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Chinese Giant Huawei Gets Serious About PC Business, Announces Plans For Global Expansion (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the further-expansion dept.

Speaking of new laptops, Chinese conglomerate Huawei plans a global expansion into computers, it said on Tuesday, posing a fresh challenge to established PC players in a market that has suffered two years of falling sales volumes and pressure on margins. From a report: At a news conference in Berlin, the Shenzhen-based company introduced its first line-up of three personal computer models, including a 15.6-inch screen notebook, a 2-in-1 tablet and notebook hybrid and an ultra slim, metallic 13-inch notebook. Initially, Huawei plans to target the premium-priced consumer market, competing with Lenovo, HP and Dell, which together sell more than 50 percent of all PCs. To a lesser extent, it will also go up against Apple's high-end, but shrinking, Mac computer business. Huawei's Matebook X is a fanless notebook with splash-proof screen and combined fingerprint sign-on and power button, priced between 1,399 and 1,699 euros ($1,570-$1,900). Its Matebook E 2-in-1 hybrid will run from 999 to 1,299 euros while the Matebook D with 15.6-inch display is priced at 799 to 999 euros, it said. Huawei said it aims to offer the new PCs in 12 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East in early June.

53 comments

  1. Apple trolling by kamapuaa · · Score: 1

    To a lesser extent, it will also go up against Apple's high-end, but shrinking, Mac computer business.
    In terms of sales numbers, profits, and percentage of computer sales as a whole, it's getting larger.

    --
    Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    1. Re:Apple trolling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep telling yourself that fanboi

    2. Re:Apple trolling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/11/q1-2017-worldwide-mac-sales-up-amid-pc-decline/

    3. Re:Apple trolling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Learn how to read Trumpbitches.

    4. Re:Apple trolling by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 0

      Nobody who wants high end anything at all, will buy Huawei instead of almost any other brand.

      If I want to give up my iPhone, I will probably get a Samsung. If I want to give up my macbook pro, I will probably get a dell xps. If I want to give up my Mac Pro or iMac, I will build a DIY (which in fact, I have to do anyway for VR).

      There is no room in the world for Huawei, they need to go find someone who loves them, preferably somewhere in the convection zone of the Sun.

  2. Matebook? by lbmouse · · Score: 1

    Is that like the Mercury Mistress?

  3. $2000? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    A $2000 Chinese designed and built laptop? You might want to knock off a zero.

    1. Re:$2000? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A $2000 designed and built laptop? You might want to knock off a zero.

      There I fixed it for you.

    2. Re: $2000? by fubarrr · · Score: 2

      You know, Huawei makes a lot of overpriced stuff like $600 featurephones (maimang 5), yet people are buying them.

      It always puzzled me why Americans dislike buying cheap shit, yet ready to buy the same shit if it is properly marked up to few hundred bucks.

      I used to sell $1 Chinese sunglasses in my student years on ebay for around $100 to $200 each. The only thing it took me was to order them to be silk-screened with madeup random Italian sounding brand names.

    3. Re: $2000? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      It isn't just Americans. I don't think Americans are buying Huawei smartphones. But you are right: just go to aliexpress and you will see how cheaply junk has been made in China, and the markup we are paying here in the West.

    4. Re:$2000? by Shompol · · Score: 1

      They built Google Nexus phone in 2015. I have their Honor Note 8, shipped direct from China for half price of what it would sell for in US. I am very impressed with quality. If their laptop is not a locked down piece of shit like Lenovo or HP than I will line up to get one.

    5. Re: $2000? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Remember any of those made-up random Italian-sounding brand names?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    6. Re: $2000? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guidocci
      Wopani
      Dolce and Goombano

      Neeed any more?

