"Yes, we can confirm the negotiations. We are interested in our products being presented on the maximum number of platforms, including Huawei. Mail.ru Group is open to all mutually beneficial partnerships," Mail.ru Group said.

TASS reported earlier that Huawei was in talks with Yandex, in particular about the possibility of integrating its voice assistant in Huawei smartphones.

Deputy Head of the service Anatoly Golomolzin told Kommersant earlier that the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has finalized a bill proposing to oblige manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and computers to pre-install domestic software on devices for the Russian market.

The agreed concept of the bill stipulates that the choice of domestic software should actually remain with the consumers of the devices, based on the economic feasibility and relevance of software, Golomolzin said. According to FAS, it can include pre-installing applications such as search engines and antivirus software, navigators, instant messengers and social networks - this is the minimum required set in the current economic environment.

The idea of introducing mandatory pre-installation of domestic software on smartphones and computers for the Russian market is included in a roadmap for the development of competition in Russia, approved in the summer of 2018. In February 2019, FAS sent a concept and a bill to the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, after which the details of the issue were actively discussed.

The invitation

In june, Russia has offered Huawei to consider an option of using a Russian software ecosystem at various devices of the Chinese corporation, a source familiar of details of the meeting between Russian Telecom Minister Konstantin Noskov and Deputy Chairman of Huawei Board Guo Ping told TASS.

Further to the domestic Aurora Operating System (OS), social media, search engine and antiviruses were also discussed, according to the source.

"Aurora was not the only item for discussion. An ecosystem of Russian software was offered to Huawei at large: social media, search engine, antiviruses, and so on," the source said.

The Russian Telecom Ministry neither confirmed nor denied this information. The Ministry noted at the same time that it is working on promotion of Russian producers on international markets on a going basis. Huawei were not available for comment.

The US Department of Commerce blacklisted Huawei and about seventy companies associated with it in May. Companies included into the list are banned from buying products from the US suppliers without a permit given by Washington.

Notes

On May 15, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring emergency to protect US information and telecommunications technology from external threats. It became known later that the US Commerce Department blacklisted the Chinese telecom giant Huawei and 70 affiliates over alleged threat to national security.

In August 2018, Trump signed an order banning US government agencies from using the equipment manufactured by Huawei and another Chinese company ZTE.

(Published Tass - Russian News Agency , Agust 14 2019)
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