright, President Chen, I'll reply to them now."

This major version upgrade of Xingyao OS at the end of the month, in addition to adding a voice assistant, also involved some recompilation work at the system's underlying level.

It could slightly improve the smoothness of the Android System. This was a massive undertaking; Zhao Zhijie's system department already had over 800 members, making it no exaggeration to say it was currently Red Star's largest department.

Of course, they were also secretly developing a domestic operating system.

They had to prepare for a rainy day just like Huawei. If the day of sanctions truly arrived, they would certainly be comprehensive—not only would they be unable to import chips and screens, but they would also face sanctions at the system level.

Just like Huawei in his previous life, unable to get Google's GMS authorization, Huawei found it nearly impossible to move an inch in the international market. (android is open source, but installing GMS on android devices requires Google's authorization.)

The reason android could occupy such a large proportion of the overseas mobile market was that Google was almost irreplaceable in daily life abroad. As the saying goes, Chinese people cannot live without mobile payments, and foreigners cannot lack Google.

Browsers need Chrome, app stores need Google Play, and maps need Google Maps—all of which are built on the foundation of GMS.

Although Huawei immediately launched HMS, which cost a fortune to develop but had been kept tightly under wraps, software development, opening API interfaces, and rebuilding an ecosystem all take time. Even now, Huawei is still working on this.

According to Chen Chen's understanding, GMS was a pipeline deeply rooted in the use of overseas internet companies. Under normal circumstances, everyone could use this pipeline to connect mobile phones to the Android System.

But after the ban, this pipeline could no longer be used. Huawei's phones became like bricks without a system, and HMS was a new pipeline (authorization certificate) created by Huawei to reconnect to the Android System.

Chen Chen was also very anxious about this. Given Red Star's current development trend, it was hard to say whether he or Huawei would be sanctioned first, but even if he was after Huawei, he certainly wouldn't escape it.

So Chen Chen, like Huawei, was seizing the time to develop his own operating system and a new service framework. In the next two years, if possible, Chen Chen would try to open the ports and spend heavily to get those developers to adapt to his own operating system.

In many books, the protagonist brings out their own operating system at the start and then quickly promotes it to the whole world. Setting aside the difficulty of development—which is just explained away as being given by a system—Chen Chen really wanted to know: does your operating system have software support? Can those foreigners live without Google?

What is the difference between an operating system without an ecosystem and a brick?

Even Huawei took five or six years to gradually build its own ecosystem. Before Chen Chen transmigrated, a pure-bred HarmonyOS had not yet truly appeared; it could only remain compatible with android.

At the same time, Chen Chen was considering renaming Xingyao OS. When he first took over Red Star, he hadn't thought that far ahead; at that time, the main priority was to ensure the company's successful transition and survival.

After several years of development, Red Star had now become the mobile phone company with the highest shipment volume in China and had a small share in the international market. Continuing to use the Chinese system name Xingyao OS would be disadvantageous for global development.

Of course, Chen Chen liked the name in his heart. The name originally came from a phrase—'The Red Star Shines Over China.'

Red Star OS?

Or StarOS?

At the same time, the latest project development at the Red Star Semiconductor Lab had also achieved milestone results.

"Radio Frequency Chips in mobile phones, specifically the Filters and Power Amplifiers within them, are our next key targets for breakthrough."

"Everyone worked hard during the first phase. Regarding frequency division modulation and reception, based on current experiments, we have basically reached our initial design goals."

"You all know President Chen; he is never stingy with bonuses." Dr. Lu, Lu Yuanjiang, finished speaking and smiled. "He definitely won't let everyone down."

The development progress of the LingXiao S4 and C1 was very rapid, and they were currently undergoing tape-out in Taiwan. Besides processor chips, the Red Star Semiconductor Lab's current project was this Radio Frequency Chip. Back then, what bottlenecked Huawei was the Filter; it was no exaggeration to say that Radio Frequency Chips were a key research project for Red Star.