    7. Re:$2000? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If sales are lacking I am sure the Chinese government is prepared to knock off two zeros. They need to make sure their cyber security agency have an acceptable number of units to provide a distributed launch platform for all kinds of cyber related attacks. And unlike the US anyone who complains about the government mandating backdoor access to any device while also demanding any keys needed to break any encrypted data will only happen once. Unlike the US both China and Russia do not have to deal with their citizens complaining about anything related to state security. Unlike the US both China and Russia would have interrogated and then killed anyone duplicating the actions of Snowden and Manning. If their suspect fled the country China and Russia have a time tested method of getting them to return. Simply threaten the family and friends of the person they want to get their hands on. No need to bother with a public extradition battles or fruitless diplomatic wrangling to get the person they want. Back during the Cold War the old USSR had to send 3 security agents for every member of their Olympic team to keep them from defecting when traveling to the West. When the defections happened anyway it was a major embarrassment for the USSR. They resorted to assigning agents to monitor the families and friends in a not so subtle way telling the athlete what would happen to those left behind. The Russians and the Chinese were the ones who benefitted the most from Snowden's actions. Hell most of the data released by Snowden had been public knowledge for anyone paying attention. Any potential information on foreign operations or communications contained nothing that Russia or China did not already have. However,
      What Snowden's actions did accomplish was putting a spotlight on the US security agencies. The way the Snowden documents have been cherry picked and released gives the impression that only the US has intelligence and counter intelligence agencies. Those releasing and presenting, and make no mistake the information released has been carefully shaped to support the political agenda of those releasing the information. The publically released documents have also tried to forward the idea that the US Constitution and Bill of Rights protections somehow apply to non-US citizens in foreign countries. While the world focuses solely on the US intelligence agencies the US enemies are laying on the floor laughing and continuing their work in peace.

    8. Re: $2000? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A year ago I bough Huaweii P8 Lite (after being dissatisfied with Samsung phones and their pricing, and after being disgusted with Apple profit margins and general behavior). I was astonished how good it was (and still is!). It does everything I expect smartphone to do, has good enough battery life, it's fast (and updates don't slow the phone nearly as much as the ones on Samsung or Apple phones) and in general reliable. Since then 6 of my close relatives bought the phone and have only positive experience using it. It's also kind of cheap, especially when compared to Samsung or Apple phones. I think it's the best smarphone I ever had. All in all I think we're past the "Chinese = crap" era.

      If I had to buy a powerful laptop and if I had $2000 to spend I would consider Huaweii, especially if by buying their laptop I could save $500-$1000.

    9. Re: $2000? by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      The overpriced Google Nexus 6P is made by Huawei.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    10. Re: $2000? by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      A number of words related to the Centuari republic are vaguely Italian sounding.

      Centuari
      A number of words in Centuari opera, as sung by Londo and Vir while standing in the hallway. (Episode: Knives)
      Brevari (spelling?) a drink from same episode

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    11. Re:$2000? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How different it is from a Chinese designed and built $2000 Apple device? Only the location of marketing and branding department is different between those companies.

    12. Re: $2000? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean my Wopanis are fake??? Urgh!

    13. Re: $2000? by phayes · · Score: 1

      So sayeth the Huawei sockpuppet. After seeing their smartphones I have little confidence that they will achieve the high end they aspire to - at least for 4-5 years

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    14. Re: $2000? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 2

      I guess that's where Lenovo has a marketing advance over Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi.

      People might still buy Thinkpad and Motorola because they're all American or, rather, were.

    15. Re: $2000? by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      The Centauri Republic is a vague allegory of the Roman Empire.

  4. Please pray for Ariana Grande by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope she's not psychologically damaged by that terrible crime.

    1. Re:Please pray for Ariana Grande by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      I hope she's okay. But at least she didn't have to listen to Justin Bieber music.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  5. Cheap Chink Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    With backdoors gallore. No thanks

    1. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by lalleglad · · Score: 1

      And what makes you think non "Cheap Chink Shit" has less backdoors?

      Reinstalling Linux and making sure to monitor all ports for traffic, would be a good start to fight backdoors.

      Windows, iOS and other closed source OS's will intrinsically be less reliable regarding backdoors.

    2. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck you Chinaman

    3. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      Reinstalling Linux doesn't help if you can't trust the hardware.

      Let's talk about American hardware for a sec. Do you know about Intel's Management Engine? There is not just an Intel Inside your computer. The there is another Intel Inside your CPU chip. A computer within the computer. That "management engine" runs an undocumented binary blob. Without that blob, the processor will stop. That chip within your chip can literally control everything on the motherboard and beyond, just like the CPU can. So the OS doesn't really matter -- it operates at the pleasure of the management engine.

      And AMD has its counterpart of this.

      I'm not saying the Chinese wouldn't do the same. But the point is, reinstalling Linux no longer matters. More powerful people with deeper connections have already pre-compromised your hardware. And for years now.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    4. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      My computer from an American company says made in China on it so I'm not even sure you can by an all American made computer even if it's assembled here most of the parts are made elsewhere and many in China.

    5. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by lalleglad · · Score: 1

      I understand that the HW can have hidden attempts at compromising the whole system.

      HOWEVER, the way I am thinking is the following, and please prove me wrong, if I am wrong!

      1. The OS takes care of all sockets and even low level connections to other IP addresses.
      2. If a HW layer below the OS wants to connect to an outside point, without the OS to know, it needs to have a full network stack available.
      3. Even if 2. is possible and a lower layer is able to provide a what would then be a parallel network stack, it would not be possible without the main OS being able to 'see it'.
      4. If the main OS is able to see all network connections, and you are are able to monitor those so nothing is hidden, then you are able to monitor your network traffic, and see and control what you want to go through, and not.
      5. If you don't think so, and think that both Intel and AMD by their CPUs are able to bypass normal network monitoring, I would be interested in knowing?
      6. What if I had my network go though a hub where I was able to monitor all traffic, then I would be able to see it, even if Intel or AMD had compromised my PC motherboard, right?
      7. So, if 6. is possible, why would Intel or AMD even try, if they know that they could easily be detected to do something like that?

      Please tell me that you aren't wearing a tin hat?

      Thank you!

    6. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by lalleglad · · Score: 1

      An American brand computer or not, doesn't matter anymore.
      American computers haven't even mattered for a long time, and unless you are a Trump supporter, which I am not implying that you are, it doesn't make sense to talk about US made or not, within the computer world.
      Computers is a global industry, and everyone making those, on every level, are dependent on each other.

    7. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      4. If the main OS is able to see all network connections, and you are are able to monitor those so nothing is hidden, then you are able to monitor your network traffic, and see and control what you want to go through, and not.

      At best, the OS would be able to detect the network adapter unavailable for a short while. But being in complete control, the Intel Management Engine is able to interfere with the ability of the OS to detect any such timelapses.

      6. What if I had my network go though a hub where I was able to monitor all traffic, then I would be able to see it, even if Intel or AMD had compromised my PC motherboard, right?

      You will be able to see the encrypted TLS traffic of the IME on the router, yes.

      7. So, if 6. is possible, why would Intel or AMD even try, if they know that they could easily be detected to do something like that?

      Intel and AMD is not trying to hide the fact. They are merely ensuring that you, the end user, can not fiddle with it or intercept it.

    8. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1.
      The OS is split into the device hardware (the NIC), the kernel device driver for the NIC, the TCP/IP stack (the sockets API, utilities, netstat, traceroute).
      2.
      There are now other software layers below the kernel like UEFI which is a replacement for the BIOS. In the days of pure MS-DOS applications, to send data packets using IPX, you made BIOS interrupt calls. That's replaced by UEFI. It's possible to write UEFI applications that make use of the network connectivity. All a rootkit needs is to be able to make HTTP GET and PUT requests.
      4. Most OS monitoring applications work at the top level of the device driver, at the TCP/IP sockets level, not at the bottom level where the actual packet data is being sent to the hardware. If you look at the history log of many device drivers, you'll see there are often attempts to augment the basic packet structure with extra pointers to "auxiliary data". These get thrown out because they hide data from applications like Wireshark.
      5. See #4
      6. Yes, you would be able to see the packets
      7. Because the average user doesn't have the technical knowledge to know how to set up Wireshark and other monitoring applications.

    9. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      The majority of premium non-Apple/Samsung hardware has Qualcomm or Intel Inside (TM). China has a great opportunity to give the finger to western three letter agencies and support FOSS at the same time:

      Mandate that mainland ARM licensees such as HiSilicon, Speadtrum, Allwinner and Rockchip all support Libre/Coreboot and mainline their drivers into the Linux kernel. Taiwanese Mediatek would quickly fall into line too.

      Transparency would go a long way towards eliminating the perception that any Chinese hardware has party backdoors within.

    10. Re:Cheap Chink Shit by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      You can assemble your own desktop compute from parts if you like. But yeah most of them will be manufactured at China or Taiwan or South Korea. AMD still manufactures their CPUs in Europe/USA and Intel and Micron still have fabs in the USA but that's about it.

      A lot of the chip design still is made in the USA though.

  6. Please. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For $1500 I can get an awesome MacBook Pro running a *nix.

    The last thing I want is some Chinese designed and made computer that has god knows what software or firmware on it and Winblows. Sure I can wipe off whatever software they have, but the firmware?

    I'm not playing that game.

    We need to remember they are Commie bastards who are World Power wannbees and these companies are STATE controlled. Supreme leaders want software installed to get information, company bosses do what they are told or get executed.

    1. Re:Please. by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      For $1500 I can get an awesome MacBook Pro

      You can get a MacBook Pro, but an awesome one? In an alternate reality, perhaps.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  7. Great News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Computers are just purchased for low-cost now, merely as tools for access to the internet and manipulation of data then sent across the internet. Access and user utility are the most important elements.

  8. "Speaking of new laptops"? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    The previous post is about a patent war/partnership between Apple and Nokia.

    Where is "Speaking of new laptops" supposed to fit in?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:"Speaking of new laptops"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's supposed to fit in your mother's cornhole

  9. Race Of the Trojans by evolutionary · · Score: 1

    First it was networking devices, then there was PC's. :D

    --
    "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
    1. Re:Race Of the Trojans by evolutionary · · Score: 1

      Sorry, "Clash of the Trojans" is a better title for this one.

      --
      "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
    2. Re:Race Of the Trojans by U8MyData · · Score: 1

      Allow me to be the first to trust the Chinese. I think not.

    3. Re:Race Of the Trojans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no, that just sounds like some sort of docking procedure in a gay porn.

  10. The new MateBook is seriously hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and Huawei will definitely take a bite out of the market with these. They could've gone for a lower pricepoint though, right now they're "only" better than MacBooks and Windoze laptops on specs but not price. And I think they could've made the MateBook a tad more stylish with the Huawei palm logo instead of the name logo.

  11. Macintosh [Re:Apple trolling] by XXongo · · Score: 1
    Although 62% of Apple's revenue currently comes from the iPhone, when I look at the graphs, you're right, it does look like the Macintosh is increasing, not shrinking, in revenue: http://static1.businessinsider...

    Surprising-- from the gabble here on /. I would have thought the Mac was dying, but from the numbers, apparently not.

  12. Huawei has some decent products by kit_triforce · · Score: 2

    When my very old Samsung Galaxy S4 stopped working well with modern applications last year, I wanted to find a decent cellphone at a good price, without going to used. I took a chance on the Huawei Honor 8 for $400. It's been a great phone, timely with updates, and more than just another flavor of android running on a Chinese apple knockoff. It's a beautiful and well made device that has served me well. While their earlier software had some unusual features/bad designs, when they moved up to Android 7.0 they abandoned many of their failed ideas and kept improving their software.

    This is not a cheap knockoff company, I'd expect them to easily rival Samsung and Apple in the US, if not pass them entirely for market share.

  13. But what about the Russians? by DickBreath · · Score: 1

    When will the Russians plan a major global expansion into low cost PCs? For that matter, why not all sorts of other consumer electronics with embedded microprocessors? The Asians seem to have these markets already captured.

    America is filled with cheap gadgets that phone home regularly to get updates.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  14. Huaweii, China loves it's No. 1 Spy Ring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They commit more cyber-theft than anyone. Let's let 'em right in.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/is-it-safe-for-americans-to-buy-a-huawei-built-nexus-phone/
    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military-july-dec13-cybercrime_07-08/
    http://www.seattletimes.com/business/t-mobile-sues-chinese-telecom-giant-huawei/

  15. Intel Management Engine by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    Specs are nice, but is Huawei wiling to sell me a machine without Intel ME or its AMD counterpart?

  16. Huawei - We're listening by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps "We're listening" should be their new tagline given articles like this. I wouldn't buy one given their history.

  17. Huh wuh?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But but but... hasn't anyone told them the PC is "dying"? LOL!

  18. Please also pray for the injured, traumatized and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please also pray for the injured, the traumatized, and those who lost someone.